Jumping off the world’s tallest bungee site wasn’t so difficult. Skydiving from 12,000 feet in New Zealand’s crisp air wasn’t challenging. Scuba diving among sharks in the Great Barrier Reef wasn’t much of a test. Even hiking New Zealand’s largest ice glacier for four hours was easier than I had expected. But learning the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira – something that looks like a combination of karate, breakdancing, yoga and acrobatics, with kicks, cartwheels, handstands and flips – was a force I wasn’t prepared to reckon with.

My first beginner’s class at Enso Yoga & Martial Arts studio, 1329 S. Michigan Avenue, involved contorting my body into pretzel-like positions that rendered me sore, stiff and exhausted the next day. It took me about 10 minutes to actually get out of bed, another 10 to walk out of my room, but only a few moments to know I loved it.

“Capoeira is for everybody, but not everybody is for capoeira,” says Monitor (graduated student) Bamb