Capoeira

To the casual onlooker a practitioner of this art may look more like a break dancer than a martial artist. While the origins of the art go back centuries before the invention of break dancing, capoeira does in fact trace its roots to African dances, and war dances specifically. As in Asia, early African warriors emulated the actions of the animals that surrounded them, acknowledging the greater power that such beasts could generate. One such animal was the zebra, which would balance on its fore legs while shooting out its hind legs. In emulation, while dancing Africans would balance on their hands and strike out with their legs.

With the beginning of the slave trade in the sixteenth century the proud African warrior heritage came to an end in the face of Portugese musketry. Over the years thousands of young Africans were transplanted from their homes to foreign shores in appalling conditions to begin a life of slavery with no personal rights. Under the Portugese the practice of religion and martial arts was banned in the hope of preventing subversion. The slaves however were able to continue to dance and thus certain of the movements were interpreted from a combative angle. Once an application for one movement within the dance was found, it was not hard to find another. With the emphasis changing, other, specifically fight-oriented techniques were added and disguised as dance. A similar phenomenon happened in Okinawa when the peoples were banned from carrying weapons and practicing fighting arts: a number of self defense methods were therefore blended into dances. Some argue that as the hands of the slaves were bound this led to the development of capoeira. I find this unlikely as kicks, knee attacks and trips can still be delivered without the free use of the hands. Furthermore, it would seem more likely that a fighting art utilizing the chains that bound the slaves to strike and choke opponents would have evolved, but there is currently no evidence of this. Rather I would posit that the fighting techniques were adapted due to familiarity and the ability to practice them in the open in the guise of a dance.

Despite the abolition of slavery capoeira continued to be practiced underground until, in 1937, Mestre Bimba (Teacher Bimba) was invited to give a demonstration to the Brazilian president. So successful was this expose that the first public capoeira school was opened, spreading gradually through Brazil before gaining an international audience.

Training begins with basic, standing techniques and conditioning, particularly stretching. As soon as possible practitioners are encouraged to begin 'playing' capoeira, an unusual verb choice for a martial art but, nevertheless, Brazilians maintain that it is a game first and for fighting second. Play takes place in the roda, a circular area, around which onlookers and fellow trainees stand playing instruments to dictate pace and rhythm or singing songs. As the participants move around one another they perform handstands, cartwheels and rolls interspersed with kicks and sweeps.

In combat the capoeirist will likely evade any attack before launching a powerful kick or sweep as a counter. The expert relies on ending the fight as quickly as possible as the range of techniques available, dynamic though they are, is very limited and do not extend to punching or grappling. In addition, the origins in dance rather than the battlefield leave the capoeirist vulnerable to weapon attacks as there are no specific defensive tactics to snatch a weapon. Capoeira also lacks those finishing moves that would be used on a battlefield to deliver a coup de grace to a stunned and weakened opponent.