Capoeira: The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art

CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA 181
Capoeira Angola Foundation, have events specially dedicated to women in capoeira and actively promote
gender equality, whilst in other, more mainstream groups, the woman’s role is still seen as subordinate.
Some male capoeiristas still persist in considering that women are essentially there to relax the male
warrior. In other words, although capoeira practice can contribute to a greater awareness of gender issues, it
cannot change overnight patriarchal attitudes that have prevailed for centuries.
A further context in which the practice of capoeira has expanded enormously over the last years is in
education. In fact capoeira has always been an educational tool, but it was restricted to a specific social and
ethnic group and frowned upon by public opinion. Although writers, sportsmen and politicians underlined
the potential of an ‘improved’ capoeira for educational use since the beginning of the twentieth century, it was
only from the 1980s onwards that capoeira has been taught on a wide scale in schools as part of physical
education or as an extra-curricular activity. Two pioneers in that respect were the Centres for Sports
Initiation (CIDs) in Brasília and the Integrated Centres for Public Education (CIEPs) in Rio de Janeiro. 75
Today capoeira is taught in many in primary and secondary schools and institutions of further education. 76
The extraordinary potential of capoeira to develop psychomotor skills has furthermore contributed to its
use in the education of people with different kinds of learning disabilities. Therapists from Florianópolis to
Nova Friburgo employ it to deal with visual deficiency, 77 while a whole branch of anarchist psychotherapy
has integrated it into its holistic approach of healing. Patients following the soma-therapy are required to
practise capoeira, considered ‘bodily knowledge that is indispensable in the struggle against socially
repressive mechanisms’. Its founder, Dr Roberto Freire, learned with M.Almir from the Captains of the
Sand and began to encourage his patients to practise capoeira during the 1970s. Freire conducted a seminal
interview with Pastinha before the old mestre passed away, and subsequently switched his soma-therapy
towards the Angola style. 78 These examples illustrate to what extent capoeira has become a widely used
tool in different methods and levels of education and therapy.
The incredible growth capoeira experienced in terms of ‘race’, class, gender, and geography has multiple,
and sometimes contradictory implications. The widening of the social backgrounds of practitioners can
mean that distances between the practice of each segment of the capoeira universe are increasing. Sonia
Travassos for instance noted that among middle-class practitioners in Rio de Janeiro, capoeira appears as an
isolated cultural good, whereas among lower-class students the art still is accompanied by other Afro-
Brazilian manifestations such as maculelê or samba de roda. She also points out that in some middle-class
contexts capoeira became part of a certain ‘alternative’ culture, which is reflected in the use of rather casual
dress to train, whereas lower-class groups or those led by black teachers usually insist on the necessity of
neat uniforms. 79 On the other side, through the expansion of capoeira at least some elements of Afro-Bahian
culture are being given more public space and made known to larger audiences, an aspect often emphasized
by Bimba’s students Angelo Decanio and M.Itapoan.
The expansion of capoeira practice into such diverse contexts, and the development of different
modalities to cater for widening objectives—from fighting efficiency in the ring to rehabilitation purposes
in the therapy room—are not without an effect on the overall unity of the art. In other words, the very
meaning of the practice can change according to the audience and the context. When mestres and teachers
reflect upon the effects of the impressive growth of the art over the last three decades, they often comment
that capoeira only ‘swelled up’ (‘inchou’) rather than expanding in quality. Uncontrolled growth is
perceived to threaten the unity of the art. Yet the more mestres launch appeals to ‘unite capoeira’, the less this
seems possible at present. In that context capoeira Angola, once again, seems to provide a model of how to
grow while remaining true to tradition.