70 Fun Facts About Capoeira

Capoeira is best described as what?

Practitioners speak of 'playing' rather than fighting or dancing.

Scholars have identified capoeira's roots in which traditional Bantu martial art from Angola?

Engolo movements imitate nature, such as a zebra's kick; the Cunene region is associated with the practice.

Capoeira is first mentioned in an official document in what year, as a criminal activity?

The judicial document called capoeiragem 'the gravest of crimes'.

The most accepted origin of the word 'capoeira' comes from Tupi words meaning what?

Ka'a paũ referred to small forested areas where fugitive slaves hid.

What was the violent 19th-century street-fighting style of Rio de Janeiro called?

It mixed kicks, headbutts, knife and stick fighting and is no longer practiced as an organized style.

Capoeira was listed as a crime in the Brazilian penal code of which year?

Slavery had been abolished only two years earlier, in 1888.

Capoeirista Ciríaco Francisco da Silva beat a fighter of which style in a 1909 vale tudo bout?

His opponent was Sada Miyako.

Legend says the early 20th-century capoeira fighter Besouro Mangangá could transform into what?

Only one historical record of him exists, but his exploits fill songs and tales.

Where did outlawed capoeiristas sometimes hide their blades, according to the history?

Street vendors and Candomblé priestesses kept lookout for police in exchange for business.

Who developed capoeira regional and created the art's first teaching method?

His sequências de ensino were standardized teaching combinations.

What was the real name of the founder of capoeira regional?

He was one of 25 children and worked as a carpenter, dockworker and day labourer.

Because capoeira was still illegal, Bimba named his style what?

His student José Cisnando Lima advised the name.

Bimba learned batuque, a related fighting-dance, from whom?

He began capoeira itself at 12 with a boat commander called Bentinho.

In what year did the Brazilian government legalize capoeira?

Getúlio Vargas's cultural populism turned it into a socially acceptable national sport.

After a 1953 presentation by Bimba, which president declared capoeira 'the only truly national sport'?

The Brazilian government made it an official sport in 1972.

Who founded a school in 1941 to cultivate the traditional capoeira Angola?

He argued capoeira was essentially African, while Bimba saw it as formed in Bahia.

The Angola school adopted yellow and black from about 1950, the colours of what?

His Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola was located in Salvador's Pelourinho.

Who taught the young founder of the Angola school capoeira?

Pastinha was born in Salvador in 1889 and died nearly blind in 1981.

Which anthropologist defined capoeira Angola as 'art' versus capoeira regional as 'sport'?

Angola values malícia, malandragem and unpredictability; regional stresses precision and discipline.

Both great 20th-century mestres, of the regional and Angola schools, came from which Brazilian region?

Salvador was the first capital of colonial Brazil.

Which magazine publicized capoeira in the United States in 1947?

It reported that most of Bahia's policemen had become students at Bimba's institute.

Which group won all three Golden Berimbau tournaments in Rio de Janeiro from 1967 to 1969?

Senzala practiced an athleticized, acrobatic form of capoeira regional.

Who is thought to have been the first to teach the art in Europe, in London in 1971?

Jelon Vieira began teaching in New York in 1975 and may have inspired capoeira moves in breakdancing.

Which 1993-94 American martial arts film showcases capoeira from beginning to end?

Mark Dacascos stars as a Green Beret cleaning up a Miami high school; Amen Santo choreographed.

Which Hollywood action star, trained in capoeira, includes it in many of his films?

His involvement helped raise the art's visibility in the 1990s.

The capoeira circle, or roda, was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in what year?

UNESCO called it 'a place where knowledge and skills are learned by observation and imitation'.

Capoeira influenced the fight scenes of which character in the 2018 film Black Panther?

Europe had gained its first native mestre, Edgardo Sananiello, in 2001.

What is the fundamental movement of capoeira?

The rhythmic sidestep keeps the player moving and misleads the opponent.

What does 'ginga' literally mean?

It serves both to keep the capoeirista from being an easy target and to fool the opponent.

What is a cartwheel called in capoeira?

Performing one at the start of a game symbolically inverts the player like the ancestors in Bantu belief.

Capoeira defense relies chiefly on what?

A block is used only when an esquiva is completely non-viable.

What is a rasteira?

Most capoeira attacks are made with the legs; the head strike is the cabeçada.

The bênção kick is 'ironically named' after what?

It appears as a blessing but becomes a push kick to the opponent's belly.

Capoeira regional's martelo, or 'hammer', resembles which move from other martial arts?

The word means 'hammer'.

The berimbau consists of what?

It is played with a stick and a coin or stone, the dobrão, and is adapted from African musical bows.

The wooden bow of a berimbau, the verga, is traditionally made from which wood?

It is about 4 to 5 feet long with a steel string called the arame and a calabash gourd, the cabaça.

What is the row of instruments in a capoeira roda called?

Traditionally it holds berimbaus, pandeiros, atabaques and an agogô.

Which song opens a roda, a narrative solo usually sung by the most senior person present?

It is followed by the louvação, a call-and-response thanking God and one's master.

Which berimbau rhythm calls for a low, sly game, and which for showy tumbling?

São Bento grande demands speed and strength.

What is the batizado?

Traditionally the student is taken down by a high-ranked capoeirista and receives a cord and an apelido.

Why did capoeiristas traditionally use nicknames, or apelidos?

The batizado is usually when a practitioner formalizes their apelido.

What is the chamada?

Both players are vulnerable at close range, and the caller watches for a dropped guard.

What happens in the volta ao mundo?

It follows a completed exchange or a break in the game's harmony; one walks counter-clockwise, the other joins opposite.

What is the most common visible ranking system in capoeira?

Many Angola groups use no visible ranks at all; the Brazilian Confederation uses the flag's colours.

What were capoeira regional's first three ranks in the 1960s?

After 1964 a course ended with the teacher tying a silk scarf around the student's neck.

What is the basic term of the art's philosophy, meaning deception or trickery?

Bimba declared 'capoeira is treachery'; João Pequeno said malícia cannot be taught.

Malandragem derives from malandro, meaning what?

'Malandro demais se atrapalha': the too-clever man confuses himself.

What does the capoeira term mandinga translate to?

An advanced player may be called a mandingueiro; some draw symbols on the ground before a game.

How did the founder of the Angola school famously define the art when asked?

Bimba, by contrast, said 'capoeira is treachery'.

Which Afro-Brazilian religion shaped capoeira's cosmic worldview, giving it concepts like axé and dendé?

Players' patron orixás were often Ogum the Warrior or Oxóssi the Hunter.

What is maculelê, often performed at capoeira shows?

Puxada de rede, a fishing-net play, and samba de roda are also common companions.

Which capoeira-fighting character debuted in Tekken 3 in 1997?

Christie later shared his move set as a palette swap in Tekken 4 and 5.

Bimba's school taught two versions of capoeira, according to Ebony: one for self-defence and one for what?

Bimba trained six women for an international festival in the mid-1940s.

In 1995 Mestre Hulk knocked out a fighter of which style in a vale tudo bout, sparking debate over capoeira aggression?

A fatal capoeira fight in Petrópolis followed in 1996.

Which respected mestre established his academy in New York in 1992?

He and João Pequeno were Pastinha's two principal disciples.

Which police chief's cavalry squadron repressed capoeira in Bahia in the 1920s?

The repression pushed the art toward a harmless dance form, which capoeira regional was partly a reaction against.

Bimba moved from Bahia to which state in 1970, discouraged by lack of official support?

He died there in 1974.

Where did the First International Capoeira Championship of Asia and the Pacific take place in 2002?

Sixty groups took part; the same year a Brazilian group travelled to Angola to seek the art's roots.

Which of these Brazilian musicians is named as influenced by capoeira music?

Naná Vasconcelos and Antônio Carlos Jobim are also cited.

Which fighting style from Madagascar has scholar Matthias Assunção suggested as a possible precursor of capoeira?

Most accounts point instead to Angolan engolo, though capoeira never developed independently outside Brazil.

In which year did the Brazilian government make capoeira an official sport and try to impose rules?

The rules were never universally adopted; Mestre Bimba had left Bahia for Goiás two years earlier.

Who began teaching capoeira in New York City in 1975 and founded the Capoeira Foundation the next year?

His demonstrations may have inspired the borrowing of capoeira moves into breakdancing.

How many capoeira students did Bira Almeida estimate were in California in 1984?

He counted 60 in New York and roughly 100 elsewhere; by 2006 Nestor Capoeira reckoned about 7,000 across the US.

Which Bahia group in the mid-1980s criticised the regional style for stressing technique over culture?

Its rise coincided with a wider revival of Afro-Brazilian culture; most modern players say 'there is only one capoeira'.

Who became Europe's first native-born capoeira mestre, in 2001?

Senzala teachers had staged the first European Capoeira Encounter back in 1987.

With which capoeira kick did Marcus 'Lelo' Aurélio knock out Keegan Marshall in a 2009 MMA bout?

MMA champion Marco Ruas also credits capoeira as part of his training.

Which berimbau rhythm demands speed and strength from the players?

Banguela calls for a low, tricky game and Iuna for acrobatics.

What are the two low-pitched berimbaus that form the base of the bateria called?

The high-pitched viola adds variations and improvisations on top.

Which capoeira song type has the same verse repeated four times and was edited by Mestre Bimba?

The four basic kinds are the ladainha, louvação, corrido and quadra.

What is puxada de rede, often seen at capoeira performances?

The name means 'pulling the net'; samba de roda and maculelê are also commonly performed.