Authentic, Established historical viewpoints of Capoeira mestres: 1928-2023
I'm objectively providing these quotes here to share insight on Mestres viewpoints of capoeira. Contrasting what capoeira practiced and taught today is, compared to how it was, how they did it and their moral alignments of capoeira's and capoeiristas' development over the decades.
Translation note: Statements originally in Portuguese have been translated into English. These are short excerpts, not complete interview transcripts. Dates identify the interview or publication when known. One Nestor Capoeira interview is back-translated from a Portuguese translation of an earlier English interview. I used an AI (chat gpt to translate the quotes. references provided in order of timeliness.).
Quote-0. Mestre Zuma (Annibal Burlamaqui) — 1928
>"Capoeiragem, as everyone knows, comes from many years ago; however, it has neither rules nor method.
Those fortunate enough to know it have, until today, given no thought to methodizing it, giving it rules and turning it into a sport, as, for example, football"
Source: Annibal Burlamaqui (Mestre Zuma), Gymnástica Nacional (Capoeiragem), Methodisada e Regrada, 1928, p. 15.
Original 1928 book — Wikimedia Commons
1. Mestre Pastinha — 1967
>“Capoeira Angola can only be taught without forcing a person's natural way of being. The idea is to make use of each person's own free and natural gestures.”
>“Nobody fights the way I do, but in their way there is all the wisdom I have learned. Each person is their own person.”
Source: Roberto Freire, É luta! É dança! É capoeira, Revista Realidade, 1967, p. 81.
Historical transcription of the original interview
2. Mestre Canjiquinha — testimony published in 1989
>“I learned capoeira in 1936 in Periperi. I had four mestres. I asked each one of them to teach me, and I learned.”
He described experimenting with these rhythms and movements, including practicing alone in front of a mirror.
Source: A alegria da capoeira, p. 40.
Academic reproduction of Canjiquinha's testimony
3. Mestre Waldemar da Paixão — 1990
>"I had four mestres. I asked each one of them to teach me, and I learned."
Source: Interview conducted by Brazil's National Capoeira Programme, recalling his training beginning in 1936.
4. Mestre Nestor Capoeira — June 13, 2002
>“Leopoldina's method was completely different. It wasn't structured. His classes were great fun. You developed a lot of creativity and improvisation.”
>“These methods that we created [...] allow students to develop very quickly, but after three or four years they no longer improvise.”
>“I wanted to get rid of the idea that ‘I belong to this group or clan.’”
>“I wanted to reintroduce that method, keeping the elements I had when I learned capoeira in the street, like when I learned to ride a bicycle.”
Source: Interview originally conducted by Planet Capoeira, later translated into Portuguese and republished in 2009.
Interview — Portuguese translation
Note: The English above is a back-translation, not a verified reproduction of the original English transcript.
5. Mestre Ananias — 2006
>"Nobody taught [...] everybody would get together, and that was it. There was no such thing as looking for a mestre."
Source: Entrevista Especial: Mestre Ananias, Portal Capoeira.
6. Mestre Gil Velho — September 26, 2007
>“The systematization and standardization of training made learning easier, allowing students to develop technically very quickly. But in exchange, they receive their instruction through movements imposed upon them, in a rationalized and compulsory manner, destroying their spontaneity.”
>“The capoeira of today reproduces its own perspective instead of constructing its identity.”
Source: Entrevista Mestre Gil Velho, Portal Capoeira.
7. Mestre Marcial — November 1, 2008
>“Sometimes it was becoming a little automatic, so I realized the need to make things freer.”
>“In the end, everything becomes too similar. Everyone becomes robots.”
>“I preferred to give people a little more freedom to grow within capoeira and experience more, without losing tradition.”
Source: Interview reproduced in Flávio Soares Alves, O corpo em movimento na capoeira, p. 100 of the thesis.
University of São Paulo thesis, PDF
8. Mestre Zequinha — March 20, 2009
>"The 'cat's leap' isn't something you can teach. You create it in the moment."
Source: Interview reproduced in Flávio Soares Alves, O corpo em movimento na capoeira, p. 102 of the thesis. The expression pulo do gato refers here to an improvised, ingenious solution within the game.
University of São Paulo thesis, PDF
9. Mestre Fantasma — June 2010
>“If they're good capoeiristas [...] they don't need to be linked to that group.”
>“I think uniforms prevent people from being themselves.”
>“I believe that Capoeira would benefit a lot from breaking those brands down.”
Source: Interviews documented by Eurico Vianna Neto in Capoeira and Transnational Culture: Investigating the Social Role of a Global Social Practice.
10. Mestre Nestor Capoeira — January 2011
>“The ‘freedom’ that my colleagues proclaim exists only in their speeches.”
>“Inside the academy, what we see is the militaristic authoritarianism of higher-ranking students towards beginners.”
>“They teach according to an extremely rigid model, where things are either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.”
>“What they call ‘improvising’ is merely rearranging certain movement clichés in different ways.”
>“Some of these young teachers [...] are managing to think with their own heads, far from the brainwashing of the group to which they belong.”
Source: His own essay and lecture material, Hierarquia e autoridade nas academias de capoeira, published through Portal Capoeira.
11. Mestre Cobra Mansa — manifesto dated 2002, later republished in 2012
>"Capoeira cannot be limited by a group of practitioners, by a formal organization and not even by a group of mestres"
Source: Capoeira Community, Institutions, Society and Individuals. The manifesto is cited in academic research as appearing in Caxixi, no. 3, in 2002.
English manifesto, republished in May 2012
12. Mestre Cobra Mansa — September 2012
>"We are losing our identity, our roots, treating capoeira as a labelled, packaged and choreographed product, just for show."
Source: Encerramento das Olimpíadas: Que Capoeira É Essa? — his criticism of the presentation of capoeira at the London Olympics closing ceremony.
13. Mestre Tabosa — January 1, 2014
>"That's what I find interesting about capoeira: it doesn't need an owner."
Source: Grão-Mestre — Ser ou Não Ser, written by Mestre Tabosa.
14. Mestre Renê — April 2014
>"I'm going to do my own ginga. And I won't be disrespecting my mestre, my teacher, or capoeira. I'll be myself!"
Source: Address discussing standardization within Capoeira Angola, reproduced in academic research by Marco Antônio Sareta Poglia.
15. Mestre Geni — January 31, 2017
>"If a mestre or capoeira centre says only the mestre should perform the chamada, that's a procedure, not a fundamental."
Source: Mestre Geni, As Chamadas ou Passo a Dois.
16. Mestre Sabiá — March 11, 2017
>“Capoeira is much bigger and much stronger than any group.”
>“Our school is our own way of teaching, but capoeira is much bigger than any school. It's a much bigger universe.”
>“Capoeira is rich enough not to belong to any single tendency.”
>“Capoeira deserves the boldness to try different things, to try original things.”
Source: Interview with Papoeira about Ginga Mundo, other schools, and the importance of encountering different expressions of capoeira.
17. Mestre Suassuna — interview date unverified
>"Before the big groups existed, there were capoeiristas scattered around [...] All those people deserve recognition, the anonymous ones."
Source: Interview originally attributed to Capoeira do Brasil, reproduced in a circulated interview document.
18. Mestre Franklin — testimony published in a 2020 dissertation
>“Everyone playing capoeira differently, everyone different, from various groups and various mestres—that's what's beautiful about capoeira.”
>“There isn't standardization, everybody gingando as if it were karate or judo [...] everybody doing the same thing, as if it were something mechanical.”
Source: Isabele Pires Santos Soler, Capoeira, memória e relações etnicorraciais na cidade de Salvador, p. 60.
19. Mestra Janja — interview published in 2023
>"Floreio is an authorial language, the capoeirista's signature, their fingerprint."
Source: Pasqua and Toledo, Saberes acerca do floreio na Capoeira: A voz do corpo experiente, p. 12.
20. Mestre Xuxo — interview published in 2023
>"Some capoeira groups create limits [on floreios] because they don't know how to perform them."
Source: Same study by Pasqua and Toledo, p. 13.
