Capoeira Regional is a tradition of capoeira created in the 1930s by Mestre Bimba's reform of earlier capoeira. Capoeira regional presents itself as an Afro-Brazilian practice and as a legitimate and effective martial art. This tradition of capoeira was the first to be validated by the Brazilian state and advocated as a national sport for all Brazilians. It contrasts with the approach of capoeira Angola, which was founded a decade later and aims to maintain a more traditional practice. Capoeira regional discards some of the aspects of traditional capoeira that are impractical in a real fight. Training focuses mainly on attack, dodging and counter-attack, giving high importance to precision and discipline. Mestre Bimba also added moves from batuque, an old street fight game played by his father. He also may have incorporated and responded to moves from jujutsu and possibly other martial arts. Mestre Bimba extended the repertoire of capoeira, notably adding the martelo (a type of roundhouse kick) and a number of hand strikes. He established a formal training sequence. Initially, he also included some weapons training, but this was later de-emphasized. The traditions of roda, musical accompaniment, and the capoeira game are maintained in capoeira regional, putting into practice what is learned during training.
In the 1960s and 1970s, it was practiced by Grupo Senzala, who became the most influential capoeira group of their period. Grupo Senzala also drew from some training in shotokan karate as well as attention to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Brazilian football. After the mid-1980s, there was an increased emphasis on anti-racism and diversity of practice, as well as greater activity and authority for women capoeiristas. In Bahia, Mestre Bimba's son, Mestre Nenel, continues to teach in his father's tradition. The regional style of capoeira has appeared in a number of martial arts films and influenced the methods of mixed martial arts.
History 1920s and 1930s In the 1920s, capoeira in Bahia faced repression from the cavalry squadron of police chief Pedro de Azevedo Gordilho; this led to a more harmless dance version of the art form. Partly as a response to this domestication, capoeira regional began to take form in the 1920s, when Mestre Bimba met his future student, José Cisnando Lima. Both believed that capoeira was losing its martial side and concluded there was a need to re-strengthen and structure it. Bimba created his sequências de ensino (teaching combinations) and created capoeira's first teaching method. Advised by Cisnando, Bimba decided to call his style Luta Regional Baiana, as capoeira was still illegal at that time.
Bira Almeida contends that modern-day capoeira begins with Mestre Bimba's practice in the early 1930s. State repression of capoeira decreased after the military coup of Gétulio Vargas, who advocated a strategy of cultural populism. Mestre Bimba established a formal school in 1932, when the Bahia local government agreed to allow it; he developed capoeira regional, a reformed style including aspects of batuque, which he learned from his father, Luis Cândido Machado, and instituting training sequences. Batuque is an Afro-Bahian challenge dance, in which the practitioner tries to trip or topple an opponent. There is controversy regarding the question of whether Mestre Bimba also borrowed from non-Brazilian styles, such as jujutsu and boxing; he may have encountered these fighting styles from trips to Rio de Janeiro, or from students who had other fighting experiences. Novelist Jorge Amado claims that Mestre Bimba adapted catch wrestling and boxing as well as jujutsu. Mestre Bimba took part in many street fights and public matches, sometimes to establish his skills and sometimes for practical reasons; a news report of 1936 recounts that Mestre Bimba applied capoeira to defend himself and a young boy from police.
Capoeira regional has a formal means of instruction and emphasizes fighting skills. Training focuses mainly on attack, dodging and counter-attack, giving high importance to precision and discipline. Use of jumps or aerial acrobatics stay to a minimum, since one of its foundations is always keeping at least one hand or foot firmly attached to the ground. In the early years, Mestre Bimba tested new students by putting them in a headlock, testing endurance of discomfort. Mestre Bimba included in his teachings a curso de especialização or "specialization course", in which the pupils would be taught defenses against knives and guns, as well as the use of bladed weapons. Capoeira was legalized and promoted by the Brazilian state beginning in 1937, and became an official national sport under Vargas' government.
1940s and 1950s In the 1940s, capoeira fighters took part in public matches with practitioners of other martial arts, called vale tudo. Capoeira was traditionally male-dominated, but Mestre Bimba trained six women for an international festival in the mid-1940s. Ebony magazine published an article publicizing capoeira in the United States, in 1947. The magazine focuses on Mestre Bimba's school, reporting that he taught two versions of the practice, one focusing on self-defense and the other on athletic practice; the article also argues that most of Bahia's policemen had become students of Mestre Bimba's insititute. Mestre Bimba made many presentations of his new style; the best known took place in 1953 for the audience of Getúlio Vargas, after which the president declared that "Capoeira is the only truly national sport."
1960s Obligatory uniforms for capoeira groups became common practice in the 1960s. By the 1960s, capoeira regional had introduced the first ranking method in capoeira: calouro (freshman), formado (graduated) and formado especializado (specialist). After 1964, when a student completed a course, a special celebration ceremony occurred, ending with the teacher tying a silk scarf around the capoeirista's neck. Bira Almeida graduated from Mestre Bimba's school in 1959 and opened his own in 1962; his school aimed to include both regional and Angola styles. In 1964, Almeida created the Grupo Folclórico da Bahia, which integrated capoeira with theater and related Afro-Brazilian cultural practices, and toured throughout Brazil. The group toured Rio de Janeiro in 1966, and one of its performers established a new school in that city. In 1968, the Grupo Folclórico da Bahia won international prizes in Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru. In 1964, the Grupo Senzala also formed, initially by teenagers in Rio and subsequently incorporating students of Mestre Bimba. The group was primary young white men of the upper middle class; they also incorporated training and techniques of Shotokan karate, which had become popular in Rio. From 1967 to 1969, Golden Berimbau tournaments were held in Rio de Janeiro, all of three of which were won by the Grupo Senzala organization; Senzala practiced an athleticized and acrobatic form of capoeira regional. In 1968 and 1969, the first national meetings of mestres from all the regions of Brazil took place; the events were partly sponsored by the Brazilian Air Force. Capoeira regional spread throughout Brazil after the 1960s, tending to absorb other local variants.
1970s and 1980s
In 1970, Mestre Bimba became discouraged by a lack of official support and moved from Bahia to Goías; he died in 1974. Initially, all practitioners of capoeira regional were students of Mestre Bimba, but following his death the method became widespread and replicated by a variety of new teachers. Rio and São Paulo became regional centers of capoeira, on par with Bahia. In 1972, the Brazilian government made capoeira an official sport and tried to establish official rules; however, these were not universally adopted. In the 1970s, capoeira was in conversation with other developments in athletics in Brazil, such as the Gracie family and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as well as football in Brazil. Nestor Capoeira likely became the first to teach capoeira in Europe; first teaching at the London Contemporary Dance School in 1971, before touring European cities for three years. Jelon Vieira began teaching capoeira in New York City in 1975; he founded the Capoeira Foundation in the U.S. in 1976. Demonstrations by Vieira may have inspired the incorporation of some capoeira movements into breakdancing. Bira Almeida, a student of Mestre Bimba's, settled on the West Coast of the United States in 1979.
The Grupo Senzala, practicing regional, was the most influential capoeira style in the 1970s and 1980s. Mestre Camisa became a prominent member of the group in 1972. However, during the mid-1980s, capoeira Angola also became more prestigious, in tandem with a broader revival of Afro-Brazilian culture. In 1984, the First National Meeting of the Art of Capoeira took place at the Circo Voador, partly organized by the Senzala group. The meeting brought old masters together with younger talent, and presented a more experimental approach to the global future of capoeira. Since the mid-1980s, there has been an increasing emphasis on conscious anti-racism in capoeira culture. In the 1970s and 1980s, women became much more active participants in the capoeira community, in Brazil and globally. The first wave of female capoeira mestras appeared in the 1980s.
1990s and after In 1995, a capoeirista named Mestre Hulk knocked out a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter to win a vale tudo competition; this led to debate within the community regarding an increasing aggression in some forms of capoeira. Capoeira fights have, on occasion, resulted in severe injuries and even fatalities, as seen in Petrópolis in 1996. In this period, there was increasing visibility of capoeira in popular culture. In 1994, capoeira regional appeared in an American martial arts film, Only the Strong. The choreography for the film was done by Amen Santo. In addition, many of Wesley Snipes' action films include scenes involving capoeira, as he is trained in it. There was also increasing participation in capoeira by women throughout the 1990s, partly influenced by feminism in Brazil. In Bahia, Mestre Nenel, Mestre Bimba's son, continues to teach in his father's tradition.
Capoeira regional continued to affect mixed martial arts; in 2009, Brazilian fighter Marcus "Lelo" Aurélio (also known as Professor Barrãozinho), knocked out his opponent Keegan Marshall with a capoeira kick, a meia lua de compasso.
Debate regarding authenticity