Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art disguised, for much of its history, as a dance. That disguise was not aesthetic. It was survival. Enslaved Africans brought to Brazil in the 16th through 19th centuries created a fighting system and then masked it as music and movement to avoid the attentions of slaveholders and colonial authorities who feared armed resistance. The berimbau bow, the handstands, the sweeping kicks — all of it looked like performance. All of it was combat training.
Brazil has not formally designated capoeira as the national sport in the way Colombia designated tejo or the Philippines designated arnis. Football (soccer) holds the de facto national sport identity in Brazil. But capoeira was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2014 — one of only a handful of sporting and martial arts traditions to receive that recognition globally. It is a Brazilian cultural export that has spread to over 150 countries.
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Is capoeira a sport?
Yes, though that framing misses some of what it is. Capoeira is simultaneously a martial art, a dance form, a music tradition, a game, and a community ritual. In competitive settings, practitioners spar in a format called the “jogo” (game) inside a circle of other practitioners called the “roda.” The roda is not just a boundary — participants sing, clap, and play instruments (berimbau, atabaque drums, pandeiro) throughout the jogo, and the rhythm they set influences how the fighters move.
There are formal capoeira competitions at national and international level, judged on technique, creativity, and effective application of moves. The International Capoeira Foundation has worked toward standardised competition formats. But many traditional capoeira practitioners actively resist the sport competition framing, arguing that reducing capoeira to scoring points strips out the cultural and philosophical core of the practice.
The two main styles
Capoeira Angola is the older, more traditional form. It was systematised in the 20th century by Mestre Pastinha in Salvador, Bahia. Angola plays at a lower level to the ground, slower in pace, with more emphasis on trickery, feinting, and psychological manipulation of the opponent. The musical rhythm is slower and the interactions between practitioners are more elaborate.
Capoeira Regional was developed by Mestre Bimba (Manuel dos Reis Machado) in the 1930s, also in Bahia. Regional is faster, more upright, more acrobatic. Bimba incorporated kicks and throws from other martial arts and created a teaching structure with formal belts (cordas). Regional’s acrobatic elements — aerial kicks, cartwheels, back handsprings — are what most people see in viral videos and associate with “Brazilian capoeira.”
The division between Angola and Regional practitioners was, for much of the 20th century, intense and sometimes bitter. Today, most schools teach both traditions, and a third designation, Capoeira Contemporanea, covers schools that blend elements from both lineages.
What is Brazilian capoeira: the cultural history
Capoeira developed in Brazil among enslaved Africans, primarily those brought from the Congo and Angola regions of West and Central Africa. The precise origin is debated — whether the art form was created in Brazil or brought from Africa in some nascent form — but the consensus among capoeira historians is that it developed on Brazilian soil from African movement traditions.
Portuguese colonial authorities and later Brazilian governments banned capoeira multiple times. The 1890 Brazilian Penal Code specifically criminalised capoeira, which drove it underground. Practitioners operated in secret, often in the same communities that had been enslaved two generations earlier. The ban was not lifted until 1930, when Getulio Vargas came to power and Mestre Bimba successfully petitioned for legal recognition by framing capoeira as Brazilian national culture.
Bimba’s school in Salvador was the first officially recognised capoeira school. The sport has been legal and growing ever since. Brazil currently has hundreds of thousands of practitioners, with major academies (academias) in every major city.
The berimbau and the music
The berimbau is a single-string musical bow struck with a small stick, producing a distinctive twanging sound. It is the instrument most associated with capoeira and the one that sets the rhythm for the jogo. The speed and tone of the berimbau tell practitioners how to move: a slow rhythm signals a more measured, Angola-style game; a fast, aggressive rhythm signals a faster, more combative interaction.
The atabaque (tall drum) and pandeiro (tambourine) accompany the berimbau. Practitioners sing corridos — call-and-response songs — throughout the roda. Learning the songs and the instruments is considered part of capoeira education, not an optional add-on. A capoeirista who cannot participate in the musical circle is considered incomplete.
Capoeira’s global spread
Brazilian emigration from the 1970s onward carried capoeira to Europe, the United States, and eventually everywhere. Today the art is practiced in over 150 countries. European cities — Berlin, London, Paris, Amsterdam — have thriving capoeira communities. The United States has large academies in major cities and a competitive capoeira scene.
The global spread created tension: some traditionalist mestres (masters) argued that non-Brazilians teaching and competing in capoeira stripped it of its cultural context. This debate has not resolved. What has emerged is a global capoeira culture that is genuinely diverse — practitioners from dozens of countries have now trained in Brazil and built their own lineages.
FAQ: capoeira, Brazil’s martial art
Is capoeira a sport?
It is a martial art, dance, music tradition, and game simultaneously. Formal competitive capoeira exists at national and international level, but many traditional practitioners resist the “sport” framing as reductive. UNESCO recognised it as an Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014.
What is the national sport of Brazil?
Brazil has not officially designated a national sport by law. Football (soccer) is the dominant sport by every practical measure — participation, spectatorship, cultural significance. Capoeira is a major cultural export but not the national sport in the way that arnis is for the Philippines or tejo is for Colombia.
Where did capoeira originate?
In Brazil, among enslaved Africans primarily from the Congo and Angola regions. The precise origin is debated, but capoeira as a distinct art form developed in Brazil, likely in Bahia, over several centuries of slavery.
What are the two main styles of capoeira?
Capoeira Angola (older, slower, lower to the ground, more traditional) and Capoeira Regional (faster, more acrobatic, created by Mestre Bimba in the 1930s). Many modern schools blend both under the umbrella of Capoeira Contemporanea.
Is capoeira dangerous?
In the jogo, contact is typically controlled rather than full-force. Kicks are directed at the opponent’s space — the goal is to demonstrate that a kick could connect, not necessarily to connect at full power. Injuries happen, particularly with less experienced practitioners. At the advanced level, the game involves significant athleticism and occasional contact, but serious injuries are less common than in full-contact martial arts.
Capoeira’s place in Brazil and the world
For a country that often exports football and carnival, capoeira is the export that surprises most outsiders the most. A fighting system created by enslaved people, banned for a century, performed to live music in a circle, now taught in community centres in London, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires. That trajectory is genuinely unusual in the history of martial arts.
For other national sports with similarly deep cultural roots, the national sports of all countries article covers 100+ nations. For the Philippines’ arnis — another martial art with colonial suppression in its history — the arnis article covers the parallels.
