(a capoeira technique called peneirar). He advocated weight lifting and skipping as complementary
exercises, and boxing, fencing, and ju-jitsu to increase dexterity and resistance. Given his background, it
comes as no surprise that Burlamaqui’s overall kinesthesics seem more inspired by Europe than Africa. He
recommended, for instance, ‘a noble and upright attitude’ for the basic posture (which he called,
characteristically ‘the guard’),^15 quite different from the crouched ginga adopted by the capoeira Ciríaco.
Burlamaqui’s booklet also gave a detailed description of kicks and counter-attacks. The great majority of
them were part of the arsenal of Cariocan capoeira of his time. He however included two movements that he
claimed to have taken from the martial dance batuque. According to him, the bau was used in both batuques
and sambas of Northern Brazil. The rapa consisted in a kind of sweeping step (rasteira), applied to the
outside of the heel instead of the inside. He furthermore included three kicks, wbicb he asserted to have
invented himself: the queixada, the passo de cegonha (‘stork step’) and the espada (‘sword’). Burlamaqui
made an important contribution in various respects. He documented, for the second time, the movements of
Cariocan capoeiragem. He showed that capoeira movements could, just as any other combat technique, he
described and analysed and its repertoire of movements could eventually be increased. And more
importantly, he proposed a way of redeeming capoeira from its marginalized position, its association with
vagrants and criminals, making it equal to other Western and Eastern combat sports. In other words, he
suggested that the way forward was to transform the old capoeiragem into a proper sport. The price of his
proposal was to completely ignore the Afro-Brazilian roots of the art and the cultural context of its practice.
If at that stage, capoeiragem in Rio had already lost its close association with music, its practitioners were
still bound by rituals described, for instance, by Plácido de Abreu (see Chapter 3). Burlamaqui does not
even mention music or any other ritualized action, deliberately ignoring what might still have survived at
the time. Despite his brief acknowledgement of capoeira’s slave origins, his proposal completely erased
Afro-Brazilian traditions from its practice.
Agenor Moreira Sampaio (1891–1960), better known as Sinhôzinho, provided a another outstanding
example of how capoeira could be integrated into physical education or be used in fighting competitions.
Son of a military officer and influential politician in Santos, this all-round athlete took up residence in Rio
de Janeiro.^16 During the 1920s and 1930s, he taught physical education, gymnastics, athletics, football and
combat arts in different clubs of the city.^17 He considered capoeira a valid combat technique, but, as his
colleague Burlamaqui, was not interested in ritual or artistic aspects. Sinhôzinho nevertheless was one of the
few people who still taught capoeira in Rio de Janeiro, preventing it from disappearing all together. His
students emphasize the elaborate tools he invented for training capoeira movements.^18
It is within this context of enhanced competition and cross-fertilization between different combat
traditions that one has to understand the contribution made by Mestre Bimba. His ‘Regional Bahian fight’ was
primarily an answer to these developments, which threatened to relegate capoeira to oblivion or, as was the
case with the model proposed by Burlamaqui and Sinhôzinho, to transform it into a mere set of bodily
techniques without being imbedded in a tradition on its own.
Mestre Bimba and capoeira in the ring
Mestre Bimba was born Manoel dos Reis Machado on 23 November 1900 in the modest neighbourhood of
Engenho Velho, in Salvador. Both his parents came from the Recôncavo. His father, a famous batuqueiro,
was born in Feira de Santana, and his mother came from Cachoeira.^19 From the early age of thirteen he
worked as a docker in the harbour, and later earned his living as a cart driver and a carpenter.
Bimba was initiated into capoeira at the age of 12 by an African nicknamed Nozinho Bento, also known
as Bentinho, a captain working for the Bahian Company of Navigation. Unfortunately little is known about
128 BIMBA AND ‘REGIONAL’ STYLE