Capoeira
CapoeiraA Brazilian martial art fused with dance and music; practised in a circle called the roda to the sound of the berimbau.
Quick Facts
BrazilCharacter & Origin
Training
Who It Suits
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Capoeira
About Capoeira
Capoeira arose in Brazil among enslaved Africans, largely from the region of present-day Angola. It has no founder — it grew out of conditions in which open fighting was impossible, and so hid itself in the form of a dance and a game accompanied by music. After the abolition of slavery it was banned for decades and only legalised in the 1930s, when Mestre Bimba opened the first official school. Two main branches exist today. Capoeira Angola keeps the low game, a slower tempo and the ritual dimension; Capoeira Regional, created by Mestre Bimba, is faster, more sporting and more systematic. Many schools practise both under the label contemporânea. The foundation of movement is the ginga — a constant pendulum shift of weight from which everything else proceeds. The techniques are mostly kicks, often spinning or from a handstand, complemented by evasive movement (esquiva) and acrobatics. Hand strikes are rare. Practice happens in a circle (roda), where two players hold a dialogue in movement while the rest sing and play the berimbau, atabaque and pandeiro. The rhythm of the instrument decides which game is played — slow and low, or fast and attacking. This is essential to capoeira: the music is not background but rule. Physically it is a very demanding discipline, with emphasis on shoulder strength, mobility and balance.
Styles & Branches
The older and slower branch of Brazilian capoeira. It is played low to the ground and the berimbau sets the tempo; Mestre Pastinha organised it as a school.
The capoeira style Mestre Bimba created in Salvador and taught from 1932 in the first officially recognised capoeira school.
A way of playing capoeira introduced by Mestre Suassuna in the 1990s. It is played close in, low, with short and precise movement.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.