Бразилиялық капоэйра шебері – Mestre Bimba

Brazilian capoeira master

Manuel dos Reis Machado, commonly called Mestre Bimba (ˈmɛstɾi ˈbĩbɐ; November 23, 1900 – February 5, 1974), was a Brazilian capoeira mestre and the founder of the capoeira regional style. Bimba was one of the best capoeiristas of his time, undefeated in numerous public challenges against fighters from various martial arts. Bimba came from capoeira Angola, and taught Angola style. He reformed capoeira primarily in response to Burlamaqui and Sinhôzinho's attempts to strip it of music and African traditions, and transform it into a mere set of bodily techniques. On the other hand, he was unsatisfied with capoeira Angola of his time, because of its emphasis on rituals and ineffective kicks. Bimba encouraged adding new kicks to capoeira, as long as they were effective and incorporated into the basic footwork, ginga. In declaration of his style in 1936, Bimba claimed to have substracted two and added 15 kicks to traditional capoeira. Later, this number rose to 52 techniques from various arts. Martelo and queixada kicks, introduced by Bimba, became hallmarks of the Regional style. Sequences of predetermined movements as a teaching method was one of the major innovations of Bimba. Another key innovations was teaching capoeira to a broader audience, which helped spread the art to different social groups and ultimately contributed to its decriminalization. Bimba was also an excellent singer and berimbau player.

Manoel dos Reis Machado was born on 23 November 1900 in the neighbourhood of Engenho Velho, in Salvador. The son of Luiz Cândido Machado and Maria Martinha do Bonfim, Machado was born at the Bairro do Engenho Velho, Salvador. The nickname "Bimba", whose literal meaning was "phallus", came up as a result of a bet between his mother and the midwife during his birth. His mother bet that he was going to be a girl and the midwife bet he would be a boy; after he was delivered, the midwife revealed that he was a boy by pointing between his legs at his bimba. In the context of Brazil, "Bimba" also meant "beating". He started learning capoeira when he was 12 years old, with a Capitão da Companhia Baiana de Navegação (Navigation Captain) from Estrada das Boiadas (present day Bairro da Liberdade) in Salvador, called Bentinho, even though in those days capoeira was still being persecuted by the authorities. He would later be known as one of the legendary founding fathers of contemporary capoeira, (the other being Vicente Ferreira Pastinha, also known as Mestre Pastinha), the father of modern capoeira angola. Machado was a coal miner, carpenter, warehouse man, longshoreman, and horse coach conductor, but mainly a capoeirista.

At 18, Bimba felt that capoeira had lost all its efficacy as a martial art and an instrument of resistance, becoming a folkloric activity reduced to nine movements. It was then that Bimba started to restore movements from the old capoeira (later known as Angola), added movements from an extinct African fighting style called batuque – a type of martial art that he learned from his father (of which his father was a champion), as well as introducing movements created by himself. Bimba was the first to create a method of teaching to help facilitate learning because, until then, capoeira was only learned by watching and participating in the roda. This was the beginning of the development of capoeira regional. It's also known that Bimba tested his new students putting them in a strong gravata or neck lock for three minutes, only accepting them in his school if they endured said time without tapping out. However, after the entrance of his apprentice Cisnando Lima, he changed the initiation test to a demonstration of flexibility and a written examination. The newspaper A Tarde covered the incident under the title of "It's not easy to catch a capoeirista! He defended himself using cabeçadas and rabos de arraia" ("Não é fácil pegar um capoeirista Livrou se da agressão com cabeçadas e rabos de arraia"). In 1942, Machado opened his second school at the Terreiro de Jesus on Rua das Laranjeiras. The school is still open today and was supervised by his former student, "Vermelho" until the early 1980s. The school then came under the brief supervision of Mestre Almiro, before being transferred to Mestre Bamba; the man who leads the school today. He also taught capoeira to the army and at the police academy. He was then considered "the father of modern capoeira". In 1945, Bimba and his students were challenged by Jayme Ferreira, a Brazilian jiu jitsu competitor trained by the Gracie family, who accused regional capoeiristas of avoiding fights. Bimba answered by saying capoeira regional was for self defense, not for fighting under sport rules. During this tour, they received two challenges to fight for real (pra valer), one by Brazilian catch wrestlers led by Piragibe and another one by capoeira carioca leader Mestre Sinhozinho.

Mestre Bimba: A Capoeira Illuminada (2006) is a documentary about Mestre Bimba and Capoeira.