Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

ultimately meant adapting his style to that particular type of contest. Grabbing and wrestling was not part of
capoeira fighting tradition, and if capoeira was to be successful against wrestling arts, it would have to
incorporate these techniques. Furthermore, cunning, tricks and malícia were unlikely to be of great use
here, even though Bimba knew they were central to survival in the streets. The option was therefore either
to adapt his Regional to the ring and lose the connection with capoeira or to retreat from the ring and find
new spaces for his style, where fighting and capoeira rituals could coexist. Fortunately for the survival of
capoeira as an independent art, he chose the latter solution. When ju-jitsu champions such as Jaime Ferreira
provoked Bimba and his students in 1945–1946 by claiming that they did not want to fight, that Regional
was ‘not worth anything’ and could not compete with ju-jitsu or freestyle wrestling, Bimba declared that his
Regional was not a fight for the ring, but for any situation in real life. 34 Both he and the angoleiros thus
seemed to retreat from the ring, at least for the time being. That retreat was not absolute, since in 1949
Bimba and his students still participated in a series of matches in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Bimba
himself did not enter the ring, but two of his pupils were defeated by Sinhôzinho’s students. 35
The defeats in Rio and the circumstances surrounding the match in São Paulo (during which accusations
of corruption were raised) might have reinforced Bimba’s conviction that his Regional was definitively not
suited for this type of contest. Yet the appeal of the ring, where capoeira fighting skills can be measured
with other martial arts, remained. Right up to the present day a number of capoeiristas train for other martial
arts and try their skills in freestyle contests. Despised by traditionalists, this type of ‘ring capoeira’ or
‘capojutsu’ constitutes nonetheless one important trend within the contemporary capoeira universe.
New movements and teaching methods
BIMBA AND ‘REGIONAL’ STYLE 131
When Bimba developed the movements, characteristic teaching methods, rituals and many other features of
his style is not entirely clear. Bimba himself made contradictory statements in this respect. In 1953 he
claimed to have started the Regional in 1933. 36 Twenty years later, he asserted that he had created the entire
Regional as early as 1928. 37 Accounts by his students or other mestres often tend to merge aspects from
different periods into one homogeneous narrative, disregarding changes, adaptations, and rearrangements. It
is even more difficult to assess precisely to what extent Bimba’s students influenced this development, since
the mestre not only adapted his teaching to a new, middle-class and white constituency, but also because
some of his best students had an important say in the codification of the style. There is no doubt, however,
that Regional was developed as a distinct style in opposition to both the traditional Babian capoeira and
other combat sports.
Bimba introduced a range of new, offensive movements into his capoeira. Punches using one or both
hands (godeme, telefone, galopante) struck the opponent into the face, and unbalancing techniques
(desquilibrantes) employed the arms or tbe upper body to take the opponent to the ground. The
desequilibrantes, the ponteira and the somersault (salto mortal) are often said to have originated in batuque
moves. 38 The front kick queixada and the sideward ‘hammer kick’ (martelo) in contrast resemble basic
attacks in oriental martial arts. They were executed from a more upright position. All these movements
increased the offensive potential of a capoeira player and enhanced his chances in confrontations with
traditional capoeiras or practitioners of other combat sports.
The acrobatic movements using the ‘despised waist’ (cintura desprezada) constituted a further
kinesthetic innovation of the Regional. The aim was to enable the capoeirista to react against any attempts
to grab him—precisely what practitioners of most other wrestling traditions would attempt to do in a free
style contest. These movements (most of them called balões, ‘balloons’) consisted in projections of one
capoeirista, who had to land as softly as possible on his feet after performing an acrobatic escape where his