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Ter jogo de cintura

Portuguese

Meaning

To think on one's feet / To be flexible

Example

Para ser professor, é preciso ter muito jogo de cintura.

To be a teacher, you need to really think on your feet.

Origin

The image behind ter jogo de cintura comes from sport and combat: the loose, agile play of the hips and waist that lets a fighter or footballer slip a blow or dodge a tackle. From this physical nimbleness the phrase came to mean handling tricky situations deftly and adapting on the fly.