I found and translated this from the website of FICA-Salvador:
Played in a circle, Capoeira Angola is infinitely varied
with unlimited combinations of movements that involve legs, arms, head, feet in
the air, a smile and a spark in the player’s eyes. The game is completed by
humor, grace, agility, and seriousness.
It is in the roda that the ritualistic aspects of capoeira
angola are most represented. In training, the intention is to prepare the
student physically so that they may put things into practice in the roda.
Therefore, practice consists of trying the movements and the attacks that are
used in the game, progressively introducing more complex movements, whose
execution requires specific abilities (such as acrobatic moves, for example).
Students acquire this muscle memory through repetition, with the goal of
attaining an increasingly smooth execution, in the measure in which the student
develops strength and equilibrium. Even when it is accompanied by music and
singing, training is different from the roda because the goal will not be met
during practice.
Training, only training, is not enough to be a capoeirista. The
most important moment in becoming a capoeirista is the roda, and so it is imperative
that students participate in rodas, even if only as spectators, even though
they may not know how to play, how to sing, how to play the instruments. In
this sense, practice sessions, music sessions, or occasional theoretical
discussions about aspects of capoeira represent the path that lead to the roda,
which is the most important event in the daily existence of the group, and the
necessary condition for the existence of capoeira.
