How many branch in Capoeria?

[Ali]

Can any people tell me how many branch of Capoeria?

 

Thank in advance.

[cathal]

I think there are three main branches, and they have their own derivatives.

[Davison]

Well don't look at me, I dunno.

[Skeptic 2004]

I believe there's actually two main branches: Regional and Angola. Like any other MA, they probably have several derivative branches, especially if there were any Western students in Brazil around 1960's-70's when capoeria started attracting attention from the outside world (we Westerners tend to go somewhere, train under someone for a little bit, and then come back to America/Europe as a "master", setting up our own style, opening schools, and raking in money).

 

Angola if I'm not mistaken was the traditional style taught in Bahia. The Angola practiced today I think is said to be different from the traditional Angola practiced in Mestre Bimba's time since there was a massive sweep of modifications to it in 1940s -1950s.

 

Regional was founded by Manoel dos Reis Machado (Mestre Bimba) around 1930's-ish. He held some sort of meeting with other Angola capoeria instructors and suggested teaching capoeria differently than the way it was being traditionally taught at the time. There's mixed accounts on how well this went down with the other instructors. He was criticized for wanting to make capoeria more combative and lethal (which I personally find ironic considering that way back in the day [before the Academia period] they used to hide knives or razor blides in their sleeves). He pretty much broke away from mainstream and started doing his own thing; the style of capoeria he started teaching others became known as "Regional", I'm guessing because he named his system Luta Regional Baiana. His style of capoeria ended up becoming immensely popular.

 

Now, there is a third major group, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as a full fledged branch. The Senzala Group was started by a group of teenagers in the 1960s in Rio de Janeiro. These teenagers didn't have a teacher; instead they tried copying Bimba's method and then threw in a little bit of their own imagination into their capoeria. They studied how Eastern MA's trained and tried to initiate similar training methods. They also assimiliated Western methods of learning (since a few of them were college bound). They introduced a highly gymnastic element to capoeria (since they were all pretty young and fit) and ended up making the game more like a sport. They were pretty influential by 1965 since they were the only major capoeria group in Rio. I'm assuming that Rio by the 1960s was also a touristy city, and I'm thinking that if foreigners had the chance to see capoeria in Rio, it was probably a Senzala style.

 

Any capoeria guys feel free to correct me. I read this all in what I thought was an excellent comprehensive book on capoeria by Nestor Capoeria called Capoeria: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game.

Edited March 28, 2005 by Skeptic 2004

[cathal]

Good info

[Skeptic 2004]

I stand corrected:

I met some capoeristas from Maui today and briefly attended a capoeira seminar to learn that the Senzala Group is a full fledged branch; the Brazilian mestre running the seminar taught Senzala style. That, and I think the "Grupo Senzala" t-shirts everyone wore to the seminar was a dead giveaway.

[battousai16]

really? when i train capoeira, we might do a senzala exercise or "play senzala". maybe i'm hearing him wrong or something, i'm still pretty new to it, but i thought it was kind of a game or an exercise, kind of like someone saying "hey lets do ground work"... y'know, a different aspect to it.

[Oopgrub]

I practice capoeira, my uniform says Grupo Muzenza on it, its regional i believe

[JusticeZero]

IMO, and there is quite a bit of debate on this, the whole "Regional"/Angola" thing is almost more akin to Northern/Southern in Chinese martial arts. Different "Regional" schools I have seen actually have pretty dramatic differences in form and traditions, as do "Angola" schools.