I think training alone is killing my love for capoeira.

I’ve been feeling really disillusioned with my relationship to capoeira lately. I knew moving away was going to be hard, especially because I’ve always struggled to motivate myself to train alone, but I didn’t realize how much it would affect my relationship with capoeira.

I feel like my game is getting worse, and I have almost no initiative to train anymore. The weird thing is that at the beginning, I used to love practicing movement alone because it felt like playing. Now I’ve realized that what I really love about capoeira isn’t learning flashy movements anymore, it’s the conversation with another person. Reading them, responding, actually playing.

And I can’t recreate that by myself. My training partner is literally an inflatable dinosaur. There’s no life or axé in it. Training feels like practice instead of play. A chore.

I’ve tried to find people here. I’ve posted in Facebook groups, set up community events, looked for teaching opportunities, etc. The closest capoeira group is 3–4 hours away. But I also know I haven’t tried as hard as I could. I’ve backed out of some of the community things I set up because the people interested were complete beginners looking to try something new, and I wanted someone who actually wanted to play capoeira. I think I keep waiting for someone who already understands what I’m missing instead of accepting that maybe I have to build that from scratch.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m questioning whether I even want capoeira anymore, which is heartbreaking because I know how much I loved it. I don’t know if I’m losing my love for capoeira or if I just really miss having someone to play with.

Anyone been through something similar or has any advice or maybe reality check? Anything goes. Maybe I'm just being a baby about it.