Reading the Game from the Inside

WHY THIS ARTICLE

Comparisons of these arts usually stop at visible form — this kick, that instrument. The thesis proposes a method: read the internal logic, and the family appears where surface analysis saw only difference.

Against surface analysis

To conduct the analysis, one must abandon the differences or similarities of surface and attend to the conceptions that underlie each pedagogical proposal and each practice. Studying the history of capoeiragem in its globality allowed the thesis to distinguish conceptions that transcend times and places — and, beyond capoeira, to read the wider family through the same lens.

What the inside reveals

Read from the inside, the Guadeloupean mayolè and Brazilian capoeira — as different as any two games could appear — share foundations no martial art possesses. The internal logic is the level at which the family becomes visible: the imbalances, the simulacrum, the touch and quasi-touch, the continuous flow.

Why it matters

Method is not neutral here. Choose surface, and you see scattered local curiosities; choose internal logic, and you see a single field — the Black combat arts.

SOURCES

La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part III, on the method of reading practices through their internal logic).

IN THE CORPUS

→ The Shared Structure Nobody Could See

→ The Continuous Flow: A Game That Never Stops

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. Reading the Game from the Inside. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 66. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/reading-the-game-from-the-inside. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.