He began his academic career in Minas Gerais, Brazil, but it is in Coimbra that he does his PhD and currently teaches. A capoeira practitioner, he has also been part of contemporary dance groups, and sees physical activity as a fundamental part of his path. Ana Rosa Jaqueira is a teacher and researcher at the Faculty of Sports Sciences and Physical Education at the University of Coimbra (FCDEFUC), and it is in the area of recreation and leisure that she “plays”.
Initially, I had doubts between Physical Education and Psychology. Today, he feels that he ended up bringing the two areas together because, through traditional games, he uses skills and emotions that are then translated into society. Ana Rosa Jaqueira argues that “games have rules that can be adapted to our group, our context and the materials we have”. These are the behaviors that are identified in a game context that can then be taken from the pavilion to the outside, believes the researcher. “In the traditional game, the referees are the players themselves, who accept and will comply with the rules, who organize, communicate and reach a consensus”, she highlights.
It guarantees that traditional games can be seen as a teaching tool, and that is what the Eramus+ GAMES PLUS project aims to do: traditional games for learning to teach, which unites Spain, Portugal and Croatia. Currently, Ana Rosa Jaqueira believes that “people have started to pay attention to the traditional game and overcome prejudices”. Today, it is seen “as an active element in physical education and sport”. “The cultural approach is very relevant within the game”, adds the researcher.
I am a researcher of Traditional Games, and the content they contain, especially with regard to people, their relational and general well-being. I am, therefore, a researcher of diversity and the challenges it poses, beyond the cliché of the engine, the physical, which is important, but does not summarize this systemic and indivisible whole.
Graduated in Physical Education and Sports, Master in Sports Psychology in the area of Sports Training in Brazil, PhD in Physical Activity Sciences from UC. I attribute my very eclectic undergraduate training, my personal experiences in dance, Capoeira and sport, and the support of some special people, to my experience of science in a very unique way.
My laboratory is permeated by emotions of all kinds, as it is permeated by people in movement, by the energy they emanate, by the emotional contagion they provide. My laboratory is wherever the players are and within us. The physical component is essential, but not terminal. Accepting the playful pact is a democratic and life-giving act, of courage in letting the masks fall and being ourselves.
“- Teacher, what are we going to play today?” This is the key to living the theory in practice of traditional games. The practical theory that began in the Cineanthropology curricular unit, which can vary in Recreation and Games, and in Organization of Leisure Activities, subjects that make up an essentially diverse body of knowledge, and which in this case, can only be found in the Faculty of Sciences of Sports and Physical Education at UC.
Speaking of science, in this context I make multidisciplinary approaches to human movement in the expression of Traditional Games and Capoeira. I currently lead an Eramus+ Project called GAMES PLUS: traditional games for learning to teach.
