CRITICAL NOTE · No. 24

Learn to Touch Without Hitting

On the cardinal skill that separates the game from the brawl

The touch / quasi-touch is one of the four cardinal points of capoeira. To teach a player the difference between a touch and a strike, the master sets a task: player B must reach his adversary with a kick, benção, chapa-de-frente, martelo, but place it, control it, deposit it on the target rather than drive it through. The kick that could break is instead laid, precisely, with mastery.

This is far harder than hitting. To strike is to commit force blindly; to touch is to command it, to bring a blow to the very threshold of impact and hold it there, in full control of distance, timing and intention. The touch proves a superiority the strike only asserts: I could have hit you, and chose not to. It says everything and destroys nothing.

And it is the exact opposite of what combat sport trains. There the point is to land, to hurt, to finish. Capoeira trains the suspended blow, the demonstration of mastery over violence rather than its release. This is why the game can be fierce without being murderous, and why its players develop a control of force that the culture of the knockout never requires. To touch without hitting is not a lesser skill than to strike. It is a greater one.

→ The Twelve Principles Beneath Every Move

IN THE CORPUS

→ The Push That Was Not a Punch

→ The Game That Is Played on Two Planes at Once