Parkinson’s disease patients are seeing their symptoms alleviated thanks to a well-known martial art.
Capoeira is a movement practice that originated within the large enslaved communities in Brazil, where nearly 5 million kidnapped Africans disembarked during the transatlantic slave trade that started in the 16th century.
It is considered both a martial art and a dance, combining ritual, exercise, spirituality and music – and it is helping patients living with the neurodegenerative illness.
Nilma Teles de Freitas, an 80-year-old retired teacher in Brazil who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than a decade ago, says she used to fall over all the time.
That changed after she began attending a capoeira class in downtown Rio de Janeiro especially designed for people with the disease.
“Capoeira gives me freedom to work on my body. What I can do. What I can’t do. So I can have balance and a more comfortable life,” Teles de Freitas said during a recent class.
Practiced for centuries by Afro-Brazilians, it has since become popular around the world. UNESCO recognized the practice in 2014 as Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The project started in 2018 with physical therapist Rosimeire Peixoto, 60, who at that point had been attending capoeira classes herself for over a decade.
After working with many patients with Parkinson’s, she said she became convinced that introducing them to capoeira may help alleviate some of their symptoms.
Parkinson’s has a range of different symptoms, and along with difficulties in balancing, some common ones include slowness of movement, tremors and stooped posture. Patients can also experience anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and nausea.
“I had the idea after reading an article that said alternating both hands when using a cell phone stimulates both hemispheres of the brain,” she said. “And as a physiotherapist treating neurological patients, I was lacking exercises that would motivate them.”
Peixoto’s project was dubbed “Parkinson na ginga” — or “Parkinson’s in the swing” — a reference to the first fluid, rhythmic step that capoeira practitioners learn. She now holds classes twice a week in the Progress Foundry, a sprawling cultural center in downtown Rio next to a famed white 18th century aqueduct and surrounded by palm trees.
Capoeira helps improve balance, coordination and strength, with music loosening up tense bodies, Peixoto says.
“There is a lot happening in a capoeira circle. They feel the vibration, the energy, they pay attention to the music and to the partner to dodge blows” and to themselves, she said.
