For better or worst, Social Media has become a nearly unavoidable part of our world in 2025. Near limitless amounts of content is produced every day by people around the world, meaning there is no shortage of content to entertain, or, more often than not, to distract us. This is something that I have seen rapidly expand over the course of my life, from the early days of YouTube, then to Facebook and Instagram, and more recently to even shorter form content with TikTok.
Capoeira is not immune to this. When I started back in 2009, there was only a small amount of videos that people could find on YouTube that we treated like gold when we found them. They'd get passed around between training partners, and I remember studying the same videos over and over again to try to figure out how to learn the movements and sequences. We even had a flash drive at one point with some downloaded videos that we'd pass around and bash ourselves against a wall trying to figure out. But today, these kinds of videos are much more available, and it's much easier for people all over to share their work and ideas.
Over the past several years, Capoeira has gotten a lot more popular on Instagram, and there has been an explosion of content as a result of that. New movements, sequences, rodas, and music are posted everyday. I think there are many problems that Social Media encourages, but it doesn't have to be only bad. I think Social Media is just another tool, and, if we are intentional about how we use it, it can help us in our goals. So how can we make the most of this tool in our training and learning? Here are a few ways that I have found helpful for me in using Social Media to improve my training and Capoeira:
1. Ginga - One of the hardest thing to develop in Capoeira is your ginga, or your unique *way* of moving. With Social Media, it is easy to look through a lot of different people to find ways of moving and ginga that you like. I'd recommend saving a bunch of videos of styles that you like, and as you watch, try to determine why you like the way they move and identify things you can copy. Copying is the first step in developing your own style, and Social Media gives you a lot of inspiration to pull from.
2. Movement Tutorials - For nearly every movement that exists in Capoeira, someone has made a tutorial or breakdown that you can find online. This is a great way to help your self-practice by giving you ways to work toward your goal movements in an accessible way. Be careful here though! Not all tutorials are created equal, have a read through my recent blog post on progressions to help identify which ones are more helpful to you.
3. Game analysis - Finally, Social Media gives great opportunities to study games from all over the world to increase your understanding of the game itself. For this, I'd recommend watching games three times with different objectives each time. The first watch, try to take in the entirety of the game, getting a sense for overall feel and dynamic. The second watch, look for specific exchanges that you really liked and try to figure out how they happen and what you like about them. The last watch, try to note specific movements or variations that stood out to you. Now with these three watches, you have notes on three different levels, and lots more material for future study and thought!
These are just a few ideas on how I use Social Media, but they certainly aren't the only ways! If you have found other ways to make good use of Social Media, let me know in the comments! Like I said, Social Media is just another tool, and we should always be thinking about how to use our tools better.
-Instructor Mike
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