TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read): I trained here and loved it for ~5 years, until I was accused of a…read morestereotype for which there was no justification. Later learned of many other similar experiences from other former students. If you are a person of color especially, I caution you. It's very good training, but there's a good chance it will come with a price.
The current climate we're in of protests and change has made me feel that it is important for me to share my experience here. I had trained in MMA, however gained interest in capoeira due to its African roots. So when I started at CAQ back in 2014, it was a new, exciting and fun experience for me. I met great people who I am still close with to this day, and for years it felt like home.
Over time, I noticed more and more people were leaving--and many on no so good terms. Suddenly many of my friends, particularly students of color, were no longer training regularly. I will not speak to their experiences, just that I started noticing a trend. Me, still nostalgic for the "good old days," kept on going, shoving that to the back of my mind. Then, an instrumental teacher in my training who lived and breathed capoeira left. This was the beginning of my wake up call, but yet I was still loyal and continued to train.
Until one fateful day in 2019, where I experienced first hand some of what had been relayed to me through rumors previously. I had made a request a year and a half prior to me leaving this school, regarding a student (not a person of color) that I felt extremely uncomfortable around. I simply requested not to do partner work with this person, nothing more, nothing less (everything else would be fine, roda, classes, workshops, etc). This was fine for a year and a half. Then, this person began taking it upon themselves to leave whenever they saw me. NOTE: nothing specific occurred to inspire this, they just began to do this on their own. I noticed, but I honestly wanted as little contact as possible anyway so I didn't think anything of it. I continued to train and keep my distance.
I was told that all of a sudden, after 1.5 years, that this request was "too much of a burden" for the teachers. Which puzzled me, because none of the teachers had said this to me, and when I was recovering for wrist surgery, they had to come up with a totally different class just for me and that was fine. When I asked some of the teachers directly, I didn't get any confirmation that this was the case. I was told that I needed to talk to this student, and possibly apologize, because they "were scared" of me. The irony is that I had made the original request because I felt unsafe. Furthermore, I had been training there for nearly 5 years without incident, without even coming close to hurting anyone. I was never uttered so much as a mean word to this student, and I avoided them like the plague. I'm the type to avoid conflict, not start it. Needless to say, I was very upset and devastated to be confronted with being an "angry black woman" for a situation where there was no evidence or merit for such a claim. I felt as though they should have known me well enough (we used to hang out practically everyday at one point, training 5-6 days a week) to at the very least simply suggest that if this student had an issue to address me directly since we are both adults in our 30s. The situation had been made worse by them intervening, and quite frankly, justified my original feelings about the student. I had been given an ultimatum: talk to the student and possibly apologize, or leave. Needless to say, I chose to leave. I no longer felt comfortable training there and terminated my membership.
After this incident, and especially now with everything going on with the protests, many students have reached out to me about what happened to me, and to share similar experiences. In short, the training is good (just make sure you listen to your body so you can avoid injury), but this school has a very hard time holding onto students of color, and more recently, teachers of color. While many have made attempts to usher in change to correct this, it still needs a lot of work before it can be a safe space for everyone.
