#2 Capoeira
The term ‘Capoeira’ is derived from the Tupi words ka’a (jungle) and e puer (it was). A capoeira practitioner is referred to as ‘Capoeirista’. Capoeira was developed in the colonial era in Brazil by fugitive African slaves.
Capoeira combines the elements of dance, acrobatics and music. The main focus of capoeira is rhythm. The ‘Ginga’ is the most important movement in Capoeira. Ginga means to rock back and forth, in order to swing. The two main objectives of the Ginga movement are- being in a state of constant motion and tricking one’s opponent by faking attacks.
Capoeira has two main divisions and one newly formed style- ‘Capoeira Angola’, ‘Capoeira Regional’ and the newly formed ‘Capoeira Contemporanea’. Modern Capoeira practitioners mainly focus on acrobatics and highly mobile body movements, with the main focus on flashiness.
However, as an art of fighting, Capoeira has its uses, owing to the sheer amount of agility that capoeira drills afford its practitioners.
Now, let us assume a scenario where a capoeira fighter faces an MMA fighter. First the stand-up battle, then the grappling. Capoeira involves a lot of Ginga movement, which is extremely energy-draining. The constant swinging tires out the fighter.
A big example of a former capoeira practitioner fading into the later rounds of his fights is Conor McGregor. McGregor has a boxing background. However, he has also trained in the art of Capoeira like a few other MMA fighters such as Anderson Silva and Thiago Santos.
However, when it comes to the actual usage of Capoeira moves inside the MMA cage, none of the aforementioned practitioners exhibits much of their Capoeira manoeuvres. Instead, they rely more on traditional boxing and Muay Thai techniques. Now, coming back to McGregor, McGregor used a few capoeira kicks in his UFC 196 loss to Nate Diaz.
He tagged Diaz early in the boxing exchanges. However, once McGregor switched up from boxing to Capoeira inside the cage, his cardio was severely drained in a matter of a couple of minutes. An MMA fight lasts for just a couple of minutes.
Plus unlike a Capoeira exhibition match, the fighters do not merely aim to chain an entire dance sequence to simply land one strike. In MMA, energy conservation is extremely important. That said, in the UFC 202 rematch between Diaz and McGregor, McGregor went back to his boxing roots and outpointed Diaz.
He avoided the usage of capoeira kicks. Instead of spinning capoeira kicks, McGregor used the straightforward Muay Thai roundhouse kick to chop down Diaz’s legs. One can safely assume that in the stand-up battle between an MMA fighter and a Capoeirista, all other variables being fairly similar, the cardio advantage goes to the MMA fighter.
Besides, flying, spinning Capoeira moves put the Capoeira fighter at the risk of being countered. Capoeira spinning attacks besides being energy-consuming also open up one’s defence to several powerful counters, that range from a simple boxing 1-2 to a roundhouse head kick.
This brings us to the grappling aspect of Capoeira. Capoeira includes several explosive takedown manoeuvres. However, the ground game aspect of Capoeira is exceeded by the technical evolution of BJJ. In case the fight between the Capoeirista and MMA fighter goes to the ground, the MMA fighter’s strong BJJ base gives him the advantage on the mat.
An MMA fighter’s submission attempts off of his back are far more varied than that of a capoeirista.
An important point to be considered, regarding the application of capoeira in MMA, is that capoeira is not capable of being implemented by every martial arts practitioner. Capoeira has the pre-requisite of being extremely athletic and highly mobile.
On the other hand, BJJ, karate, etc help their practitioners develop skills, even if they aren’t particularly great athletes. Therefore, although MMA fighters such as McGregor and Silva may practice Capoeira outside MMA, its utilisation inside the cage is quite limited.
