After warming up with dancing and stretching, Edna teaches the same techniques she would in a regular training class. The first basic step is the ginga, a movement from lunge to squat to lunge. It feels silly but gives you a great burn in the calves, quads and butt. Ginga is the transition to kicks, most of which involve a circular motion. Meia lua de compasso begins with your hands on the floor, one leg bent, while you look back between your legs and swing the straight one in an arc behind you, drawing your body around to a lunge. Queixada is a circular kick from the side, and in armada, you whip your entire body around 360 degrees. All of this strengthens the entire lower body and torso while building flexibility and improving your sense of balance.

But if all you want are kicks, find a different sport. It's the other moves, like aú (cartwheel), that set capoeira apart. "By doing aú and other more difficult positions, you change your center of gravity and see everything in a different perspective," Edna says. These unusual positions require as much thought as they do muscle, especially when it comes time to connect them to kicks and ginga. The confidence you gain from that, Edna says, is just as valuable as burning all those calories. "In capoeira, you can't ever leave your body." Plus, these floor exercises are great for your core and upper-body muscles.

The results of this combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercise are almost immediate. "You're going to start seeing the lines of the muscles, not [bigger muscles] but definition of the body," Edna says. "And you walk taller."