Capoeira

Quick Facts

Masters & notable people

Mark DacascosWesley Snipes

Country of OriginBrazil

RegionSouth America

Primary FocusHybrid

Contact LevelLight contact

Belt SystemSashes

Character & 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.

Comparisons

Catalogs & Databases for Capoeira

About Capoeira

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian practice that UNESCO describes as both a fight and a dance. Two players play in the middle of a circle (roda), while the others sing, clap and play instruments. The basic elements were brought to Brazil by enslaved people, mainly from West and West-Central Africa, and a direct connection with the Angolan engolo is disputed. The word capoeiragem first appears in a court document from 1789, and the penal code of 1890 punished its practice in public with imprisonment.

History

The basic elements of capoeira were brought to Brazil by enslaved people, mainly from West and West-Central Africa. Communities there created from them a self-defence practice that music disguised as a dance. The extent to which it is directly related to the Angolan martial art engolo from the Cunene region is disputed. The word capoeiragem first appears in a court document from 1789. Police records used it for the practice itself, and the word capoeira for its practitioners. According to police records, street capoeiristas in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the 19th century attacked mainly by butting the opponent’s body with the head, and the most common weapon was the razor (navalha).

Technique

The basis is ginga, a constant swaying to and fro that is meant to confuse the opponent and from which other movements flow. Kicks are made up of meia lua de frente, armada, queixada, chapa de costas, bênção (a straight kick with the sole of the foot) and meia lua de compasso, and in Regional also martelo. Sweeps and takedowns include rasteira, tesoura, arrastão, boca de calça and vingativa. Defence relies on dodges (esquiva, cocorinha, resistência, queda de quatro), not on blocks. Acrobatics and transitional movements, such as aú (a sideways cartwheel), negativa (a low transitional position), bananeira (a handstand) and rolls, help to deal quickly with a takedown or a loss of balance. Cabeçada, a head strike, serves as an important counterattack. Hand strikes (galopante, godeme, cutelo) are generally forbidden in Angola.

Training

It is played in the roda, a circle of players, musicians and singers who clap. Two players shake hands, enter the circle and play to the rhythm of the music. The accompaniment is usually made up of the berimbau (a percussive musical bow), atabaque (a drum), pandeiro (a tambourine), agogô (a double bell) and sometimes reco-reco. Songs in the form of call and response are usually led by the berimbau player. The roda is opened by the ladainha, a narrative solo song, followed by the corrido, in which a soloist sings and the chorus answers, or by the quadra, a quatrain with a response from the chorus. The chamada, used mainly in Angola, is a challenge in which a more experienced player invites the opponent to a dance-like passage. In reality it is a test, because both are vulnerable at that moment. The game is ended by the berimbau player, by a player leaving or by another player entering. UNESCO states that knowledge is passed on by observing and imitating directly in the circle. A participant is expected to be able to make an instrument and play it, sing the shared repertoire, improvise songs and follow ethical codes. The anthropologist Greg Downey, in the book Learning Capoeira (2005), based on more than ten years of learning with traditional teachers in Salvador, examines how physical training changes the perception and social behavior of players.

Ranks and progression

The most common ranking system is colored cords (cordões) around the waist, but capoeira has no single system and the conditions differ between groups. A new student receives the first rank at a ceremonial roda called the batizado, where he or she traditionally receives or confirms an apelido, a nickname. The custom derives from the time when capoeira was a punishable offense and players introduced themselves only by nicknames to escape prosecution. An example is the system of the Confederação Brasileira de Capoeira (CBC) in the colors of the Brazilian flag. After the batizado comes the green cord, then yellow, blue and their combinations up to the level of formado (at least 18 years of age and 5 years of capoeira) and onward through monitor, instrutor and contramestre to the white cord of the mestre (22 years of capoeira and at least 35 years of age). The CBC children’s system has the cord half grey and ends at the level of estagiário. Many large groups do not accept the CBC system. Elsewhere the title of mestre usually requires at least 40 years of age, in some schools 60, along with 25 years of playing and merits as a teacher.

Who it suits

According to UNESCO, the capoeira circle consists of people of any gender, a master (mestre), his deputy (contramestre) and students. IPHAN states that men and women can take any role in the circle if they fulfil the required rituals, and that the practice suits people of different ages, faiths and backgrounds. It also describes adapted classes for people with disabilities. Early on capoeira was, according to Britannica, exclusively male, and today many very fit women practise it too. More than muscular strength, according to Britannica, flexibility, endurance, speed and cunning (malícia) decide. We did not find a specific starting age in the sources. According to IPHAN, being a master requires no diploma or formal title and depends on experience, dedication and the recognition of the community and other masters.

Competition

The World Capoeira Federation (WCF), based in Tallinn, issued competition rules in 2024 that apply to the competitions of this federation, not to all of capoeira. Competition is by a knockout bracket in a circle 4.5 m in diameter. Adults play two rounds of 45 seconds, lower categories two rounds of 30 seconds, and in a tie a third round decides. Points are awarded by five judges for the game and rhythm, kicks, floreios, takedowns and jumps. Forbidden are, among other things, strikes to the face including cabeçada, elbows, knees and hand strikes. The bateria is to have at least three berimbau, an atabaque, two pandeiro, an agogô and four singers. The Confederação Brasileira de Capoeira was founded on 23 October 1992 as a national body with state unions and leagues. According to its own presentation, the Brazilian Olympic Committee recognized it in 1995, and elsewhere the year 1999 is given. As early as 1972 the government declared capoeira an official sport and tried to set rules, but groups generally did not accept them.

Gear

The main instrument is the berimbau, a wooden musical bow just under 1.5 m long with a single metal string called arame, which Britannica says is commonly made from old car wire. In the circle one to three berimbaus play, and the master usually plays the lead one and directs the game and rhythm. According to IPHAN, the painted berimbau became a symbol of Bahian identity from the 1950s. The accompaniment adds one or two atabaque drums (a standing conical single-headed drum), the pandeiro tambourine, the double bell agogô and sometimes the scraped bamboo tube reco-reco. IPHAN also counts the xequerê among the instruments of capoeira. According to a publication based on IPHAN, capoeiristas of the 19th century wore white clothing, which according to mestre Bola Sete made it possible to tell whether a player came out of the game unhurt. Mestre Bimba also introduced a white uniform in 1932 as a rule of his academy. We have not been able to confirm the name or origin of the abadá, today's common clothing, in sources of medium and higher reliability.

Philosophy

Malícia denotes the ability to understand the intentions of another and use them to deceive. The anthropologist Greg Downey (2005) states that the key to success in the game is the ability to deceive, distract and confuse the opponent. According to him, veterans say that capoeira transforms newcomers and instills malícia in them. Ginga is described as the embodiment of malícia, because constant movement creates deception. According to tradition, Mestre Bimba said that capoeira is a trick. Mandinga is interpreted in descriptions of capoeira as magic or spells connected with an understanding of natural forces, and an advanced player is called a mandingueiro. UNESCO states that the capoeira circle also sustains the memory of resistance to historical oppression.

Styles and schools

The Brazilian institute IPHAN names two main traditions of capoeira: angola and regional. Capoeira regional was created by Manoel dos Reis Machado, known as Mestre Bimba, born on 23 November 1900 in Salvador. He supplemented it with strikes from other martial arts and first called the style Luta Regional Bahiana. In his academy in 1932 he introduced an ethical code forbidding violence, a white uniform and a requirement that students have documents and a job, and he presented capoeira as a Brazilian martial art. The year the style arose differs between sources: Bimba himself gave 1928, the academy was founded in 1932 and, according to IPHAN, received an official permit in 1937.

Today

Outside Brazil capoeira spread from the seventies of the 20th century, at first mainly to North America. Nestor Capoeira taught from 1971 in London, probably as the first in Europe. Jelon Vieira began teaching in New York in 1975 and a year later founded the USA Capoeira Foundation, and Bira Almeida settled on the West Coast of the USA in 1979. IPHAN states that capoeira is practiced throughout Brazil and abroad. It used to be exclusively male, and today, according to UNESCO, circles include people of any gender. A questionnaire study by De Oliveira et al. (Ido Movement for Culture, 2025) of 245 players found that 35.9% of them reported an injury from capoeira, of whom 53.1% described them as rare. Most often these were the knees (52.5%), elbows, wrists and hands (33.1%) and feet (29.0%). A cross-sectional study of 65 capoeiristas from São Luís (2021) recorded pain or problems in 64.6% of participants, mostly with a slight limitation. A randomized study by Hirata (Oxford Economic Papers, 2023) of 1,810 preschool children in Petrolina measured after a semester of capoeira an improvement in inhibitory control and selective attention of about 0.13 standard deviations, with no effect on vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence. The studies by De Oliveira and Hirata do not distinguish the Angola and Regional styles.

In culture

In 2014 UNESCO inscribed the capoeira circle (roda de capoeira) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Brazilian Law No. 15.469 of 15 July 2026 established the National Capoeira Day, celebrated every year on 15 July. According to the IPHAN timeline, the oldest depictions of capoeira date from 1821 to 1835 and are by the painters Augustus Earle and Johann Moritz Rugendas. The novel Os capoeiras by Plácido de Abreu from 1886 describes training with a razor and a knife. Édison Carneiro published in 1936 in the Bahian press the first ethnographic description of capoeira, and in January 1937 capoeira angola practitioners performed at the II Afro-Brazilian Congress. In the 1950s the academy of mestre Waldemar in Salvador was documented by, among others, the photographer Pierre Verger and the painter Caribé. Mestre Pastinha led a capoeira angola group at the Festival of Black Arts in Dakar in 1966, and Mestre Bimba performed in 1954 before President Getúlio Vargas. The film Besouro from 2009, about the capoeirista Manuel Henrique Pereira, known as Besouro Mangangá, was shown at the Berlinale in 2010.

Did you know

The oldest source on capoeira found so far dates from 1789 and concerns the release of the slave Adão, arrested in Rio de Janeiro for capoeiragem. The Criminal Code of the Brazilian Empire of 1830 did not mention capoeira, and the police classed it with idleness and begging. According to Britannica, some players historically tied blades to their ankles or held them between their toes. The origin of the word capoeira is disputed. According to a publication based on IPHAN, it comes from the Tupi language and means sparse undergrowth, while another interpretation derives it from the word capão, a chicken basket. In English the word is attested from 1922 at the latest. The academy of mestre Sinhozinho in Ipanema dropped singing and musical instruments in 1920. In 1972 the National Sports Council subjected capoeira to the rules of boxing, which established the cord system. Bimba was made famous by ring fights at Parque Odeon from 1935 to 1937, of which about 80 newspaper reports survive. The first capoeira angola school in the USA was opened by Mestre João Grande in 1990.

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