♪ singer singing in Portuguese and playing berimbau ♪ (Chinwe) When I took my first capoeira class, I knew I was going to stay with this for a long time.

♪ singing in Portuguese continues ♪ It wasn't just cool kicks.

It felt familiar.

It felt like I was home.

♪ singing in Portuguese continues ♪ But something struck me in my first class.

Yo, I'm the only Black girl here and one of handful of Black folks in class.

Capoeira is for everyone, but I want other Black people to know that this is for us too.

This is our cultural legacy.

Hey, my name is Chinwe Oniah, or Aqualtune.

And I am Ricky Lawson, also known as Malandro.

And we're here in the East Bay and we are going to show you a little capoeira.

(Chinwe) I'm a producer for this series, and typically I'm behind the camera, but because I love this artform so much, I wanted to be the one to take you on this journey.

So come along with us.

[clucks] [vocalizes] [laughs] ♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ ♪ light bossa nova pop with acoustic guitar ♪ (Chinwe) I was 10 or 11 when I saw capoeira on Tekken 3, a tournament-style fighting video game on PlayStation that was mad popular, and it still holds up to this day.

There was a character from Brazil called Eddy Gordo doing capoeira.

Now, as a proud Nigerian, I wondered why we didn't have our own martial art.

But I saw this Black guy with locs doing these moves I had never seen before.

I knew I had to do that.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ Fast forward to today, I've been training for nearly three years with my professor, Malandro.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ I came into capoeira calling it a fight disguised as a dance, but that doesn't quite capture it.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ (Malandro) Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form.

It is an art form that comes from Brazil, but it was developed and manifested by African people and their descendants.

It's not understood as much as other art forms because there's so many different elements.

Right here, I extend.

(Mestre Acordeon) It's fight, it's dance, it is music.

It is extraordinary because it's not one thing.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ (Chinwe) That's Mestre Acordeon from Bahia, Brazil.

He's credited with being the first capoeira master to establish the art form on the West Coast.

He's the founder of United Capoeira Association that he started in Berkeley, and today has chapters all over the country.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ And he couldn't have done it without the help of Black martial artists.

♪ light percussion and acoustic guitar instrumental ♪ (Mestre Acordeon) Bill Owens, Julius Baker-- lots of martial arts mestres in the area.

And they were very curious about capoeira because all of them are African Americans, and they want to know one kind of the arts that came from Africa.

♪ instrumental track continues ♪ (Chinwe) Sifu Owens hipped Mestre Acordeon to create an organization that would protect capoeira from culture vultures.

He first created the World Capoeira Association, later renamed United Capoeira Association.

♪ instrumental track continues ♪ I didn't know nothing about this history, and I grew up just minutes away from one of the first places Mestre Acordeon taught.

Malandro, he didn't know any of this either when he decided to move to the Bay to train capoeira.

♪ instrumental track continues ♪ (Malandro) I started capoeira at the age of 16.

At the age of 19, I decided to move from Detroit, pack up all my things, and move to the Bay Area, specifically to train capoeira.

(Chinwe) After training here for several years, on one of his many trips to Brazil, he met and trained with Mestre Nenel, the son of Mestre Bimba, who is credited with revitalizing capoeira and establishing a new methodology for the art form.

♪ berimbau instrumental ♪ (Malandro) Mestre Bimba felt that capoeira is a form of education, conflict-resolution, knowledge and character and self-control, leadership qualities.

(Chinwe) And all that is exercised when we play capoeira.

And we play-- we don't spar; we are not fighting.

There is the roda-- a circle where we play; the charanga--the orchestra.

And everyone around sings, claps, and brings their axé-- their energy--to the roda.

Now if you're in the right energy, it can be really, really fun.

It can even be transcendent.

♪ percussion intensifies and then fades ♪ (Malandro) Working with youth has given me the opportunity to provide the youth with what I felt I needed growing up-- someone to hold me accountable, a positive Black role model.

(Elijah) I'm 11.

I've always loved capoeira.

The vibe is just positive and well.

It's a type of martial art that'll keep you safe from people that's endangering you, and it's a dance.

It's not fighting.

I was really excited to work with Malandro.

After a few months of me like training really hard with him, I've gotten quite better.

(Malandro) It takes a particularly qualified individual to work with youth.

I know how important of a job that is and how great an impact you can have on someone's life.

♪ berimbau, acoustic guitar and percussion ♪ You have the opportunity to help relieve trauma.

I am grateful for all the opportunities because they've taught me so much about myself.

(Chinwe) I thought capoeira would be easy for me to pick up because I was a dancer when I was younger, but... [blows out] nah.

♪ berimbau, acoustic guitar and percussion ♪ Pushing past your own built-up barriers takes time, but once you make it over, you are celebrated.

And you're celebrated in rituals, like the festa de batizado, a ceremony where a capoeirista gets their nome de guerra, their war name, echoing the African tradition of naming ceremonies.

My nome de guerra is Aqualtune.

I'm named after the Kongo warrior princess who led an army of 10,000 men to battle.

She's the grandmother of Zumbi dos Palmares, the King of Quilombo dos Palmares, the most famous escaped African settlement in Brazilian history.

Heavy is the crown.

But once I got my name, I felt a responsibility to be better, to have more self-control, better awareness, better focus, to be a leader.

(Mestre Acordeon) That's what I see that a capoeira is-- it's an art to make the person to develop to be very important and very significant.

♪ berimbau, acoustic guitar and percussion ♪ ♪ Mestre Acordeon vocalizing ♪ (Chinwe) I'm just at the beginning of my capoeira journey, and want to soak in all that there is.

(Malandro) I sense the change that you are more connected.

(Chinwe) Malandro is always talking about wanting to recreate this energy in Brazil, and... "I wanna meet you where you're at.

I want to be a part of this energy."

So I went to Bahia to find out.

In our next episode, me and a few students travel with Malandro to Bahia, Brazil, the birthplace of this centuries-old art form, and learn how capoeira was outlawed and nearly lost to future generations.

And Malandro shares how he found himself here and what he's doing to introduce capoeira to more Black Americans.

♪ choir singing in Portuguese ♪ Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

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