The Wrestling Whose Interest Lies in a Paradox

WHY THIS ARTICLE

An asymmetrical game where one side is set at a disadvantage looks unfair or unfinished. The thesis reads the asymmetry as the very point — a paradoxical principle shared across the family.

Two unequal roles

In the batuque, the wrestlers do not hold the same status: one attacks, the other defends. The balance of force is dissymmetrical — the defender set in a disadvantageous position from which it is difficult to resist for long the attempts at projection. The situation could have been otherwise: the defender might have faced his adversary, a position better suited to guarding against imbalance. But it is not so.

The vulnerability that makes the game

As in the back-turned chamade of capoeira, one of the players is placed in a position of vulnerability, at odds with the necessity of staying upright. And, as the thesis writes, the interest of the game lies in this paradox. In the bènaden too, the player facing the attacker is set in an uncomfortable position.

Why it matters

What looks like an unfair handicap is a designed principle. To place a player in vulnerability, against the need to stay standing, is not a flaw of these games but their signature.

SOURCES

La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part III, B.2: batuque; the paradoxical principle of role dissociation and vulnerability).

IN THE CORPUS

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HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. The Wrestling Whose Interest Lies in a Paradox. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 70. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-wrestling-whose-interest-lies-in-a-paradox. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.