And here’s the Capoeira Arte crew with Cllr M Aslam Choudry, Mayor of Brent, after perfoming at the My NW10 event last night:

After some early rain it’s brightening up nicely and the forecast is good for Capoeira Arte’s afternoon out playing in Golder’s Hill Park today. From about 2 to 5 pm, all welcome.

Charteris is gone but Capoeira Arte lives on at My Fitness Boutique in West Hampstead (yes, it’s very near Brent) on Saturday afternoons at 4 pm.  Please sign up now, we do need more people!

It’s a lovely room, and a business model I rather like.  My Fitness Boutique hosts about 30 different exercise and fitness classes around the week, and you can pay for a single class or buy a block of class credits to use as you like – you don’t have to book for a full course of a specific activity.  So if you can’t make capoeira one week you could try, say, kettlebells instead. Or some bizarre strength training that involves hanging from the ceiling. I’m definitely going for that one day.  Or something more normal like yoga, zumba or aerobics.

(Hint to new users: there’s online booking but no online payment, for your first class just book and pay when you turn up.)

It closed on 31 March.  Campaigners are still fundraising and hoping that it may be possible to re-open under community management, but for the moment the building is locked up and not in use.  This is a great loss to the whole Kilburn area.

The Kilburn Times reports on Saturday’s packed emergency public meeting to keep Charteris open.

Charteris Sports Centre, home to Capoeira Arte, is under threat of closure because of the huge cuts in funding from the coalition government to Brent Council.  Closing Charteris would be a massive loss to the neighbourhood – it’s a friendly, well-run gym with a sports hall that hosts an array of martial arts, dance and fitness classes as well as 5-a-side football, badminton etc.

You can support the Save Charteris campaign through the BESt website – or at the BESt AGM on Tuesday 18 January from 7 to 9 pm at Brent Private Tenants’ Rights Group, 36-38 Willesden Lane .

There’s a new series of videos (in English) on the Capoeira Arte UK website on Brazilian Slavery: an inconvenient history – watch and learn about the true roots of capoeira.

Just out.  You can view the trailer or buy the DVD here.

That last post reminded me of a conversation about the breadth and variety within capoeira.  Even within the main Regional and Angola styles, there can be major differences in philosophy and approach.   All capoeira movement has a martial element, of course, but some teachers focus mainly on artistic and cultural expression whereas others are more into combat.

For the student, it’s fun to try different schools and experience their ways of moving – but it’s as well to be a bit wary, especially in the roda.  If you’re used to a safer style, you might be surprised or even injured when you meet a proper fight.

A couple of people have registered on this site using email addresses that look as though they’re not real.  That’s ok, if it’s what you want to do. But the only benefit of registering is getting email updates of new information on the site.  And that won’t work if you’ve given a fake address.  So I’m not sure why you’d bother.

Anyone can use the RSS feed, without needing to fill in the registration form, by the way.