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It all started when I, Bram Cops (“Piu - piu”) , went to the University of Brussels (VUB) in October 99.

One of the changes that occur (for a whole lot of people) when you go to college is that you have to move to a student room. OK, maybe that's a cool thing because you could learn to be independent and get to know a whole bunch of new people. For me the less interesting part was that I had to give up training during the week, so I could only train twice in the weekend.

The first thing I did when I arrived at my new home was buy a “student sport card”, which means I could use the sporting facilities at the University for a reasonable price. So I could train on my own during the week. After a few weeks I heard that another person was training capoeira at the sports complex.

I was eager to meet him but had no name or address so I had to wait for the coincidence to occur !

One day I went to the check out the Portuguese language course. After a while an other guy came in.

“That's him” I thought when the Portuguese language teacher remarked that he spoke with a Brazilian accent.

Jan (later renamed to "João Capoeira") was also a freshman who started capoeira during a one-year exchange project in Brazil and we decided to start training together.

From the first day I had the Idea to start a small training group at the university.

I explained the idea to Jan and he loved it. We hired the Karate gym and started training. First alone but soon the word spread around and new people came along. Some of them were already capoeiristas , others were very motivated beginners. Piu-piu started with a “one hour training” in the small gym and soon we had a group of +/-10 regulars!

Because of the small success Piu and Jan achieved, Piu decided to hire a wooden-floored indoor-basketball-court for the next year. This court would be well suited for capoeira trainings and was bigger than the small Karate gym. Posters were printed and the word “Capoeira” spread around. Piu made membership cards for the students who could train for a whole year at a minimum of cost, mainly to pay of his cost of hiring the new gym and pay his own trainings in the weekend. At our first new training 20 people showed up and Piu could expand his ideas! 2 groups were made: one group of beginners would get lessons of Piu and one group of more advanced capoeiristas who trained more freely under the supervision of "João capoeira". Soon an extra hour was bought with the profit made and Piu is planning to expand capoeira more at the university!

T-shirts are about to be printed and a great roda with other real capoeira Professors is planned.

Although it was not Piu's intention to create a separate group apart from his group where he trained in the weekends (With Prof. Vulcão). He liked the Idea to create a group of regulars who could only train during their time on the university, together with the group who were more advanced capoeiraistas who had the same problem as Piu ( : that they could only train during the weekends). Capoeira should be trained in a group because that's the only way you can from a Roda and that's what we all want right! Capoeira T-shirts are hard to find so why not make some cool ones our own Piu thought , so that we had all the same. And nicknames were given to increase the capoeira feeling!!! Future events are planned and hopefully our self-training group would grow even more so we could spread this beautiful art that is still unknown to a majority of the public!

Piu-piu, 16. 01. 2001

Thanx to Feiticeira for her help ; )


	Index home Updates \| Our History \| The calendar \| Capoeira History \| Song lyrics \| Pictures main page \| Filosofia \| Fun stuff \| Links \| Students page \| Mail me \| Event Our History It all started when I, Bram Cops (“Piu - piu”) , went to the University of Brussels (VUB) in October 99. One of the changes that occur (for a whole lot of people) when you go to college is that you have to move to a student room. OK, maybe that's a cool thing because you could learn to be independent and get to know a whole bunch of new people. For me the less interesting part was that I had to give up training during the week, so I could only train twice in the weekend. The first thing I did when I arrived at my new home was buy a “student sport card”, which means I could use the sporting facilities at the University for a reasonable price. So I could train on my own during the week. After a few weeks I heard that another person was training capoeira at the sports complex. I was eager to meet him but had no name or address so I had to wait for the coincidence to occur ! One day I went to the check out the Portuguese language course. After a while an other guy came in. “That's him” I thought when the Portuguese language teacher remarked that he spoke with a Brazilian accent. Jan (later renamed to "João Capoeira") was also a freshman who started capoeira during a one-year exchange project in Brazil and we decided to start training together. From the first day I had the Idea to start a small training group at the university. I explained the idea to Jan and he loved it. We hired the Karate gym and started training. First alone but soon the word spread around and new people came along. Some of them were already capoeiristas , others were very motivated beginners. Piu-piu started with a “one hour training” in the small gym and soon we had a group of +/-10 regulars! Because of the small success Piu and Jan achieved, Piu decided to hire a wooden-floored indoor-basketball-court for the next year. This court would be well suited for capoeira trainings and was bigger than the small Karate gym. Posters were printed and the word “Capoeira” spread around. Piu made membership cards for the students who could train for a whole year at a minimum of cost, mainly to pay of his cost of hiring the new gym and pay his own trainings in the weekend. At our first new training 20 people showed up and Piu could expand his ideas! 2 groups were made: one group of beginners would get lessons of Piu and one group of more advanced capoeiristas who trained more freely under the supervision of "João capoeira". Soon an extra hour was bought with the profit made and Piu is planning to expand capoeira more at the university! T-shirts are about to be printed and a great roda with other real capoeira Professors is planned. Although it was not Piu's intention to create a separate group apart from his group where he trained in the weekends (With Prof. Vulcão). He liked the Idea to create a group of regulars who could only train during their time on the university, together with the group who were more advanced capoeiraistas who had the same problem as Piu ( : that they could only train during the weekends). Capoeira should be trained in a group because that's the only way you can from a Roda and that's what we all want right! Capoeira T-shirts are hard to find so why not make some cool ones our own Piu thought , so that we had all the same. And nicknames were given to increase the capoeira feeling!!! Future events are planned and hopefully our self-training group would grow even more so we could spread this beautiful art that is still unknown to a majority of the public! Piu-piu, 16. 01. 2001 Thanx to Feiticeira for her help ; )