Who is Mestre Bimba? Google Doodle marks the capoeira founder’s 119th birthday

THE unique cocktail of acrobatics, dance, music and martial arts is known to Brazilians as capoeira and has been practised for hundreds of years.

Today's Google Doodle pays homage to Manuel dos Reis Machado, or Mestre Bimba, the man who mastered capoeira and founded the world's first school to teach the "dance/fight" martial arts style.

Who is Mestre Bimba?

Born in Salvador on November 23 in 1899, Bimba was the youngest of 25 children and son of a batuque champion - another Brazilian fighting/dance style.

His mum and dad named him Manuel dos Reis Machado, but everyone called him Bimba.

Bimba did odd jobs - longshoreman, carpenter and coal miner - before dedicating his life to his real passion of capoeira.

capoeira was developed by former slaves and outlawed by the Brazilian government for many years. Anyone caught practising it would be arrested and even tortured by police.

Bimba looked back on those days darkly, recalling: “In those days, when capoeira was spoken of, it was in whispers. Those who learned capoeira only thought about becoming criminals.”

Former slaves used capoeira in unconventional ways - war lords and criminals used capoeiristas as hitmen and bodyguards.

As studying martial arts was forbidden by law, music was added to disguise the powerful fighting techniques as dance moves.

When did Bimba start learning capoeira?

Developing his own style, known as capoeira regional, Mestre Bimba instituted a strict set of rules and a dress code.

In 1928 he was invited to demonstrate his style of capoeira for Getulio Vargas, then president of Brazil.

The President was so impressed that he gave Mestre Bimba the go-ahead to open the first capoeira school in his hometown of Salvador, giving this unique martial art a new sense of legitimacy.

Today capoeira is one of Brazil’s biggest exports. In the 1970s the “masters” of the art – or mestres – began to emigrate and teach it in other countries.

A big part of the art is being able to speak Portuguese so disciples make a big effort to learn the language.

The fighting and martial arts aspect of capoeira can be masked within the grace and beauty of the music and dance – but it is still there and experts can disguise vicious attacks as a friendly gesture.

In modern culture capoeira is featured in many films, video games and TV shows.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire features it in some scenes, as well as Meet the Fockers.

Meanwhile, in video games, it is often centre stage. Street Fighter has its own capoeirista called Elena and Pokemon Hilltop is partly based on the fighting style.

In terms of technique, capoeira is fast and versatile.

The style emphasises using the lower body to kick, sweep and take down and the upper body to assist those movements and occasionally attack as well.

The "ginga" move (back and forth) is the fundamental movement in capoeira, important both for attack and defence purposes.

It has two main objectives. One is to keep the capoeirista in a state of constant motion, preventing him or her from being a still and easy target.

The other, using also fakes and feints, is to mislead, fool, trick the opponent, leaving them open for an attack or a counter-attack.

What is a Google Doodle?

In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.

The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.

In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.

Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.

Among the Doodles published in 2018 were ones commemorating cartographer Abraham Ortelius, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif and St Patrick's Day.

And of course there was a whole series for the football World Cup in Russia.

Earlier in the year, the search giant celebrated the Paralympics in 2018  in Pyeongchang with an animated design celebrating each of the sports the winter Paralympians compete in.