Tesoura
Tesoura
Literally: scissors
A capoeira scissor takedown in which the attacker traps the opponent's leg between his own legs and brings him down by twisting his torso.
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Tesoura is a capoeira takedown whose name means scissors in Portuguese, referring to the scissor-like clamp of the legs around the opponent's leg. The English Wikipedia distinguishes two variants, tesoura de frente (front scissors) and tesoura de costas (back scissors), classing both among takedowns. In tesoura de frente the capoeirista advances from queda de quatro, places the opponent's legs between his own, sits, and twists his torso to bring him down. In tesoura de costas he jumps at the opponent, places his legs between the opponent's, and twists his body to bring him down from behind. According to one source, one leg is set a step beside the opponent's leg and the other crosses behind it; the clamp works best with the thighs, not the shins, with a sharp torso twist into a backward fall. The takedown strips the opponent's stability and opens space for a follow-up attack, for example with the knee. The English Wikipedia classes tesoura among capoeira's sweeps and takedowns, alongside rasteira, arrastão, boca de calça, and vingativa. Unlike rasteira, which trips a leg with a low circular foot motion, tesoura clamps the opponent's leg between the attacker's own legs and brings him down by a torso twist. Under the name tesoura, also corta eucalipto, sources also describe a different jumping technique, where the capoeirista jumps and closes his legs in the air like scissors on the opponent's leg or head. It must not be confused with the ground takedown tesoura de frente or de costas. We have not been able to document who introduced tesoura into capoeira.