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Mestre Bimba
Born	Manuel dos Reis Machado November 23, 1900 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Died	February 15, 1974 Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Martial art	Capoeira (founding father)
Notable for	institutionalising Capoeira Angola

Manuel dos Reis Machado, commonly called Mestre Bimba was a mestre of the Capoeira. 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 ("Mestre Pastinha"), the father of capoeira angola.

[edit] Contributions

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 traditional capoeira fights and added movements from another African fighting style called Batuque - a vicious grappling 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. This was the beginning of the development of capoeira regional.

In 1928, a new chapter in the history of capoeira began, as well as a change in the way black people (of African descent, brought to Brazil as slaves) were looked upon by the Brazilian society. After a performance at the palace of Bahia's Governor, Juracy Magalhães, Bimba was finally successful in convincing the authorities of the cultural value of capoeira, thus in the 1930s ending its official ban, in effect since 1890.

Machado founded the first capoeira school in 1932, the Academia-escola de Cultura Regional, at the Engenho de Brotas in Salvador, Bahia. Previously, capoeira was only practiced and played on the streets. However, capoeira was still heavily discriminated against by upper-class Brazilian society. In order to change the pejorative reputation of capoeira and its practitioners as devious, stealthy and malicious, Bimba set new standards to the art.

His students had to wear a clean, white uniform, show proof of grade proficiency from school, exercise discipline, show good posture and many other standards. As a result, doctors, lawyers, politicians, upper-middle-class people, and women (until then excluded) started to join his school, providing Bimba with legitimacy and support.

[edit] History

Machado was a coal miner, carpenter, warehouse man, longshoreman, and horse coach conductor, but mainly a capoeirista. Unhappy with false promises and lack of support from local authorities in Bahia, he moved to Goiânia in 1973 by invitation from a former student. He died a year later, on February 15, 1974 at the Hospital das Clínicas de Goiânia, due to a stroke.

Bimba managed to recover the original values within capoeira,[citation needed] which were used amongst the black slaves centuries before him. For Bimba, capoeira was a fight but "competition" should be permanently avoided since he believed it was a "cooperation" fight, where the stronger player was always responsible for the weaker player and helped him to excel in his own fighting techniques.[citations needed]

Machado fought all his life for what he strongly believed was best for capoeira and succeeded. After he died in 1974 one of his sons, "Nenel" (Manoel Nascimento Machado), at 14, took over his father's capoeira legacy. Nenel is still responsible for the remarkable cultural and historical legacy his father left him and he is the president of Filhos de Bimba School of Capoeira.

[edit] Links

• Mestre Bimba on Wikipedia