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70 free Capoeira trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This capoeira trivia quiz covers the Afro-Brazilian martial art from its Bantu roots in Angolan engolo and its first mention as a crime in 1789, through the knife-carrying capoeira carioca of 19th-century Rio, to Mestre Bimba's capoeira regional, Mestre Pastinha's capoeira Angola, legalization under Vargas in 1937 and the art's global spread from the 1970s to UNESCO recognition in 2014. You will find questions on how the game is played: the roda and the bateria of berimbaus, pandeiros, atabaques and agogô; the ginga, aú, rasteira, meia lua de compasso and cabeçada; esquivas instead of blocks; the chamada and volta ao mundo; the batizado, apelidos and cordas; ladainha, louvação and corrido songs; and the philosophy of malícia, malandragem, mandinga and axé. There are also questions on the legends and pop culture, from Besouro Mangangá and Zumbi to Only the Strong, Eddy Gordo in Tekken and Black Panther. Some questions any first-week student could answer; others are for seasoned capoeiristas. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on capoeira, its mestres, music and instruments, and each explanation adds one further detail. Play, see your score, and share it with your roda.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Capoeira is best described as what?
An Afro-Brazilian martial art and game with dance, acrobatics and music
Practitioners speak of 'playing' rather than fighting or dancing.
Q 02Scholars have identified capoeira's roots in which traditional Bantu martial art from Angola?
Engolo
Engolo movements imitate nature, such as a zebra's kick; the Cunene region is associated with the practice.
Q 03Capoeira is first mentioned in an official document in what year, as a criminal activity?
1789
The judicial document called capoeiragem 'the gravest of crimes'.
Q 04The most accepted origin of the word 'capoeira' comes from Tupi words meaning what?
Round forest
Ka'a paũ referred to small forested areas where fugitive slaves hid.
Q 05What was the violent 19th-century street-fighting style of Rio de Janeiro called?
Capoeira carioca
It mixed kicks, headbutts, knife and stick fighting and is no longer practiced as an organized style.
Q 06Capoeira was listed as a crime in the Brazilian penal code of which year?
1890
Slavery had been abolished only two years earlier, in 1888.
Q 07Capoeirista Ciríaco Francisco da Silva beat a fighter of which style in a 1909 vale tudo bout?
Japanese jujutsu
His opponent was Sada Miyako.
Q 08Legend says the early 20th-century capoeira fighter Besouro Mangangá could transform into what?
A beetle
Only one historical record of him exists, but his exploits fill songs and tales.
Q 09Where did outlawed capoeiristas sometimes hide their blades, according to the history?
In umbrellas or the berimbau
Street vendors and Candomblé priestesses kept lookout for police in exchange for business.
Q 10Who developed capoeira regional and created the art's first teaching method?
Bimba
His sequências de ensino were standardized teaching combinations.
Q 11What was the real name of the founder of capoeira regional?
Manuel dos Reis Machado
He was one of 25 children and worked as a carpenter, dockworker and day labourer.
Q 12Because capoeira was still illegal, Bimba named his style what?
Luta Regional Baiana
His student José Cisnando Lima advised the name.
Q 13Bimba learned batuque, a related fighting-dance, from whom?
His father
He began capoeira itself at 12 with a boat commander called Bentinho.
Q 21Which magazine publicized capoeira in the United States in 1947?
Ebony
It reported that most of Bahia's policemen had become students at Bimba's institute.
Q 22Which group won all three Golden Berimbau tournaments in Rio de Janeiro from 1967 to 1969?
Grupo Senzala
Senzala practiced an athleticized, acrobatic form of capoeira regional.
Q 23Who is thought to have been the first to teach the art in Europe, in London in 1971?
Nestor Capoeira
Jelon Vieira began teaching in New York in 1975 and may have inspired capoeira moves in breakdancing.
Q 14In what year did the Brazilian government legalize capoeira?
1937
Getúlio Vargas's cultural populism turned it into a socially acceptable national sport.
Q 15After a 1953 presentation by Bimba, which president declared capoeira 'the only truly national sport'?
Getúlio Vargas
The Brazilian government made it an official sport in 1972.
Q 16Who founded a school in 1941 to cultivate the traditional capoeira Angola?
Pastinha
He argued capoeira was essentially African, while Bimba saw it as formed in Bahia.
Q 17The Angola school adopted yellow and black from about 1950, the colours of what?
His favourite football club, Ypiranga
His Centro Esportivo de Capoeira Angola was located in Salvador's Pelourinho.
Q 18Who taught the young founder of the Angola school capoeira?
An elderly Angolan neighbour named Benedito
Pastinha was born in Salvador in 1889 and died nearly blind in 1981.
Q 19Which anthropologist defined capoeira Angola as 'art' versus capoeira regional as 'sport'?
Alejandro Frigerio
Angola values malícia, malandragem and unpredictability; regional stresses precision and discipline.
Q 20Both great 20th-century mestres, of the regional and Angola schools, came from which Brazilian region?
Bahia
Salvador was the first capital of colonial Brazil.
Q 24Which 1993-94 American martial arts film showcases capoeira from beginning to end?
Only the Strong
Mark Dacascos stars as a Green Beret cleaning up a Miami high school; Amen Santo choreographed.
Q 25Which Hollywood action star, trained in capoeira, includes it in many of his films?
Wesley Snipes
His involvement helped raise the art's visibility in the 1990s.
Q 26The capoeira circle, or roda, was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in what year?
2014
UNESCO called it 'a place where knowledge and skills are learned by observation and imitation'.
Q 27Capoeira influenced the fight scenes of which character in the 2018 film Black Panther?
Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa
Europe had gained its first native mestre, Edgardo Sananiello, in 2001.
Q 28What is the fundamental movement of capoeira?
The ginga
The rhythmic sidestep keeps the player moving and misleads the opponent.
Q 29What does 'ginga' literally mean?
Rocking back and forth
It serves both to keep the capoeirista from being an easy target and to fool the opponent.
Q 30What is a cartwheel called in capoeira?
Aú
Performing one at the start of a game symbolically inverts the player like the ancestors in Bantu belief.