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The Man Who Invented a Rule to Make Capoeira a Sport
6 MIN READ
'I idealised a rule to present it, and to make it a sport' — the words point to the deliberate act by which a game was reshaped into a codified discipline.
WHY THIS ARTICLE
Codification is told as capoeira's natural growing-up. The thesis recovers the explicit language of invention — a rule 'idealised' — that reveals the sporting form as a made thing.
An idealised rule
The sporting capoeira did not emerge; it was composed. In the sources the thesis gathers, the very language betrays the act: a rule 'idealised' to present the game and make it a sport. The passage from a game to a codified discipline was a decision, formulated in the first person, not an anonymous maturation.
A game 'purely Brazilian'
The nationalist charge is old: the founding authors dreamed that all true Brazilians would take the initiative to learn the game, studying the smallest secrets this 'purely Brazilian' play holds. The making of a sport and the making of a national symbol advanced together.
Why it matters
When a source says a rule was 'idealised,' it hands us the proof that the sporting form is an artefact. Codification is authored — and the author's own words say so.
SOURCES
La capoeira et les arts de combat noirs : histoire effacée, techniques invisibles (1905–1984), thèse de doctorat, Université des Antilles, 2020 (Part II/III, on the explicit 'idealisation' of a rule to make capoeira a sport; Burlamaqui and the 'purely Brazilian' game).
IN THE CORPUS
→ The Master Who Trained Capoeiras to Beat Jiu-Jitsu
→ The State That Forced Capoeira to Become a Sport
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
MALO, Olivier. The Man Who Invented a Rule to Make Capoeira a Sport. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 76. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-man-who-invented-a-rule-to-make-capoeira-a-sport. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.