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It is the belief of this group that one cannot truly be a "master" of any discipline. We are all students(for life) and the notion of masters, to us, suggests that there is such thing as the ultimate level within a given art; this tends to lead many to stop learning. The philosophy of a teacher or instructor is that teachers learn from their students, in which case suggests a reciprocal relationship. In essence, the teacher is a learned student, sharing information. By definition, the word mestre means "one who teaches..." Over the years, however, this word has been taken out of its original context and taken to a different level, with a modified emphasis on mastery of the art within the realm of Capoeira. Our support of the original definition of mestre, unfortunately, does not hold within the contemporary world of Capoeira. Therefore, since we cannot change the views of the contemporary movement(at least presently), we can hold our position and control our own behaviors(by modifying our existing ranking system and titles in order to stay consistent with our and their views).
Within our group and our events, "masters", instructors, and students are treated with the same respect. We are not challenging the notion of the need for hierarchy within Capoeira or any other art, but we do challenge the view that one can really master an art and the concept that a teacher is above a student. In the home of others, we will respect their views, and hope that others will have the same attitude towards us.
Our group will have no "master" (at least for the time being) ... We will, have teachers/sharers of the folkloric art of Capoeira and other dances from Brazil and Cape Verde. Our mestre (Chuvisco) is our guide, our instructor, and our friend. He is has acquired his posistion as the mestre of our group because of his humbleness, his respect of our group's philosophy, and his pure love for teaching the art of capoeira. And we, his students, are here to help him share with the world his conceptualization of capoeira.
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