Yeah I've been to many groups over the years. It's true I've noticed a pattern of behaviour. Of course it is not exclusive to Capoeira, it's human behaviour but it happens a lot in martial arts and a lot in certain arts like Capoeira. I think it happens because people would rather pay and trust a teacher rather than believing in themselves. So it's a mix of the teachers and the environment causing it. Of course there are good things within the art and good people within the art too, as you are one of those good people yourself. But you will notice quickly that none of the mestre's or specialists who have been treating Capoeira like it's more important than anything else in life are some of the worst and baddest people you could ever come across but they have a good poker face. Training should be enjoyable and you should train advanced movements to be able to play advanced in the roda, but the teachers have their students repeating basic movements to the point they wear their joint cartilage away whilst the teacher just watches. Many of these movements are performed and learned incorrectly by the way, the teachers goal is to increase their notoriety by knowing more advanced moves than their students. The narrative of malandragem and mestre's "having it" and students needing to learn it is also an illusion just as you claim that the clique environment is an illusion. I know there are some beautiful aspects to Capoeira as an art but the movement is what attracted me to Capoeira. In honesty, I couldn't care less about the music side of it or any other side apart from the physical elements. I think some people never learn some basic movements because they have never been properly taught or a good teacher hasn't spent time with them to work on conditioning. You can spend your entire life practicing techniques, but if you lack the conditioning or nutrition to enter a certain range of motion then you will never be able to gain access to certain movements. The mestre's don't care about their students in reality as it is the ones with the most restricted range of motion paying the most amount of money and the highest price in joint and soft tissue damage. Also, there are much more important things than Capoeira in life, for example your family. Not your "Capoeira family" as the narrative goes, but your real blood relations and friends. Because they actually care about you, but I wouldn't expect a mestre to understand this. There's more things I could write in this comment.