Alex Newsletter: Heartbreaks, Integrity as ginga, responsibility vs reactivity
Happy Tuesday!
This week I was reviewing my notes from talks with Mestre Cueca, my favorite capoeira master. So most of the posts are my summaries of those talks. Enjoy my “internal Cueca”.
Here are seven essays I wrote recently. On life, habits, learning, and mastery.
Fresh post: “Don’t take it too seriously”
“Life is too important to be taken seriously” – Oscar Wilde
Stop taking it so seriously and have fun. Capoeira is a game. If you adopt capoeira philosophy as a life philosophy, then Life is a Game. So it should be played with a smile on your face. Enjoying and knowing that sometimes you’re going to fall on your ass. You are going to get up, do a rolê, and laugh.
Some days you are going to be killing it. Some days you are going to get killed. It’s just part of it.
Don’t beat yourself up. It creates a reverse effect. It’s giving you an excuse to do less, less, and less.
Other posts last week
- Heartbreaks – the whole point of doing a big project is to break your heart. It’s not a side effect, it’s the objective.
- Integrity – internal bullshit meters, The Golden Rule, and “Integrity is ginga”.
- Reactivity vs Responsibility – ability to respond in a capoeira context.
- Catching a wave – when somebody says “I went surfing” that what he really means.
- A refined character – as an old capoeira master said, a good capoeirista need to be like a toilet paper: soft, painless, effective. But let’s talk about sandpaper first.
- We are not iPhones – one of my top lessons of 2022, along with “Apples vs Potatoes“.
Until next week,
Alex Maltsev
Digital Creator, capoeira teacher, proud father