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in
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Capoeira

In Detroit

Israeli expert grows a community around
the Brazilian martial art.

ROB STREIT JN INTERN

PHOTOS BY ANTHONY LANZILOTE

B

uilding a community takes time. It takes
support and interest sustained over time,
along with a large dose of dedication
from members and leaders in that community.
Capoeira instructor Baz Michaeli does not
lack dedication to his art or the desire to cre-
ate a community. Michaeli is the founder and
owner of the Michigan Center for Capoeira in
Farmington Hills, where about 100 students
learn the Brazilian martial art. The Israel native
has been instrumental in fostering the capoeira
(capo-era) community in the state.
“Twelve years ago, when I first came here,
nobody knew what capoeira was,” Michaeli says.
“Our first performance was just me and my dad,
who was also my first student.”
Michaeli tried to muster interest by handing
out fliers and inviting people to attend classes
at his first location — a shared dance studio
in downtown Farmington. Slowly, mostly by
word of mouth, a core group of students began
to build after about eight years. Interest bur-
geoned when Michaeli started offering a free
introductory class once a month to people who
were curious about capoeira but felt intimi-
dated.
“The main idea was to see what would hap-
pen. Let’s share capoeira with the community
and give people a chance to come try it out,”
Michaeli says. “By the end, people know what
capoeira is and they can leave — there’s no obli-
gation. If they want, we offer a special promo-
tion for going to that class.”
They still offer the monthly class, which
Michaeli describes as Capoeira 101.
The Michigan Center for Capoeira is some-
thing of a family affair. Baz’s father, Offer

16

August 2 • 2018

jn

Michaeli, and sister, Lital
Richards, have been
instrumental in building
the community as well
as the physical space
they occupy. Richards
teaches classes and Offer
designed and built the
interior of their studio,
which opened in January
after the school moved
out of its previous loca-
tion at the Franklin Athletic Club in Southfield.
“It was a one-man job,” Michaeli says of his
father. “He worked here every day for three
months consistently about 10 to 12 hours a
day.”
The martial art evolved as a way for escaped
slaves in Brazil to defend themselves against
their would-be captors. Capoeira focuses on
kicks, acrobatics, counter-attacks and take-
downs. The idea was to defend oneself when
outnumbered and unarmed. The practice
evolved over the centuries into a mostly non-
contact martial art that resembles a dance.
Practitioners — or capoeiristas — are said to
“play capoeira” with each other.

ISRAEL CONNECTION

Capoeira has found a second home in Israel
where Michaeli was first exposed to it. He esti-
mates there are 6,000 to 8,000 capoeiristas in
Israel, but he cannot account for the martial
art’s popularity in his home country.
“It’s a question I always get. I think it got
popular because of a very similar mentality,”
Michaeli says. “Brazil is a very fun country, peo-

TOP: Capoeira Contra-

ple are always looking to have Mestre Baz Michaeli
a good time, and there’s fun
demonstrates a
and a playfulness in capoeira. handstand during a
There are a lot of similarities
class at his Michigan
in Israeli culture.”
Center for Capoeira
Michaeli says capoeira
in Farmington Hills.
has become so popular that
ABOVE: Advanced
Israeli masters are being
students play capoeira
invited to teach workshops
accompanied by live
around the world.
music (led by the one-
stringed berimbau),
“The Israeli mentality is
clapping and singing.
that if you’re going to do
something, you do it all the
way,” says Michaeli, who has been practic-
ing capoeira since age 14 and has earned his
Contra-Mestre belt. He also is a certified per-
sonal trainer.

CAPOEIRA IN THE SCHOOLS

Edan Harari, an Israeli capoeira master who
taught Michaeli’s teacher, believed in raising a
generation of children who want to be physical-
ly active. Michaeli and his sister have taken that
idea to schools around Metro Detroit. Richards
teaches capoeira to more than 220 students in
grades K-5 at Detroit Achievement Academy

