A Portuguese influence is easier to establish for the razor. The navalha, which translates both as razor or jackknife, figures prominently in the Lisbon underworld. Its main user was the fadista, a term denominating not only a singer of melancholic fados, but also a wider social type who belonged, with prostitutes, pimps, vagrants and sailors, to the milieu of Lisbon marginality. Fadista meant a tough guy who liked fights and disorder. Marcos Bretas drew attention to the cultural proximity between the fadista and the capoeira, and Carlos Eugênio Soares has shown how technical terms such as sardinha, rasteira and even ginga were used on both sides of the Atlantic, in the fadista slang of Lisbon and the capoeira jargon from Rio.75 Since the significant presence of the Portuguese in Cariocan capoeira coincided with the adoption of the razor as the preferred weapon, one can safely assume that their specific skills in its handling also spread among practitioners. These changes provide further evidence that transformations of the social context inevitably impacted on the formal aspects of capoeira practice. We can therefore assume that this has always been the case, even though the available sources do not allow us to track these changes accurately for earlier periods. By the late nineteenth century capoeira in Rio de Janeiro combined five complementary fighting techniques: head butts, foot kicks, open hand blows, knife and stick techniques (see Figure 3.7). No source suggests that this kind of combination ever existed in Africa. The fusion of these disparate techniques shows how problematic the thesis of a Bantu ‘enduring central paradigm’ is in the case of Cariocan capoeira.76 Capoeira was not an isolated cultural practice, but an urban phenomenon reflecting and influencing the historical process that lead to the formation of Cariocan, and by extension, Brazilian society. To what extent capoeira creolized is further documented by the substantial changes that affected its cultural and political meaning in the second half of the nineteenth century

Initiation into capoeira started at a very early age. Boys as young as 10 or 12 started to train with more experienced capoeiras. Among the 33 arrested capoeiras of the Cadeira da Senhora malta referred to above, 18 per cent were under 15, and almost 60 per cent only between 15 and 20 years old. At the initial stage boys were referred to as caxinguelés, sarandeje or carrapetas. Their function was to run ahead of the gang spreading the message of its arrival, provoking its opponents, transmitting messages and carrying out other services for adult gang members.91 Capoeiras trained, according to circumstances, both in the open (streets and squares) and in more discreet locations, such as backyards or the hills surrounding the city. The Guaiamu, for instance, used to exercise their neophytes by a mango tree on the Livramento hill, whereas the Nagoas used the Russel beach or the Pinto hill. ‘Training took place regularly on Sunday mornings and included head [butt] and feet [kick] exercises, razor and knife blows.’ 92

https://velhosmestres.com/br/destaques-9:

Não estudei pra ser padre

nem também pra ser doutô

estudei a capoêra

pra batê no inspetô

(Côro)

Ê aquindèrreis!

Capoêra é bicho farso

vai ti batê,

prepar’a barriga

pr’apanhá!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5MuAcU83g4

Esgrima crioula (em castelhano: esgrima criolla), esgrima do facão ou esgrima gaúcha é um sistema de combate adaptado pelos gaúchos nos pampas brasileiros, uruguaios e argentinos. Era utilizado principalmente na caça, para matar animais para comer. Mais tarde, foi utilizada para o combate, tanto a pé quanto montado a cavalo, foi usada na Revolução Farroupilha e Revolução Federalista no Rio Grande do Sul e na independência da Argentina contra o imperialismo espanhol. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esgrima_crioula