contributed to making capoeira grow in São Paulo. ‘There were people who did not like them, but they
happened’.^45 Even later critics, such as M. Miguel (Miguel Machado), initially took part in them.
The Federation not only contributed to the establishment of capoeira as a sport modality, but also played
an important part in institutionalizing it as the Brazilian gymnastics. In other words, it realized to a large
extent the dream dear to tbe military, of the ‘redemption’ of capoeira and its use as a school of citizenship.
The Federation decided, for instance, that all affiliated groups had to use the ‘Salve!’ before or after classes
and that a Brazilian flag had to be displayed in each academy. In contrast, spontaneous and open rodas or
‘folkloric exhibitions’ after the tournament were forbidden.^46
The very growth of capoeira in São Paulo also contributed to the intensification of conflicts between
groups. According to M.Almir,
The competition between the academies for the conquest of the market, became constant. The
violence among capoeiristas became a ritual. Slowly, and almost completely, capoeira ceased to be a
festival, an expression, and the capoeirista, an artist, became a mere competitor, a merchant, or a sheer
provider of services, where the capoeira turned into a simple commodity for the consumption of
violence. In this context, the capoeiristas, again, found themselves divided and isolated, and their
relationship with capoeira gradually ceased to be one of pleasure to become only a relation of power
and the obligation to earn their survival.^47Almir das Areias, a student of M.Suassuna, was part of a group of younger mestres from the ‘second
generation’, most of them originally from Bahia, who developed their own groups maintaining a critical
distance from the São Paulo Federation. He was the co-founder of the group Capitães de Areia (Captains of
the Sand), named after the novel of Jorge Amado about street children in Salvador. Whereas the teachers
linked to the Federation worked hard to make capoeira respectable and have it recognized as the Brazilian
martial art, the Captains of the Sand rather attempted to unite the ‘oppressed capoeiristas’ for the struggle
against the system. For them, capoeira constituted one of the instruments of liberation for the Brazilian
working class.^48 It was therefore important to emphasize that capoeira was an art, not a sport, and that it was
part of the cultural traditions of the Brazilian blacks. As a consequence, the Captains rejected the belt system
adopted by the Federation, which was inspired by oriental martial arts and derived from the Brazilian
national colours. They invented a graduation system based on the successive stages a slave had to go
through until achieving freedom: slave (chain), maroon (rope), freedman (silk scarf) and Captain of the
Sand (pieces from all three previous stages). That reflected the Captains’ view that the practice of capoeira
fostered a process of social and political awareness. At the last stage, the capoeirista had acquired all the
skills to survive in his oppressive environment.
In the repressive atmosphere of the military dictatorship, the Captains of the Sand offered a space for
‘cultural resistance’ and attracted support from a range of artists and intellectuals. The Captains’
headquarters became a venue for popular culture, where shows with folkloric groups from the Northeast and
concerts with Brazilian pop musicians (MPB) took place. M. Almir was invited to act in a TV soap opera
and to write about his experience. The psychiatrist Roberto Freire worked with him to integrate capoeira in
his therapy method called soma-therapy. The Captains demonstrated how capoeira could be adapted to new
contexts without necessarily making it a sport that fitted neatly into the political mainstream or the military
project.^49
Cativeiro (bondage, slavery) was another group that provided alternatives to the capoeira style and
modality propagated by the Paulista Federation. Founded by six mestres (all of them migrants from
Southern Bahia and five of them M.Suassuna’s pupils) towards the end of the 1970s, the group expanded
176 CONTEMPORARY CAPOEIRA