Rio de Janeiro and the fluminense man's body: the "no-place of the Swedish gymnastic

Abstract

The current study presupposes that the Swedish gymnastic was not hegemonic in the routine of Rio de Janeiro in the nineties. So, we started to search for the reasons that leaded the fluminense man's body to reject this body practice. This rejection turned Rio de Janeiro into the "no-place" of gymnastic. As we look at the fluminense man's body we find an incompatible "soul" with the rules of a rational gymnastic that idealized and scrutinized the bodies. To better understand this rejection, we had a dialogue with the capoeira, a practice disseminated and loved by the common man. In this dialogue we looked for elements to understand the corporeal grammar of the fluminense man's body. It allowed us to understand, in a sensitive level, why the Swedish gymnastic was not accepted by men of that city.