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When he was 15 years
old, Adenilson Benvindo dos Santos heard about a fight where opponents
were swept to the ground with a "rasteira." The skinny youth had to learn
this art called Capoeira, he vowed to himself, even if it meant skimming
money off the household budget for beans and rice to do so. But supporting
a family - his mother and three siblings - working in a piano factory
by day and studying at night, didn't allow time for leisure activities.
The young man was determined though. He lept off the bus one May afternoon
in 1972, the first time he saw a sign advertising Capoeira classes and
was driven by car to meet Mestre Touro (Bull), a hulky and legendary figure
whose students wore red pants and trained outdoors on brutally hard concrete
floors. Dos Santos was nicknamed "Biquinho" ("little beak," meaning someone
who pouts) his first day in class when he admitted he couldn't turn a
cartwheel.
Five of Mestre Touro's students went on to become mestres. Beiçola and Biquinho still are teaching. Mestre Biquinho made Capoeira his life's work, opening his own school "Filhos de Corda Bamba" in 1988 and receiving his mestre belt in 1991. In his first visit to the United States, Mestre Biquinho, father of an 8-year-old girl, a bank employee for 25 years and bateria director for the Rio samba school Imperatriz Leopoldinese, offers these observations on Capoeira and Mestre Touro's legacy: On his partnership with Mestre Beiçola: "I can't say there's much of a difference between our Capoeira in Brazil and here in America because I'm seeing Beiçola's work and it's the same style, we have the same roots. Beiçola is really my brother in Capoeira. The people that are accompanying him are on a marvelous path. Mestre Beiçola has only good things to transmit, we've learned this from the day he came to class, and until now, I see nothing different.