Our new academia is almost ready! Work began 2 months ago when we started looking for a bigger training venue. As luck would have it, we found 2 adjacent office-lots down the road from our current place up for rent. We wasted no time in securing the tenancy for the space and commenced renovation work to make it the new home for Bantus Capoeira Malaysia.

Our sincere thanks goes out to Quek and Soo Aun for their efforts in getting our new space ready so quickly! In the coming days we’ll need everyone’s help to clean and help decorate the place and really make it our own.

The National Cancer Society of Malaysia recently launched their zesty yellow ‘Celebrate Life’ wristbands on May the 13th, and Bantus was part of the action at Bar SaVanh along Heritage Row in KL that day.

Apart from our usual bunch of monkeys, local artistes such as M.Nasir, Zainal Abidin, Radhi Khalid, Betty Banafe, Yasmin Yusof, Edwin Su Mun, Tony Yusof, Jehan Miskin, and Natasha Hudson also came to show their support for this cancer-awareness effort.

Bantus will be doing a guest track for the underground band, Dragon Red!

• Venue: Muhibbah Studio in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. (near Rasta) Time: 11:30am Sunday, 15th May 2005.

All Bantus students are welcome to come sing the chorus and clap! Check out the Yahoo! Groups posting here.

We’ve been invited to perform for the National Cancer Society of Malaysia’s—Celebrate Life Campaign.

Details as follows:

• Venue: Bar Sa Vanh, 62-64 Jalan Doraisamy Off Jalan Sultan Ismail Kuala Lumpur, 50470 Time: 7:30pm Friday, 13th May 2005 Wear: Abadas (or white pants) and a Bantus Tee

We’ve got a list of students for the performance. If your name is not on the list here, you are welcomed to show up and support the cause. Cover charge for the night will be MYR 30 for non-performers.

Friday night classes at the academia will still be on.

It’s another month to report on, April has been a quiet month for the site as everyone’s been generally busy. Classes are packed as usual as we work towards moving to a bigger academia:

• New Academia The electricity still needs sorting out with Tenaga Nasional before the official handover of the premises (which we hope will happen by the end of this week). If you’d like to get involved in doing up the place, please make yourself known to any of the seniors. We need people to paint, clean and move furniture around as soon as the renovations are complete!
• Old Stuff You can do your bit to deck out our new training premises by looking out for and donating old pieces of furniture. Sofas, foldable chairs, desks and storage spaces would be extremely useful. However, we don’t want to turn the academia into a dumping ground either so do call up a senior to check if we can make good use of whatever you intend to pass to us.
• Rafael On Holiday Instuctor Rafael will be taking a break from Saturday, 7th of May till Wednesday, 11th of May. Classes will run as per usual during this period.
• Coelho Hops To Japan While on an official business trip to Japan, Coelho will also play the part of our unofficial ambassador and meet with our Bantus group in Tokyo.
• Fees Please pay your fees within this first week of May. Just as a reminder, it’s MYR 25 per drop-in class and MYR 100 for the month with no restriction on the number of classes you attend.
• Get Well Soon! A few of our people are either injured or going in for surgery soon—Jai will be going under the knife in a knee reconstruction surgery for an old injury, while William is to have a suspected growth removed. Jung Yee is out with a bruised knee. Hope you three will recover soon and get back into good form once more. We’ll miss you while you’re away from training!
• Music Classes Bring along your enthusiasm and lend your energy to the Saturday music classes. We usually attract the attention of many curious bystanders who try to fathom what it is that we’re doing. As such, it is that much more important to come with a mind that’s open to learning and experimenting with singing songs and playing instruments which you may not have tried before. To be a well-rounded capoeirista means brushing up on your musical skills too, what more with the upcoming Batizado in September.
• Batizado 2005 The planning process has already begun! Details to follow as soon as they are confirmed. We had a blast organizing and participating in it last year, and we hope that more of you will be able to join in the fun this time round!
• Bantus Abadas Mestre Pintor has sent our abadas and we expect the shipment to arrive anytime now.

Until the next update, train carefully and protect your face!