Capoeira An African Martial Art

Born out of a ubiquitous need to protect themselves in a hostile environment, Africans enslaved in Brazil practiced a martial art now known as Capoeira. Its methods were sneaky, the results are often brutal and when necessary, lethal.

Capoeira was and is composed of cat like movements where participants collapse to the ground, use the cart wheels, flips, hand stands and many other deceptive movements to avoid strikes and damage on opponents. Practitioners use kicks, sweeps, head butts, gouges and punches to find their opponent. All these actions are combined to write a devastating form of martial arts, which protected his old participants from enslave and occasionally each other.

Capoeira's origins are often disputed. There are many who disagree on whether it arrived with enslaved Africans or whether Africans created it, when they reached Brazil. One theory suggests that it was a courtship dance in Angola used by suitors of young women. Another suggests that it was a battle system that was refined and developed by Africans for its lethal form of Brazilian slavery era. Whether the final outcome of this controversy is the ultimate truth that no one denies that it is an African creation.

On many plantations in the Brazilian countryside, enslaved Africans practiced and applied these methods to combat the harmful behavior is often meted out by overseers, their crews and slave owners. Its practitioners were able to create such a force, through their movements and surprise tactics that it was not uncommon for victims to be knocked out suddenly or dies from his stroke. Users of this martial art also placed razor blades between their toes or used knives to unmercifully deal with those who chose to cross their path.

Brazilian Maroons, who were Africans who escaped slavery and formed alliances with "Indians", were notorious for using Capoeira against hunters runway and soldiers who tried to return them to a state of slavery. Survivors of the ambush with Maroons that involved hand-to-hand fighting described scenes of chaos, where the Maroons after a seemingly out of nowhere striking them with blows from angles that they could not understand. It was not uncommon to hear about these enslave turn tail to the wind in an attempt to escape from these vicious attacks.

As a result of the deadly interactions that occur between Africans and colonizers, and sometimes damage from African participants at each other, Capoeira was outlawed by the "slave owners" and other leading authorities. However, always creative, the community found ways to keep it alive. Capoeira was incorporated into dance movements in public and secret locations were arranged for his practice in private.

The actions of Africans to practice their martial arts and when they could ensure the survival of Capoeira throughout Brazil's history of African slavery. After the ban on slavery in 1888, Brazil continued to ban the practice and the game was seen as a martial art practiced by "thugs" and "criminals". Fortunately, many African Brazilians and other Brazilians who realized its true value and history did not allow the criminalization of their martial arts and continued to practice Capoeira.

Despite the restrictions, the official prohibition of Capoeira could not definitive and will of the people defeated the will of the state. And without such restrictions on the martial art Capoeira has evolved into the form that is practiced today. Elements of dance and martial arts have both survived to create an experience that is both mesmerizing and instructive.

Practitioners of Capoeira gathered in a circle, called a Roda, and those that surround the participants sing, clap and play musical instruments such as the Berimbau (string instrument) and drums. As participants perform a movement called Silver (Jinga), where they move around each other, almost like a dance, to confuse the opponent. At this point, it is open season on both opponents, as participants leap into an array of deceptive offensive and defensive movements against each other. As a participant leaves the circle another immediately takes his place. This interaction between the groups continues until the group decides to disband.

Role of Africans in Capoeira and development of martial arts should not be ignored, forgotten or discarded. The Bravery of its practitioners in the past to protect their freedom and in the present to preserve their traditions, is proof that true greatness can be suppressed but never destroyed.