Earlier this week, Black Belt announced G4's American Ninja Warrior tryouts. The show's intense obstacle course requires its athletic contestants to perform a wide variety of acrobatic leaps, swings, dangles and landings. Anyone even thinking of taking on that course would require hard-core body conditioning for strength, flexibility, agility, balance and cardiovascular endurance. This is where capoeira videos come in handy for addressing all these conditioning criteria! Among the Brazilian martial arts, the acrobatic moves of capoeira are renowned for cardiovascular conditioning, balance development and agility enhancement. Part martial art, part dance, capoeira moves contains a wide range of strikes, kicks and acrobatic maneuvers that place significant performance demand on the body.

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CAPOEIRA VIDEOS Learn Capoeira Drills and Capoeira Fighting Techniques In Five Brazilian Martial Arts DVD Titles Available Now!

The history of capoeira starts in 1405, when Chinese admiral Zheng He set sail from China to East Africa aboard 62 huge treasure ships carrying 28,000 men. The admiral left warriors and laymen to live with the native cultures he encountered on his journey. The last stop on the admiral's journey was Angola, Africa, where Chinese warriors ended up living with the coastal natives. In the decades to follow, Portuguese slave traders would ship Angolans to Brazil. Not long after this, it's thought that Angolan slaves in Brazil developed a system of unarmed self-defense called "capoeira."

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Fearing punishment by their masters, the slaves disguised their capoeira moves as dance. The result: capoeira drills' trademark rhythms and inherent musicality. The intersection of rhythm, music and body mobility produced a dance-art that was not only beautiful to watch but also could be applied to self-defense — particularly the mobility developed by constant practice of capoeira drills, which allowed the practitioners to evade attacks. Capoeira kicks, thrown by legs strengthened from daily conditioning, could do their fair share of damage. While many would not consider capoeira fighting to be applicable to a modern style such as mixed martial arts, some would argue that it's not the capoeira moves themselves that are of value in MMA but rather the capoeira drills. Perhaps more so than drills found in other Brazilian martial arts, capoeira drills can contribute to fighters being quick on their feet to evade opponents' attempts at shooting in for takedowns. Capoeira moves include numerous acrobatic actions such as kicks, punches and flips. Some capoeira moves were born out of dark circumstances. The cartwheel kick, for example, was created because the Angolan slaves’ wrists and ankles were chain-bound to prevent them from escaping. Because Chinese martial artists lived among the Angolans in Africa, some believe that it's possible that capoeira is rooted in Chinese martial arts. Upon closer visual inspection, some observers have pointed out that some capoeira moves resemble moves found in some Chinese martial arts. Now you can learn the capoeira drills and capoeira moves that make up this most social of Brazilian martial arts. In these capoeira videos on DVD, you can learn capoeira from some of the world's most renowned capoeira instructors:

• Capoeira! by Eduardo Ferreira & Carnauba Ferreria
• Capoeira! 2 by Eduardo Ferreira
• Capoeira! 3 by Eduardo Ferreira
• Basic Techniques of Capoeira by Master Paulinho Sabia
• Capoeira: Initiation to Acrobatics by Bem-Te-Vi