Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

136 BIMBA AND ‘REGIONAL’ STYLE
choreographed game including the acrobatic balões. The final and most difficult test consisted in playing
with an advanced student, who tried to take the medal from the graduand’s chest with his kicks. If he
succeeded, the student was not allowed to graduate (this allegedly happened only twice). 59 The graduate
students were now allowed to play in any Regional roda to the Iúna rhythm, but also exposed advanced
students to hard play.
The money collected through the fines was used to pay for the drinks consumed by the advanced students.
Bimba did not permit consumption of strong liquors and only allowed beer or mulher barbada (a special
drink wbose recipe only the mestre knew) once the examination and the roda were over. Students and
audience then consumed Bahian food, and all participants, women included, could enjoy themselves in a
samba de roda. The graduation party also included a samba duro. 60
Group identity was further reinforced through the adoption of uniforms. Early types were clearly
modelled on jerseys used in other sports. In subsequent years the uniform reproduced the style of port
workers’ clothes, the abadá—collarless shirts and trousers ending just below the knees. Bimba adopted
white abadás, the colour of the traditional Sunday outfit in which adepts played capoeira during religious
festivals. White is also the colour of the supreme orixã Oxalá worshipped during the Bomfim celebrations
in January (see Chapter 4). The emblem of the school—the Solomon star with an R inside, topped by a
cross—was sewn onto the shirt. 61
Maybe the most important innovation introduced by Mestre Bimba was that he taught his art to a much wider
audience, and thereby contributed to the spreading of capoeira to other social groups. This expansion
without doubt facilitated the decriminalization of the art. According to the testimony of M.Decânio, it all
started when Cisnando Lima came from Ceará to study at the medical faculty in Salvador. Cisnando had
already practised weight-lifting since adolescence and learned ju-jitsu from a Japanese teacher. In other
words, he was already an accomplished sportsman when he discovered capoeira in Salvador. An assiduous
spectator at the different rodas, he was most impressed by Bimba’s style and technique. He eventually
convinced Bimba to teach him, successfully passing the famous entry test, and thus became his first white,
middle-class student in the early 1930s. 62 Soon other students showed up at Bimba’s academy, among
which many future doctors, such as Angelo Decânio. Ever since the mestre registered significant numbers
of students from a middle-class or even an elite background, among them a governor, a judge from the
Court of Appeal, scientists, doctors and many other academics. 63
Bimba and his ‘academy’, the Centro de Cultura Física Regional, or CCFR, became increasingly wellknown
in the city of Salvador. His academy moved several times, from the Roça do Lobo during the 1940s
to a central location near Pelourinho Square in the 1960s. He established friendships with a number of
intellectuals, among whom the US anthropologist Donald Pierson. 64 Through his teaching capoeira practice
spread among the middle classes, most of which considered themselves ‘white’, and even to the elite of
Salvador (see Figure 5.4). His contacts eventually led to the decriminalization of capoeira, at least as long as
it was practised in academies. Through his friendship with students from Ceará such as Cisnando Lima a
channel of communication was even opened to the highest authority in the state. Juracy Magalhães, the
interventor (title given to the governor nominated by the central government after the Revolution of 1930)
in Bahia, also came from Ceará. He invited Bimba into the governor’s palace for a private demonstration of
his Regional, somewhere around 1936. 65 One episode often told in relation to that event is that on receiving
the request to go to the palace Bimba was afraid of being arrested, since capoeira still was illegal at the
time. 66 Luiz Renato Vieira, among others, has cast doubt on that story, claiming that at this stage Bimba
knew perfectly well that he had nothing to fear. 67 Reality or invention to dramatize the difficult path
towards social recognition, the fact remains that this demonstration in the palace was one of the first times
when capoeira was performed in a totally different social context.