TEBOGO SCHULTZ

I was born March 23,1978 in Botswana, a small country in southern Africa. My first experience with capoeira came nine years ago at the University of Illinois. The martial arts video game Tekken 3 featured a fictional character by the name of Eddie Gordo. The more I researched capoeira, the more interesting it became. I soon learned that the movements on the video game were the digitized movements of a real capoeira master. In the summer of 1998, I studied Brazilian Portuguese and Economics at the University of Sao Paulo (USP). The son of my host family trained capoeira and I began my official training with his instructor.

I returned from Brazil and co-founded the University of Illinois Capoeira Club with friends in 1998. We watched videos, read books on Brazilian culture, and visited Capoeira academies across the country to learn the fundamentals of the art. In 2003, we were introduced to Profesor Chicote, a Brazilian who was teaching capoeira in Iowa. At our first batizado that year, he introduced us to his friend Denis Chiaramonte, who assumed leadership of our capoeira group. As members of Grupo Cordao de Ouro and students of the legendary Master Suassuna, they represent one of the largest and most important capoeira groups in the world. I graduated from the University of Illinois School of Architecture with my Masters Degree in 2004.

I have been a student of Contra-Mestre (under-master) Denis for the last four years. I make routine trips to his classes at the University of Illinois to continue my Capoeira instruction. I traveled to Brazil on two occasions to learn from the great masters of the art. I’ve also traveled around the United States as his student to participate in workshops and hone the various aspects of my game. I recently received my blue-yellow cord and achieved the rank of Monitor, which allows me to teach Capoeira under the supervision of a master. It is under the guidance of Contra Mestre Denis and Master Suassuna that I continue to share the gift of Capoeira with others.