"Capoeira is a Brazilian outlook that acknowledges and values a history written by the body, by rhythm, and by the immensely free nature of Man in the face of intolerance." "It contains battle, dance, rhythm, and physical vigor." "Negroes created capoeira for both pleasure and combat." "Through their bodies they expressed this view of that remains valid today." "Parts of the speech "Brazil, Peace in the World" delivered in Geneva at the UN on August 19, 2004 by Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil." "Capoeira is currently practiced in more than 150 countries on five continents by men and women of all ages, creeds, and backgrounds, in classes offered by thousands of Brazilian capoeira masters from all social classes." "In Brazil alone there are 6 millions practitioners." "Their greatest masters are Mestre Bimba, creator of Capoeira Regional and Mestre Pastinha, the most important name in Capoeira Angola." "This documentary is about Bimba." "It is dedicated to capoeirists the world over." "Mestre Bimba, Enlightened Capoeira" "To me, only two mestres have a place at my altarl Jesus and Bimba." "I am what I am thanks to him." "If Bimba hadn't existed, I would have been something else." "If you come to my house, in the room where I sleep with my wife, you will see a photograph." "This picture here, of the Mestre." "It is on the wall there." "I don't have a picture of my biological father, but Mestre Bimba's I have." "Quilombola, mandigueiro, capoeira player" "Mestre Bimba was the king from Pituba to Ribeira" "Quilombola, mandigueiro, capoeira player" "He practiced our true art with hardiness and stealth." "Don't mess with me Be tenacious and bewitching." "This game is daring." "Its not Angola its Bimba's capoeira." "It shocks me today when so much drivel abounds" "Saying that capoeira is only a game." "Forgetting its history and glorious past As a real fight." "Capoeira is an art of the African" "Who used his wit to be free of the slave foreman" "Oh, yes, yes, yes Oh, no, no, no..." "Capoeira didn't come from Africa." "It is Afro-Brazilian." "It was born in Brazil, of African parents." "Those Africans brought with them their African heritage, which was changed as it got here, not only in relation to capoeira." "Also in relation to their religious rites." "So, these were transformed African legacies." "The word capoeira, in the early nineteenth century was police jargon." "The capoeirist was a social type." "What type?" "A felon, a menace to the institution of slavery." "Bimba was born in 1900." "At that time, capoeira was on the decline." "The newly established republic placed capoeira outside the law, criminalized it." "The candomblé religion, capoeira and cuisine are expressions of cultural resistance against the pressure of the dominating white European master." "Therefore, capoeira spends some time outside the law." "Formally illegal." "The names in illegal capoeira show this Besouro, Cabelo, and so many others that had their headquarters, if we can call them that, in the Gold Market, because most of them were unskilled laborers." "Bimba was a stevedore." "Like many black men of that time, the only job he could find was loading and unloading ships." "He was an assistant longshoreman." "What was his main job?" "To carry the knives of the stevedores." "How?" "He would go up the Taboão Lift." "There was a police post there to search stevedores, who were known as ruffians and troublemakers, in order to take their knives away." "Bimba used to buy a two-pound loaf of bread, this much he told me, cut it in two, put the knife in, hollowing out part for the handle, and put the two halves together again." "Once he was past the police post, he would give each stevedore his bread." "And walk away." "His environment was the port, which was where cultural exchange took place." "Capoeira was also there, and so were clubs, blows switchblade knives, fighting over women, fighting over jobs;" "the whole port atmosphere." "It was, in fact, a game of life and death." "In the old days, if you grabbed a capoeirist, you would surely be knifed or cut with a switchblade knife." "Bimba learned from Bentinho The touch, the moves, the craftiness." "Very soon, he was expert Knowing everything" "And was ready to fight With neighbor or police..." "Mestre Bimba went through a street capoeirist phase." "He was arrested many times." "Also, at one point, a police chief wanted to make him inspector of the block where he lived, because, if he were the inspector, he wouldn't fight, he would be calmer." "But he said that capoeira had always been against the police, how could he be in favor?" "As I heard Bimba tell it, blacks who were street capoeirists were tied to a horse's tail and taken to the police station." "So, it was better to fight near the station, because then the distance tied to the horse wouldn't be so long." "He had this innate intelligence, much greater than most people's." "He had a long-term view that few had." "He realized that capoeira was intertwined with repression." "So, he saw himself as the redeemer and modernizer of capoeira." "It could no longer be something marginalized, forbidden, repressed and discriminated against." "He surprised society with a different kind of behavior, going against what was expected of a capoeirist." "He presents himself as an honest and respectable man." "Bimba no longer presents himself, like those of his time and before, as a felon, a hunted man." "From the beginning, he presents himself as an educator." "Capoeira has to be treated as education, physical education." "An educator in a complicated situation, because he was not an elite educator, but rather a popular educator." "Coming from a marginalized activity, he placed it at the heart of society, in all social strata;" "he urged everyone to practice its man, child or woman." "Therefore, the great reward for Mestre Bimba would be to be acknowledged as an educator." "As did the Federal University of Bahia." "In 1996, it awarded Mestre Bimba the title of Doctor Honoris Causa." "He was the first capoeira mestre in Brazil to receive this title, a university doctorate." "The university was acknowledging someone from the people, right?" "A man who was self-taught, of humble origin, as a great educator, to the extent of granting him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa." "And many people said "it shouldn't have been posthumous but when he was living, right?" "'" "Posthumous O.K. But it is a title that is given to great personalities from the state of Bahia." "He did not see himself merely as a capoeirist." "He saw himself as a capoeira institution." "He was someone who thought about the future of capoeira." "He would say "I didn't make capoeira for myself." "I made capoeira for the world."" "I even used to say "Man, what a megalomaniac idea!" "Instead of saying he made capoeira for Bahia, he goes farther and says he made it for the world"" "Today we realise he was right." "Capoeira is present around the world." "Who could dream 20 years ago of capoeira in Israel?" "A Dutchman playing capoeira and singing in Portuguese?" "Capoeira is one of the most powerful tools for disseminating the Portuguese language." "To me, capoeira is life." "There's no racism." "It's not like in today's world, that is divided." "Wherever capoeira is played, Portuguese is spoken." "Because in capoeira, classes are not translated." "All the movements have Portuguese names, the songs are sung in Portuguese." "People fall in love with capoeira and Brazil." "The first thing that comes to their minds is to come to Brazil, to get to know Brazilian culture." "And through capoeira, you get to know Brazilian popular music, popular cultures, like samba and candomblé, popular dances." "That's why its expansion is endless." "And he foresaw this far ahead." "Compared to his view, we were quite limited." "He thought this would really explode." "Oh, my bro... what did you see there?" "I saw capoeira killing, I saw the maculelê being danced." "Capoeira is a sport practiced in Salvador." "Manuel dos Reis Machado He is incredible." "He is Mestre Bimba The inventor of Regional Capoeira." "Capoeira is a sport practiced in Salvador." "I come from there." "I come from there." "The berimbau and me." "I am capoeira." "Mestre Bimba was a most extraordinary man." "A giant in stature, an absorbing personality, with tremendous charisma." "He had the ability to infect everyone with his incomparable joy for life." "When he arrived he was like the sun, to which everybody's attention turned." "He was contradictory, brilliant, and able to convey the magic of capoeira." "I did a lot of preparation; it's hard." "All these years, I've been trying to talk about Bimba sensibly and not emotionally." "But one is always flooded with emotion when speaking about him." "Still, I don't want to talk about him emotionally." "Because although talking from the heart is good, I sometimes think that the heart is too passionate and far from reason." "I think Bimba is reason and emotion too." "I can't free myself from feelings." "I think that it's too tiring." "I'm going to explain how to fashion a true berimbau." "You take the wood from the forest and wait 15 days." "After having dried the wood called beriba, you attach a piece of leather, string the wire and then varnish it." "But this is not like the Angola's berimbaus, that they take this green wood, paint it and sell it to tourists as a good berimbau." "These are the authentic berimbaus." "These ones that I make." "He was really the greatest man I ever met." "He was not a capoeira mestre." "He was a builder of men." "And you will never find someone who touched his shirt, his trousers, shook his hand, met him or followed him, who says otherwise." "He marked people indelibly, as if branded in the most hidden fibers of their hearts." "There is a little scar there "Here lived Bimba."" "I remember quite distinctly the first time I met him." "I arrived at the school and felt an emotion that has never ceased, that really touched me, as I climbed up the stairs, and I felt Mestre Bimba's presence not just because of the magic aura around him, but also because of the smell" "of cigar he used to smoke." "It was like walking into a temple." "There was this energy that created in us this very strong wish to become capoeirists." "The 1930's was a very important period for black institutions in Bahia." "You have the process of consolidation of candomblé and of its leadership too." "And in capoeira, the figure of Mestre Bimba appears." "Bimba belongs to a generation that changed black culture in the Americas." "The generation that created samba schools, that created modern carnival, that created jazz in the United States." "It is a phenomenon that is not only Brazilian, it is a world phenomenon." "It is the new black American culture." "He practiced Angola, Learned from those who knew." "Then created another fight, Braver and more fearless." "He named it Regional, Representing Bahia." "So, he practiced capoeira, today called Capoeira Angola, for twelve years." "He said that he practiced Capoeira Angola for twelve years." "He started to think that the type of capoeira he practiced had become too folkloristic; no longer seemed like a fight." "Bimba used to say Capoeira is not meant for attack." "It is for defence, but for true defence." "So, it has an aspect of demonstration, but it also has an aspect of self-defence that must be efficient." "In any case, when Bimba created Capoeira Regional, criminal law code 1890 was still in force." "Reform would only come in the 1940s with Getulio Vargas." "So, capoeira was still a crime." "The Bahia that I knew had only one great defect prejudice against negroes." "Of course, the vigilance of the authorities was an impediment to visibility of the activity, of that amusement." "It was a black thing, and so something to practice in the backyard." "Bimba is a reference that many forget." "For all African descendents in Brazil or wherever the world over." "He faced up to..." "He was..." "He never..." "It even came out in the paper that he overturned a police car from the top of a wall..." "Back around 1936 Mestre Bimba was surrounded" "By a group of soldiers who were led" "By Lúcio Barra Preta, a bold and armed black." "The fact is that Mestre Bimba was a great fighter." "He was strong." "Very strong." "In the streets they called him "three blows"." "It was the most you could stand to take from him." "And Patrolman Lúcio was in the way, with 7 other police." "They piled on the Mestre, Attacking him ruthlessly." "Some with a sabre, others punching, Giving no quarter..." "He struck them all, disarmed them, and the next day took the news to the paper, that reported it." "A Tarde daily published a story saying that..." "Taking on a capoeirist is no easy task." "And this was when I first saw Bimba." "In the papers." "I saw Bimba's picture." "He beat seven soldiers." "Without being touched," "He seized all the weapons, and even made it to the newspaper." "I said "This is a great man, a great idol, isn't he?" "'" "It was Bimba who really made capoeira visible in Bahia." "But a person has to eat." "You have to find a recipe." "Besides what students paid, which wasn't much," "Mestre Bimba gave some memorable exhibitions." "There at where is now the Fallen Cross, on the See Square, there used to be a place called Park Odeon, which was where everything happened." "There was a boxing ring." "There were fighters." "Dom Bassulo, Djalma Santana and Euclides the Psychologist, who was a Greco-Roman wrestler." "And, naturally, there were capoeira shows in which Mestre Bimba not only exhibited his fine style, but also, of course, attracted new students for his business." "In a way, at that time, the sport was a leveler for blacks and whites." "A black man would go into ring with a white man, and he could win or lose." "He put capoeira up in the ring, which was a mandatory condition to turn it into a mass sport, which is what he wanted to do." "After that, he became a Bahian champion and a major reference in Bahia in the field of sports too." "He is a name, an idol, a Bahian idol." "Also, it was at that time that he was officially invited to take part in the July 2nd parade in Bahia, and the newspaper A Tarde criticized the parade organizers, because they officially included capoeira." "Mestre Bimba paraded with his students, practicing capoeira together, in what is the greatest civic festival in Bahia." "And there was the guy doing capoeira, and wasn't capoeira forbidden?" "I mean, to take part in an official parade, a socially recognized activity, this the newspaper and the Bahian elite were against!" "The children of that elite were behaving to the contrary." "Because they were learning capoeira, they were seeking out Bimba, there were going to candomblé rituals." "To me, the story starts when Sisnando arrives in Salvador." "He looks up capoeirists." "He could only find one he respected." "It was this big black that worked as a coalman in Liberdade." "It was Bimba." "Bimba was inside a dig, working as a coalman." "He was all dirty and that Sisnando askedl "Are you the one called Bimba?" "'" " Yes, and who are you?" " It's that I want to learn capoeira." "Then Mestre Bimba looked up at him and said" ""Look, man, you are white, you have fine skin, you are not fit for it."" "And Sisnando said "Oh, but I've already learned some martial arts like ju-jitsu, and what not." "I want to learn..."" ""If you can stand five minutes of a head lock" " and he gripped him - then I'll teach you."" "Sisnando held out." "Then Bimba had no choice." "Because Sisnando was so strong, that he would grab a donkey by its tail have it whipped." "And the donkey couldn't drag him." ""Man, you were tough!"" ""No, it was my father who was tough he could hold on to two donkeys!"" "His students were true working class people, stevedores, the guys he hung around with." "Then, when he started to put this group together with Sisnando, Sisnando started bringing students in." "Because everybody in the Brazilian northeast came to Bahia to study." "Because the medical school was the only one in the area." "And it used to be located there in the square, near where he opened his school." "So, Sisnando started to bring these people in." "And Mestre Bimba started to teach students that came from Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte and other states." "This had a major impact on Mestre Bimba's development, the fact that his Capoeira Regional became something academic." "Of course, those students took part, but he controlled it all, he dominated it all entirely." "It wasn't the white man getting in there and giving orders." "No!" "He gave the orders." "He controlled everybody." "Just like, "You, come here; you go to church; you go to school, you have to obey." "The orders are written down here." "You will have to obey them."" "This was the door from which capoeira emerged from marginality and then it became elegance." "Capoeira is whatever the moment calls for." "It can e a poem, it can be a fight of life and death, it can be a game; an amusement." "Capoeira is of the moment." "This openness to the moment in time, to improvisation, relates to the way blacks have lived, as they have had to live in order to have a place in global society." "To occupy one's place, to negotiate." "Today, I am sure that, if Mestre Bimba had not existed, capoeira would have disappeared just as batuque did." "His father was a batuque fighter and a good one too." "He was champion several times in Bahia." "It was a very violent kind of fighting, injuring people's legs." "You had to stand still and receive the blow." "You could only react after you received the blow." "There were many leg blows." "The guys had big welt on their legs." "So, Mestre Bimba took from batuque whatever he thought he could use in his capoeira." "He took from the Angola, the capoeira practiced at the time, what he thought could be used in his style of capoeira." "The things he thought unnecessary in batuque and Angola he left out." "At a given point, he decided that his capoeira would have one berimbau and two tambourines." "He justified this by saying that, with just one berimbau, it would be easier for the capoeirist to identify the berimbau beat, to perceive rhythmic changes and variations, and to move accordingly." "The way Mestre Bimba played had a cadence that lead to offensive moves." "Because capoeira is already defensive in nature." "Capoeira involves tantalizing;" "the rhythmic movements are defensive." "So, Bimba added an extra beat in order to add one move and prevent you from resting on the back leg." "Therefore, you beat and retreat quickly." "Of course, that made some more orthodox people not like it, thinking it was an outrage to the African heritage." "But it wasn't." "Mestre Bimba had a feeling for the dynamics of culture." "He knew that things arrived here from Africa, and necessarily had to become integrated." "Into the Brazilian and Bahian cultural process, of course." "As a result, he founded this capoeira school." "Capoeira, born in Bahia" "Gives thanks, at the foot of the cross, for out daily roda." "This is what life has taught me in this country." "That in Bahia you breathe capoeira." "In Bahia, music is in the air." "A Negro wizard whose name was Bimba invented capoeira." "Look at the wizard and the back flip..." "Cry Angola and "lúna"" "Capoeira is forever in tune with the world's turning." "The first person to teach capoeira inside, in a school, and therefore in a respectable environment, was Mestre Bimba." "There was a moment that no student of Mestre Bimba forgets, right?" "He arrived there to test you." "A hip fake to one side, a hip fake to the to the other." "A short pause to kick behind your heels to see if you kept your balance;" "you would make a back handspring." "The next day, he would teach you the capoeira moves." "He would hold each student's hands to teach him the "ginga"." ""Come on, leg back."; then he would let go of your hands. "Keep on."" "This was Mestre Bimba's method." "You would arrive, you would do your waste movements and then your sequence." "This sequence was always done with no berimbau sound." "This was everyday for everyone." "Both those who had graduated as well as students." "This teaching sequence was the basis of Capoeira Regional." "Why?" "Because in this sequence you had attack, defence and counter-attack." "You "addict" students, as it were, to react whenever there is movement." "He teaches another one, he teaches defense." "It is a method to learn capoeira easily and quickly." "So, when you master these movements, attacking, defending, etc., you could join the circle, the "roda", and practice it all." "You are not an excellent capoeirist, you are someone who can play it already and you practice it from then on." "He divided blows into traumatizing, unbalancing and basic blows." "There are basic movements and projection movements." "You use unbalancing blows to knock the other person down." "Traumatizing blows are those that hit the opponent as a stroke." "There are the basic blows like "cocorinha", "vingativa", "aú", "ginga"," "And projection movements" ""açoites", "arqueado", "dentinho", "baiana" and others." "He divided and specified them all well." "He was very good at devising this learning sequence, in which he only used 17 movements." "In doing this sequence, a single student makes 154 moves, repeating some, of course." "And together that makes 308." "It is, perhaps, the largest Kata in the world." "When you learned this sequence by heart, those seventeen movements, he would say "Do you know it by heart?" "So, you can be baptized."" "One of the graduates come and give this guy a name." "And one of them would come to baptize you." "Then you would play." "It was your first game as a graduate with the sound of a berimbau." "Sometimes, he would say "You will pass the extreme test tomorrow"." "Some guys would be so scared they wouldn't come back the next day." "So he would say, instead" ""Tomorrow you will pass the berimbau and the graduate ended," "he would step to the middle of the room, look at any graduate and say" ""Give this guy a nickname."" "And the beginner would be given a name, everybody would applaud, and from that day forward, the guy's original name would be forgotten." "Ask in Capoeira Regional who Raimundo, who I am, and no one will know!" "Bimba didn't miss an opportunity to teach us." "My nickname taught me a lesson." "Because I was someone with a very shy personality." "Too shy even." "Someone who was always bowing his head, never with my head up," "I was always self-conscious and found it difficult to relate to people." "So, everything in life to me was difficult." "And in capoeira, it was even worse." "In capoeira, I was scared to go in, scared of being beaten and so on." "Therefore, the day I was going to be named, the day of my "baptism celebration", instead of asking one of the guys to give me a nickname, when it was my time to play, he said" ""This one already has a nickname." "I am going to name him."" "I did my sequence for the test and, when I finished, he said" ""He doesn't do capoeira, he does fondling or Cafuné, that is his name."" "I was terribly upset." "Others got names like Tiger, Tiber Cub, Iron Breaker, Canyon." ""What does he mean?" "On Monday, I'll teach him a lesson, I'm gonna beat everybody!"" "He cured me of my shyness." "It was simply gone." "When I arrived on Monday I was a different person." "I looked up and started playing capoeira like everybody else and I'm here today." "I was booed in Ouro Preto." "Because they introduced me as the greatest berimbau player in Brazil, the best known." "But the stage curtain was closed." "When they saw me playing the "São Bento Grande" on the berimbau... they booed me like crazy." "So I sang "You grew up, that's your business." "I didn't grow much, that's my business." "My father was small, My mother..."" "Playing the berimbau." "The berimbau is here." " I think it's best if I play, shall I?" " Yes." "Play it and sing the song you sang then." "I went on stage playing the "São Bento Grande"." ""São Bento Grande" of capoeira Angola." "Then the curtain went up." "When I went on stage "Booooo!"" "They booed me like anything." "Then I sang" ""You grew up, that's your business." "I didn't, that's my business." "My father was small, and my mother too." "Please don't criticize me, because I criticize no one." "Then they all went "Yeaaaaaah!"" "They clapped and that was that." "I was happy." "You see how respected Mestre Bimba was." "He got there and everybody used to say," ""Hi, Shorty, come here" or "You, little one, come here", "you, small one."" "At one point, the Mestre said "Look, from now on, this lad's nickname is going to be Giant." "His name isn't Shorty any more."" "Then everybody started calling him Giant." "He was named Small Giant, but no one disobeyed." "And he is still Giant." "Who among us did not quake and shiver on graduation day?" " I did." " I did too." "When the guy shivered, the Mestre saw it and would say" ""Alice, I didn't study much, but I know anatomy."" ""Alice, bring this lad that medicine, because he is nervous."" ""I know anatomy."" "Then she would bring the barbada." "Brother, when you drank that beverage, you would be reinvigorated and excited!" "Instantly!" "You responded immediately!" "You would tune into the berimbau rhythm" "On graduation day, he'd make jokes with the ladies, if you were be late, you'd be finedl" "A round of six beers for the crowd!" "If you'd touch the ground and soil you clothes, four beers." "It was fun, a lot of fun." "It was most extraordinary, because Mestre Bimba was a conductor." "Wires extended from his hands conducting everybody, it was not just music." "He told jokes, laughed." "His timing was very sharp when to speak, when not to speak, when to tell a joke, how to present the moves, when to stop;" "something professional and calculated." "But that was innate in him." "It was his reality, his experience in capoeira." "None of us ever dared disobey Mestre Bimba." "He would say "Do this", and we would do it." "That's what leadership and charisma are about." "The important thing in playing capoeira, as Mestre Bimba used to say, was to be prepared to feint, to improvise, to do body fakes." "To pretend." "You think it's gonna be a blow, but it's not." "It's a foot blow, no it isn't." "It'll be with the hand and it isn't." "You move forward and backward, you surprise." "This is very typical of Mestre Bimba." "It's the flavour; it's the heart of the matter." "If not..." "Without feints and body fakes..." "Those who trained with Mestre Bimba know it." "The swinging, the ginga feints." "The heart of capoeira is freedom." "This is what is captivating." "Capoeira gives you the freedom to do what you like, according to the rhythm." "Nobody fails to be happy playing capoeira." "Everybody is looking at you." "You get beaten and you laugh it off." "Seldom will you see a capoeirist receive a blow and not laugh at it." ""You got me, you wretch." "I'll retaliate I'll get you tomorrow."" "You have to be stupid to fight in capoeira." "Bimba said "Capoeira was not meant to beat capoeirists." "Capoeira is meant to beat fools."" "Bimba turned a mortal game into an exercise of virility." "Pure virile exercise." "So a teenager wants to defend himself or go to the other guy's street and not get beaten because he's going out with the girl from the other street." "This is the capoeira I knew." "You would learn capoeira to learn to fight." "And my father, through an appellate judge he knew, managed to get me a scholarship at lpiranga High School." "You spoke about the Antônio Vieira School, during the Olympics, right?" "You only had elite kids there." "To give you an idea, they nicknamed me Cotton, because I was the only black kid in the school." "So in my third week there, I was at that porcelain drinking fountain, with plain water, not cooled, so here came this guy Wellington and his gang, and he touched my ass from the bottom up." "I thought "I can't get into a fight;" "I'm a black on a scholarship, and poor!" "It's hard, you know?" "Discrimination is a serious business." "I walked round the yard, I had no money for the cafeteria, so I was buying time." "When the recess was nearly over, I went back to the fountain to drink drink and saw no one around." ""Now I'm going to drink water in peace."" "I looked to one side and to the other, and, as I was drinking, the guy came again." "But at that time, I already practiced Regional." "This was the great evil." "So, quickly, in a matter of seconds, I gave him an "armada", a "banda de costas" and a "benção"." "And that was the end of that." "To me, it was a decisive factor in my life." "If I hadn't met Mestre Bimba, I don't know what I'd have become." "My father had died." "Then, in 1964, I was about sixteen, I was still growing, no longer had that strong father figure, and, suddenly, I was there." "He was respected, everybody obeyed what he said." "I think it's what I needed, I suppose." "I ended up being taught in Mestre Bimba's school." "He taught us more with words than with the berimbau." "Because of this, I've been married to the same woman for forty years," "I have three children who have graduated, which to me is glorious, to me, coming from a poor family..." "And all that, sometimes, at night at home, I stop and think." "I can feel Bimba's influence in all of it." "He was above all an educator." "He was above all a teacher." "I wish that people who teach the most abstract subjects could have the ability to convey, to innovate and to adapt that Mestre Bimba used to have." "And, especially, it is important to remember folklore shows, that you now see everywhere, first started with Mestre Bimba." "He took capoeira, "maculelê", "samba de roda" and "puxada de rede"" "with him outside Bahia." "Whatever you see on stage in Brazil." "It all began with Bimba's boldness taking this kind of cultural expression to other places outside Bahia." "Those people are still around, alive." "The other day, I met Zelita, who was Bimba's pastora, that is, she did the choir and the samba de roda choreography for Bimba's tours." "Bimba is a major African reference in Brazil and Bahia." "He is a cultural reference for all African Brazilians." "He preserved a series of things in religion." "Bimba was connected with candomblé." "With family ties." "This is common in Africa." "In Angola." "Polygamy." "Bimba had several wives and many children." "Some adopted." "Because he always gave everybody a chance." "People argue" ""Oh, but Bimba taught rich kids, kids whose fathers were graduates, kids of what not..."" "No..." "It was for everyone." "He discriminated against no one." "But underprivileged kids from poor areas wouldn't pay;" "they trained for free." "He would always help." "He considered them his children." "They lived in his home." "He brought them up." "One day, I turned to him and said "Mestre, I won't be able to continue coming to class because I lost my job."" ""That is not a problem." "You can continue to come and practice." "If one day you can pay me, fine." "If you can't, never mind."" "To me, it was a very high-minded gesture on his part." "Today, neither Bimba nor myself could have imagined." "Capoeira as citizenship." "Caring for children." "Helping people to grow." "I saw something so beautiful!" "A three-year old child." "He would put his hand on the mestre's head, so that he would duck..." "His little leg was not long enough, right?" "The mestre was there, but he wasn't..." "the kid would put his little hand up, pushed the mestre's head down, and put his little leg over it." "So beautiful..." "You could read the kids thoughts..." "The kid translated in moves what was inside his little head." "My God, how beautiful!" "We have several of these former street kids, children of the slums, that were already into crime, and who capoeira rescued." "And now they're giving classes all over the world." "One day, I was passing by, playing, I was going to steal mangoes, there were other kids, some stealing cars, some mugging people, others were thieves, some smoking dope, etc.," "then I heard the sound of a berimbau." "I could hear a low sound that I started to look for." "Then I realized there was something different there that could teach me many things." "And today I'm a teacher here at the Fundação Mestre Bimba." "And I will soon open a branch of the Filhos de Bimba Capoeira School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to continue this work." "Just imagine in a place like Brazil to give these people a job." "This is a pathway and Bimba laid the first stones." "A singer, an excellent singer." "He also sang like Africans." "With great energy, because he would sing something so simple, that he improvised and never had the same intonation." ""Sim, sim, sim, não, não, não"." "He sang in different ways, he made it sound like a song with different lines." "He would sing for half an hour and you would be all excited, like in a trance." "He would just change the intonation." ""Sim, sim, sim, não, não, não, oi não, oi sim, sim"." "Unbelievable." "A play on words, a way of singing, the cadence." "You'd start playing immediately." "You couldn't stop." "With the playing, or clapping or stamping his foot." "Nobody could listen to Mestre Bimba sing and stand still." "Impossible." "Whether you were a capoeirist or not." "And tourists too, would get like this..." "Hi, how are you?" "How's it going?" "This is the main street in one of the most famous neighborhoods in Salvador, and this is where Mestre Bimba lived the longest." "Actually, this is the neighborhood where I was born, and one of the most important ones in terms of Capoeira Regional, because it's where baptisms and graduations take place." "And on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, we would always do shows here, at the headquarters, where we are approaching." "There was no pavement at the time." "It was all mud and, even so, the place would be packed." "People came to watch the show." "There were also the ambush courses that he gave here, specialization courses in capoeira." "He would do the theoretical part here, some practice, then we would all go to the plateau, that doesn't exist any more." "We would also go to what is now City Park to do ambushes, which was a kind of capoeira as a fight, as the are of personal defence." "Bimba was my teacher In the Northesast of Amaralina." "He taught me the tricks, my God Right on the street corner." "He taught three-month specialization courses, teaching exits, counter blows and a series of things, and ambushes the last month, every Sunday morning, \in the Northeast of Amaralina." "It was fun; sometimes four or six came to attack you." "Those people would fight." "After a while, other people would come out of the bushes, unexpectedly, with sticks made of banana tree rubber, and he called them the police." "They came to beat everybody and everybody would beat the police." "Things out of his life." "You go to a party in a group of four and, suddenly, you are going past somewhere and six guys come out," "Then you had to use everything you had learned in the previous three months, which was all personal defense." "You would strike blow after blow, you had to." "When you couldn't take it anymore, you'd have to run and to the right side." "Otherwise, you would be ambushed and the guys would attack you." "Because it would only end when he blew the whistle." "He handpicked those that would pass." "This was something culturally African too." "Only trust and respect make learning possible." "Because the mestres know that what they will teach their students students will grow like a comet's tail." "But he is responsible for the light trail the student will leave behind." "Some people came to learn capoeira with Mestre Bimba." "And one of them is Oswaldo, from Goiânia." "So I started to hear rumors that" "Oswaldo had invited Mestre Bimba to come to Goiânia." "The guy proposed that he come and teach at the university;" "that he would refer his university students to Mestre Bimba;" "that he would be a university professor." "I saw the guy talking a lot there, making that whole proposal." "Then, all of a sudden, he decides to go." "To all of us, it was an unsure situation." "Totally insecure." "Everybody told him so." "Everybody told him not to go." "But to no avail." "He said he had already given his word and that he couldn't take it back." "He said "In my days, people would pledge a hair as proof of their word." "I don't even need the hair." "My word is enough."" "What was in his mind when he left Salvador?" "First, there was his feeling that Bahia was ungrateful." "The State of Bahia, not the people." "The State of Bahia had been ungrateful towards him;" "didn't recognize his work;" "did not recognize his legacy." "Bimba thought, and quite rightly so, that Bahian society had not recognized him enough for his work;" "despite some instances of very respectful and respected homage." "So Bimba felt hurt, got upset, disappointed." "He left for Goiânia where he hoped would make more money." "It was his decision against everybody." "It was a unanimous sentiment." "No one said "Go!"" "I never agreed." "I knew he would die." "I went to say goodbye the day of the trip." "I got there and met Evaldo." "Evaldo called me, to Nair's place." "He said "Decânio..."" "He called me into the bedroom." "In the bedroom, after Nair had fallen asleep, he said "Bimba is taking 23 people."" "He was not counting Bimba and Alice, totaling 25 people, to start a new life, past the age of 60, in a strange land, a different culture, different geography, everything different." "Not knowing how to make a living." "Bimba bragged "Tourists come all the way from São Paulo to see me here." "If I'm there, they'll come to see me everyday."" "Another of his dreams I "I'm going to buy a piece of land, make a Candomblé sanctuary, students will ask Alice to pertorm rites," "and I'll have two sources of income."" "Damn." "I knew it was the end." "But..." "Capoeira is now in mourning..." "But when we arrived in Goiânia, none of what was promised was fulfilled." "We went through all kinds of troubles, didn't have enough to eat, he was hoodwinked many times." "Sometimes, we would make a show and the guy had told him it would be a certain amount, and it wasn't." "And even so, out of his share, he had to pay everybody that was in the show with him." "I recall as if it were today that many times I would sit by him on the bed, and he wouldn't chat any more, wouldn't eat, he spent his days sitting, crying day and night." "At times, my mother would give him porridge, he would eat a little and no more." "One day, he was making a show, didn't feel well, went home and had a stroke." "They took him to hospital, he didn't have a social security card, they took him to another hospital, he needed a test, they couldn't do it there, he went back to the previous hospital." "He needed a respirator and couldn't afford it." "They tried and couldn't do it and he ended up dying there of cardio respiratory arrest." "Half-moon today is..." "Full moon shining." "He might even have died here way before." "But he wouldn't have died without care as was the case there, because here in Salvador any doctor would have admitted him, he would never have had to pay." "In every clinic, there is a doctor who was his student." "Clinic owners, hospital owners, you name it." "Playing the game of life, Capoeira never lost..." "But in this mortal game, Capoeira didn't win." "He took the sacred berimbau From the Earth as a trophy" "But played the arrival beat When he got to Heaven's door." "The Lord rest his soul." "He was a good man." "He was really very good." "But nobody should hassle him." "This is why he had 21 women." "When I first met him, I was 17." "He was almost 20 years older than I was." "It went like this." "He had this open place where he played capoeira and I liked capoeira very much." "So, on Sundays, my girlfriends and I would go see capoeira." "And so I got to like him, you know?" ""Hi Maria, where have you found this dark cutie?" "You were hiding her and never told me?" "'" "So he would go there very day." "He would chat and chat, day in, day out." "And that was it." "We kind of got used to each other, until I went to live with him" "When I was living with him, he had three, including me." "There was Nair, who's dead, there was this one called Francisca" " she is alive and lives in Rio - and there was me." "Then he started seeing other women and started leaving me behind." "Left me behind." "What was I to do, right?" "Then he started feeling jealous..." "The women wanted to go out, go to parties, wanted to go here and there, but with him, you couldn't." "You had to go out with him." "Even to the doctor's, if I went for long, he would go after me." "To check if I was at the doctor's or if I had gone out." "When he was with Adélia." "You remember Adélia, don't you?" "Then he would spend more time at Adélia's." "In Pelourinho." "Yes, he'd spend most of his time at Adélia's." "In my time, he had three, besides me." "If I said "These sandals are rather old."" "He wouldn't say anything." "We would go out, pass by a shop and he'd say" ""Let's go in."" "Then he would buy a pairs of shoes, a pair of sandals, clothes and give them to me." "So I had a lot of clothes." "I left the house because of this Alice." "It was the worst case of them all." "This is why we split." "But I can't complain about him." "Yes." "I saw it couldn't work and just split." "If I hadn't left him," "I think we'd have a whole crowd." "We'd have had eleven kids." "Very quickly, I had two children just like that." "And he was 30 years older than I was." "I'm the only one who didn't have children by him." "But I raised these two children of his as if they were mine." "Nenel loves me very much." "Besides being an excellent berimbau player, he was also an expert on the guitar." "He would stay alone in the living room, playing the guitar." "And I would be embarrassed, but I'd go to the bedroom and would do the samba behind the curtain." "I learned to do the samba listening to his guitar." "I love when he got home and toss me up in the air." "Oh, I was so happy!" "Because he was big, and I was just like my daughter, skinny and light." "And he was a huge man." "He would take me like this and throw me up in the air." "I would be so happy." "I remember him so well, as a father." "He would worry about his family, he insisted that we study to be something later in life." "Although we didn't have much time with him." "He died when I was fifteen." "I lived with him for some 40 years." "And I'm no longer with him because he died." "He never treated me badly." "He always treated me well." "I pray to God for him." "There is no life without death." "In a way, death is necessary in order for life to continue." "This is perhaps the eternal return." "What always comes back?" "What always returns in spite of death?" "It's life." "Capoeira teaches this lesson." "To transform oneself, to change." "To transform oneself to remain as one is." "I see the waves in the sea..." "On Amaralina beach..." "I hear the berimbau playing..." "I hear the presence of Bimba" "I feel the presence of Bimba When I join the roda..." "I feel the presence of Bimba, When my berimbau plays." "In capoeira, life is not just this material, physical life here." "Life goes on." "It is present in all the rodas, this is sung everyday." "Wherever a berimbau is playing." "Anywhere in the world, there is the presence of Mestre Bimba." "Mestre Bimba told me / He went to Bahia to see Dona Alice again." "And he also told me / To cry no more, to not be sad anymore." "When I play my berimbau / It weeps right away," "Mestre Bimba will always be in our memories." "The other day, I saw Bimba playing capoeira." "A sixteen years old black boy." "It was something strange, by the way." "Because he joined João Pequeno's roda, he played and I saw Bimba's play." "It was Bimba's style exactly." "But them I tried to find out who was that black guy's Mestre, who this guy was." "Nobody knows, nobody knows him." "And I keep looking for him in my mind." "When he was born, the midwife lifted him up and his mother said" ""Didn't I say it was going to be a boy?" "Look at his little weenie - his little "bimba"" "So they saw his penis and he became Bimba, Mestre Bimba." "Who made Regional's first badge?" "It was designed by Dr. Decânio and embroidered by me." " Hand embroidered." "It was round." " Yes, it was." "When Alice began to do it, she made the current one." "It is square because of Alice." "From my point of view it's round." "Just like the beer." "The beer commercial." " How are you, Mother Bena?" " I'm fine, how are you?" "I'm fine, thanks." "I call this chair here Bimba's chair." "He'd tell us, "Put the leg up, down, wherever."" "But the movement has to start from the waist." "And what did I do to train this waist movement?" "First, I used a swaying system." "Using this movement without too much energy." "Can you see it?" "Look." "If you are too stiff, you'll be using your arm." "Look." " Let your weight take you." " Let your weight take you!" "It's part of his teaching technique." "He used to say," ""Where the finger goes, the cacumbu follows." "Where a man's body goes, death follows."" "Or life." "So what do you do?" "In the batuque there was a number of impact blows." "They're called bandas." "Banda- traçada." "You hit with one leg and the other one drags you." "Banda- de- costas, you do this." "So those are bandas." "Banda is when you strike with your thigh." "Back, front or traçada." "One leg hits and the other one traça." "It makes sense." "So to get away when you're down," "I did this, which is based on a system" " Let me turn the fan on - on a Danish exercising system." "I call it the "Danish wheels."" "It's an elaborated axis where you stretch your back." "But the Danish one goes in one direction only." "It's in this position." "We do it differently." "From here I moved to a more dynamic capoeira conception, which is the "hand roller skate"." "Because some sons of guns named it "Decânio's wheels."" "No one touches Decânio's wheels!" "Not even the proctologist!" " It wouldn't look good in the circle." " Right." "If people begin to talk..." "This one here, you can do the same thing." "The main movement is with your butt." "This is just for support." "It's based on Ruy's exercises." "Ruy used to do it a lot." "Not with this." "He didn't use any support." "I'll do it with the knee first." "I'll take it like that." "Look." "Do you understand?" "You have to focus on your belly." "You do the movement of a drawer, moving your butt." "You focus everything here." "T his is where your strength is." "Every capoeira move must begin here." "It isn't easy." "Now, from here, you move upwards." "Try it and you'll see it's not easy." "I see it." "Now it gives you great flexibility." "It's very important especially to understand..." "capoeira's "martial arts."" "If you don't use your entire body..." "It was Carnival, and there was a policeman." "He wore glasses and was very strong." "He opened the way with his butt." "When he touched me with his butt, I stepped aside." "As he walked by me, I even helped him." "And he fell." " What is this?" "I said "excuse me."" " With your butt?" "I kept quiet, but he understood his lesson and didn't come back." "He wanted to hit everyone!" "If I had resisted," "I would be the one to get hurt, because he was very strong." "I help him fall down." "God bless you, Mr. Decânio." "Goodbye!" "A very important story with Bimba." "When I was 12 and met him at a house in Vasco da Gama, next to Engenho Velho," "there was someone mentally ill there." "But he was very strong and broke everything." "Someone tried to hold him, he knocked him down." "Then someone else tried, and he knocked him down again." "Then I heard, "It has to be Bimba." "We must talk to Mestre Bimba."" ""Who is this Bimba?" "He must be good."" "You see someone beaten up calling Bimba." "Then Bimba came, and I kept a distance, because I couldn't get closer." "Then the Mestre simply asked to buy 6 meters of rope because at the time the store sold rope, dried meat, flour, toothpaste, perfume; everything at the time." "Then someone bought 6 meter of rope and gave it to him," ""Now everyone get out of here."" "So they stepped aside and he stayed there with the guy who was swollen, a strong guy." "When he got there, the man began to make a move, all he did was..." "He was only 43, just like the son now, strong and healthy." "So he tripped him up and the guy fell." "I was looking from a distance, because we couldn't get any closer." "He grabbed the rope and put it around the most sensitive part and held the guy." "Then someone went there to help him, it was a matter of seconds." "Maybe 2, 3 or 4 minutes;" "I'm not sure." "He said, "There he is." "Take him to the doctor."" "I watched many capoeira fights." "Liberdade was a capoeira center in Bahia just like the Nordeste." "So I was excited about capoeira and my friend invited me to join Bimba." "I enrolled." "At the time I worked with embankment." "So I went there." "Then Zé Papa Fumo, who was known as Urubu, said," ""Mestre, I have a boy here who wants to join us."" ""What is he?" "A worker, a bum or what?" " He is a worker, Mestre." " Bring him here." "I think I had to pay around 1,500 reais." "1,500 contos. 1,000 réis." "So I paid." ""Write down your name here." I wrote down my full name. "You're enrolled."" "So I had the inclination, and I began to like capoeira." "After two months, they introduced me to the patron, his name was Camisa Roxa." "He took me to a corner and gave me a bênção." "So they stuck me to the "plywood."" "And then Dona Alice said," ""Son, you don't have to be so tough on the boy."" "Then one day, I had joined the gym for one week," "Mestre Bimba came and said, "Stand in line."" "I had never seen capoeira or berimbau because I lived in Maceiô for a long time." ""Stand in line." I was the fifth in line." ""What on Earth is that?"" "Then he went up front and said, "Somersault."" "I didn't know where to go." "I said, "I'm screwed." But the first ones went there, did the somersault, the one with the hand, simple, but I had never done it." "My turn was coming, and I was terrified!" "When it was my turn, I did it and hit my back on the floor." "He said, "First, fall on your back;" "then, you kneel down; then, you fall on your feet."" "So I went to the beach in Itapoã and began to practice the somersault." ""If he asks me again, he'll see." I became an expert, but he never asked me again to perform a somersault." "When he said he was leaving, I decided to open a gym with Xaréu." "One day, I was there..." "I was feeling myself a master in the gym with my students." "So I said, "Come on, let's stand in line."" "They did." "I said, "Give me a somersault", acting like a teacher." "I went there and did it." "There were some girls there and they said," ""No way!" "I don't want to break my head and die."" "It was a big turmoil and no one did it." "So I said, "All right." "Let me teach you."" "At the time I understood that I wasn't a capoeira Mestre," "I was just teaching them some moves." "The Mestre was someone else who'd tell us to flip and we'd do it." "It was cool." "I placed myself as a teacher of movements of Regional Capoeira." "That's when I began to learn capoeira." "We joined it in 68." "There were 8 of us joining Mestre Bimba's gym." "On the street, we were boys," "I was 16, he's a little bit older." "We used to fight against each other and then one day we decided the following," ""Let's not fight among us anymore." "Instead of fighting with someone from our street, let's learn to fight and bring our street together to fight against other streets."" "At the time, we fought against other groups, streets and neighborhoods." "So we got together." "And the eight of us joined Mestre Bimba's gym." " Now you know our intentions." " Yes, that was it." "But we already knew Mestre Bimba, because he was already famous at the time." "In 1968, people already knew Mestre Bimba in Rio de Janeiro." "He was becoming famous all over Brazil." "But I still had to tell my mom I was going to learn how to type." "At the time, just like computers today, you had to know how to type to work as an errand-boy, or as anything else." "So my mom gave me money to learn how to type, so my friends and I went and paid Mestre Bimba." "But as we went up the stairs on Laranjeiras Street, meeting Mestre Bimba was a shock, he was a famous person." "I became interested in something that capoeira taught me a lot, which is capoeira philosophy." "Because capoeira, at least to me, is not about blows only." "We heard Mestre Borracha speak." " How old is he?" "80?" " 79" "He probably doesn't fight with the s ame power or he doesn't have the same flexibility, I don't have it either, but the swing, the philosophy, the moves, are still in our head, we'll die with them." "On my graduation day, I was very nervous because there were some idiots, just like that one, that kept saying, "Bootlicker!" And whatever..." "And this and that..." "And then, they said, "Mestre, make him do this move."" "He asked for a few moves." "In the beginning, it was, "Pedro Paulo, in the center, this and that..."" "And the whole gang was there, Jagunço, Capanga, Jararacussú and Filhote." " Aírton Bravo." " Exactly!" "And I was standing there, with my heart pounding." "He didn't make things easy for me." " If you make one mistake..." " Then I was screwed." "He turned to me and said, "Escurinho, are you nervous?"" "I nodded." "He wanted 3 or 4 moves." "He walked around me three times." " And asked you to perform." "He wanted 3 or 4 moves." "So he turned to me, and people were putting pressure." "All those who were extremely jealous of Escurinho were putting pressure." "Then he said, "Escurinho, back somersault no support."" "For God's sake!" "He wants to disgrace me." " What a friend!" "Instead of a meia- lua- de- frente, a martelo." "Back somersault, no support." "Mestre, are you against me too?" "For God's sake!" "But it was the first move he asked me." "I took a deep breath and said, "I'm screwed." It's either glory or disaster!" "Then I walked to the circle, took a deep breath, did a somersault and landed on my feet." "Then people applauded and said, "Another one."" "He said, "Enough." "Escurinho, sit down."" "Did I lick the Mestre's boots?" "No, he respected me!" "Few friends had the opportunity I had." "I studied at Ginásio lpiranga at the time." "Whenever I had a chance, 4 P.M. Or 3 P.M., I went to the gym." "Even when I had trained in the morning, I still went back there." "I had earned respect to go there and talk to the Mestre." "I used to bring him Suerdick cigars." "I almost believe you did lick his boots." " I treated him well, man." " I know, I understand." "My mom used to say, "Son, those who kiss my children's mouth make mine sweet."" "No wonder why I'm Nenel's patron." "It could have been any of you." "But it wasn't Bimba who chose me." "Nenel did." "Do you understand how it is?" " How many bars of chocolate did you give him?" "At the time, Diamante Negro, maybe ten." " A whole box!" "So what happened was, I used to go to the gym early." "Dona Alice was resting, The Mestre used to put his feet up, on the window sill, smoking a cigar." " We could see it from the street." " Yes, the smoke." "I used to sit next to him and listen to his life stories." "The Mestre wasn't teaching me about arqueado, banda traçada, vingativa, no." "Lessons of life." "After the class, after the iúna, then we had the "bath warm-up."" "We made that up because Mestre Bimba's gym had one bathroom only." "And Mestre Bimba, smart as he was, smacked the lead pipe, to decrease the amount of water and save him money." "So we took a long time in the shower because there wasn't enough water." "People had to warm-up to go take a shower, so we wouldn't go in cold." "Therefore, "bath warm-up."" "We had to warm up to take a shower." "We could do anything there." "It wasn't Mestre Bimba's class anymore." "He'd stay by the window mocking everyone who'd get hit." "It was up to us there." "We did what we wanted." "We used to fight, two against one, and he'd just laugh." "There was a group graduating," "Caiçara showed up and asked, "Who is the Mestre?" "I want to play with him"." "Then everyone, the students, everyone wanted to beat the man up." "Then the Mestre said, "Leave him." "Sit down." "We talk about it later." "Sit down."" "The graduation went on and everyone forgot about it." "When it finished, he said, "Do you still want to play with me?"" "Caiçara bend over by the berimbau, and when he stood up to play, Mestre gave him a benção." "He grabbed the man, broke his nose, and his mouth began to bleed." "Caiçara wiped off his mouth and said, "What's this, Mestre?"" "He replied, "It's a foot, son."" ""Alice, bring some water to wash this lad's mouth."" "Caiçara's version is the following he said he went in to play with the Mestre." "Then he was playing with the Mestre." "The Mestre looked at Crispim, who was playing berimbau." "When the Mestre looked he also looked at Crispim, and the Mestre hit him." ""I looked to the side."" ""How can you be so stupid?"" ""We became friends, and he invited me to watch candomblé at night."" " Ah, great!" "I remember the symposium in 69, Mestre Bimba was..." "Sena and Mestre Bimba didn't get along anymore." "Mestre Bimba had kicked him out or something." "Then Sena asked, as he was about to show Mestre Bimba's moves." "He showed him the negativa." "Sena goes, "Wait." "When I used to train..." With all his stupidity, he said," ""When I trained at Mr. Manuel dos Reis Machado's gym, who's sitting over there, Mestre Bimba, this move was called 'resistance.'" "It wasn't called 'negativa."' Then the man turned around," ""Mestre, what's the name of this move?"" "Mestre Bimba replied, "Negativa."" "Sena said, "No, when I was there, it was called 'resistance."'" "The man came back and said, "Mestre Bimba, what's the name of the move?"" "Mestre Bimba said, "Negativa."" ""Cocorinha, queda-de-rim, and negativa, they're resistance falls, each has a different name."" "That was it." "Sena said, "He just made it up." "He made it all up."" "It was a smart answer." "Everyone applauded him." "Sena had a stupid look on his face." "The problem is that people die." "But they say myths never die." "Sometimes, when I go to the gym, some kid comes in and I say, "What's up, boy?"" " What?" ""Aren't you going to say hello?" "Can't you see Mestre Bimba?"" "They look around - where?" " Right there, can't you see him?" "So get out and come in again." "They did. "Do you see him now?"" " No." ""Then get out." "Come in." "Do you see Mestre Bimba here?"" " Yes, I do." "Now you can come in." "Because he's not dead." "You won't see him if you don't want to." "We use different woods to build a berimbau, such as canguru, café bravo, taipoca, pau-pombo." "But, in my opinion, the biriba is still the most important one to make a good berimbau." "First, we bark it, wait 15 or 20 days to dry up and then we remove the last thin layer with a knife." "This shoe sole leather, we put it in with the help of a tack to protect the biriba from the wire later on." "The next step is the sandpaper." "Then, the varnish, which is also homemade." "We prepare the varnish ourselves because industrialized varnish, as well as dyes, inhibit the quality of the berimbau sound." "Then we prepare the cabaça." "I'm keeping the seed... to plant new cabaças." "Now we tie it up, attach it to the berimbau and we're ready to play." "This piece of wire is taken from an old tire." "We smooth it with sandpaper, a nd make the handle." "After the wire and the cabaça, to complement the berimbau sound we use" "a small basket known as caxixi, which is also made by us." "To make the caxixi, we use sedge straw, a type of liana we find in the woods," "and the leftover cabaça." "When the cabaça isn't good for making a berimbau, we use it to make the caxixi." "With the leftover biriba we make the baqueta or vareta." "To make a berimbau, almost everything comes from Nature." "And plus the dobrão." "In the old days we used 40,000 réis." "Today it's hard to find real, imagine" "So we normally use bronze or brass, which divides the berimbau's basics notes." "Nice!" "Now we are going to portray the teachings created by Mestre Bimba." "We can't show everything, but the most important points." "For example, whenever we have a beginner..." "This is for you, who are the future too, you are teachers of capoeira, so you must hold their hands to swing, when the person doesn't know anything." "You tell them to put one foot behind, toe down, bend the knees a little bit, come back, the other leg..." "These are the basic steps for teaching Regional Capoeira." "Then we'll do what my father used to call, and so did we, the "entrance exam."" "Preparing the queda-de-rim." "Now the bridge." "I know you are good at it, but I'll put it here, just to show how the old man used to do it, very carefully." "Hold it and then come back." "A-U." "The guarda-baixa, commonly known as cocorinha, which is the habit of squatting." "In fact, my father said that cocorinha is this position here." "Squatting." "But since the students called guarda-baixa cocorinha, they kept the name." "We call it guarda-baixa and cocorinha." "Negativa." "They are the two basic defenses in teaching of Regional Capoeira." "Then it makes it easier to learn the rasteira, the tesoura, and also the presilha." "Next..." "One of you stay here in front of the chair." "Ginga." "Let's do two meias-luas-de-frente and one armada." "This is a tradition in Regional Capoeira." "In the first lesson, the student must go through the chair." "Armada..." "Cool..." "Ginga..." "Meia-lua-de-compasso." "There's an important detail." "Whenever my father taught meia-lua-de-compasso, he'd tap the floor to show the student both the right body position and a detail that I also draw the student's attention to, never touch the floor like this." "Always with the hand open, to avoid bone fractures or any problem." "After the chair, we begin to train the sequence of basic movements." "Today some of the capoeira professionals talk about it as something from the past, and it isn't." "As we have the letters, A, B, C, D... to make up sentences and words, the sequence of basic movements is like the ABC of the Regional Capoeira." "And based on this sequence, in the future, we will learn more technically demanding movements." "So, when you do a guarda-baixa, a negativa, it will be much easier for you in the future to do a tesoura-de frente, a tesoura-de- costas, or get into a negativa..." "So we'll show here, step by step, the composition of the sequence of basic movements of Regional Capoeira." "Ginga..." "The attackl two meias-luas-de-frente... armada and back with A-U." "And the defense, two guarda-baixa and negativa." "You don't have to repeat it." "Second part." "Two queixadas..." "The partner goes up with the armada... bênção." "This is the A-U with rolê and cabeçada." "Then we have the third part." "Two martelos, defend with the palm of your hand, armada, counter attack with bênção, A-U with role and cabeçada." "The fourth part." "Two godemes... counter attack with galopante, arrastão." "It should be interesting to explain something, because a lot of people say, "If you place the player in a limited, enclosed space, there's no capoeira."" "People think that capoeira is about throwing your legs up." "They forget or are unaware that there are lots of moves in capoeira with the elbow, the hand, the head..." "So in this part of the sequence you'll see some basic arm moves, the godeme and galopante." "Fifth part." "Arpão-de-cabeça." "Giro, guarda-média e cabeçada, joelhada, negativa," "A-U with role and cabeçada again." "Sixth part." "Meia-lua-de-compasso, guarda-baixa e meia-lua-de-compasso, side joelhada, A-U with rolê, cabeçada." "Seventh." "Armada... armada, bênção," "A-U with role and cabeçada." "And to finish up, bênção and bênção." "This is sequence of basic movements for beginners, but in the future people will do the first and last parts only and then mix the rest in order to train reflex and agility." "And the sequence is also a warm-up for all activities we'll perform later on." "Basically, Regional Capoeira is divided into loose moves, the moves on which all other moves are based, which are unbalancing moves and projection moves, which were created to help the player free himself when he's trapped." "Or, when he's projected, he'll fall down without getting hurt." "So first we'll do, in the case of the basic moves, since they're part of the sequence." "Armada and meia-lua-de-frente are loose moves." "Then we come in with ponteira, esporão, among others." "Now we'll pertorm some of the unbalancing moves." "Ginga, I want to see armada and rasteira." "Cool!" "Now, let's switch to make her fall down too." "Armada and tesoura-de-frente." "Armada and tesoura-de-costas." "Armada and vingativa." "Now give me a meia-lua-de-compasso and banda-solta." "Some of the moves, such as banda-solta were taken from the batuque." "Right." "Let's do the armada and banda-de-costas." "So just like those movements and even the negativa, other moves are included" "in the unbalancing moves." "You have the basic ones on which you build the counter attacks, the many ways of defending yourself from a possible unbalancing move." "This is where, from my point of view, capoeira develops." "Many people think that Regional Capoeira is just a sequence and a cintura-desprezada." "This is not true." "Regional Capoeira develops" "According to the player's needs." "So, there are basic things, for example, you do an armada and a vingativa, but then you're ready for an armada and vingativa, the person counter attacks with a tesoura-de-frente, tesoura-de-costas, banda-de-costas." "So this how Regional Capoeira develops." "And instinctively often during a game some unexpected movements might occur, we don't know what they are, but we register them and begin to develop and train." "This is how the Regional Capoeira evolves." "Conversion - stalkerama"