The 1928 Manual That Only Knew How to Attack

WHY THIS ARTICLE

The 1928 manual is cited as a milestone. The mémoire's close reading finds a striking absence: no blocks, no punches, no rotating kicks — a repertoire shaped by the will to distinguish capoeira from the street.

Attack only

The bodily techniques of Burlamaqui's work are, without exception, destined for attack: the essence of the encounter in the Zuma method is offence, and offence alone. There are no blocks or parries — to protect oneself is only to evade by total withdrawal of the body and to riposte, moving forward and back like a fencer.

Telling absences

Despite frequent references to boxing, no hand strike appears — no punch, no elbow. What boxing, then? Savate, surely: the capoeira proposed rests on the lower body to knock out the opponent. The non-use of the hands may also be a way to distinguish the art from the ill-famed streets and to give it a moral character. And the absence of rotating kicks like the armada or meia-lua-de-compasso — emblematic of the modern game — is surprising: doubtless a matter of pragmatism, since such kicks, needing an ample wind-up, are easily countered.

Why it matters

What a manual leaves out is an argument. Burlamaqui's all-attack, no-hands, no-spin repertoire is not a neutral record but a shaping — a bid for respectability and effectiveness, editing the game as it codifies it.

SOURCES

La technique corporelle au service de l’identité nationale : les élites et la capoeira du Brésil, de 1928 à nos jours, mémoire de maîtrise STAPS, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, 2008 (close reading of Burlamaqui, 1928; the all-attack repertoire)

IN THE CORPUS

→ The Ring Drawn with a Compass and a Stopwatch

→ The Blade That Was Written Out of Capoeira

HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

MALO, Olivier. The 1928 Manual That Only Knew How to Attack. In: Black Combat Arts Institute — Articles [online]. No. 125. 2026 [accessed date]. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/articles/the-1928-manual-that-only-knew-how-to-attack. Adapted from the author's doctoral thesis, Université des Antilles, 2020.