About Mestre Peninha

Born in the Brazilian Amazon, Mestre Peninha is an accomplished martial artist and musician with over twenty years of experience in Brazil and across North America. Peninha grew up in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, and began training capoeira when he was nine years old, exhibiting a great skill and talent for the martial art form. After his first two years, Peninha joined his brother, Sec, at the Adilson Capoeira Group under the instruction of Professors Cid and Oscar. It was here where Peninha discovered his passion for capoeira, and has continued growing in the sport ever since.

At a group meeting in 1992 the team decided to start a new organization, thus creating the Escola Brasileira and led by Professor Oscar. Peninha remained with the Escola Brasileira until 2004, when he moved to the United States to start a new period in his life as a capoeirista.

In 2004 Peninha, along with Mestre Chumbinho and a group from the Escola Brasileira, all known as the Top Team, felt the need to create a program emphasizing a more modern approach toward capoeira education. This served as the basis for their international work to come, advancing the art form in non-traditional and non-Brazilian environments. The result was an organization founded on the belief that collaboration, and joint responsibility and accountability are at the heart of developing and maintaining long-term relationships and friendships in the capoiera community. This organization is EQUIPE CAPOEIRA BRASILEIRA.

Shortly afterwards, Peninha took a bold step and moved to Montréal, Canada, helping advance Equipe’s work outside Brazil alongside his friend Maestrando Ajana, the founder of an affiliated capoeira academy in Quebéc. As the academy continued to grow and evolve, Peninha and Ajana formalized their partnership into an ownership plan lasting over three years, until late 2008 when Ajana decided to return to Brazil with his family.

Today, after twenty years of experience, countless friendships, and many successes in Brazil and abroad, Mestre Peninha has established himself as a leading name in the global capoeira community. In 2009, upon assuming full control of the academy he and Maestrando Ajana had worked on, Mestre Peninha re-defined the vision and purpose of his work in Canada, inaugurating the first Brazilian Center for Culture and Martial Arts in Montreal. The Center offers people the opportunity to learn more about diverse self-defense methods, capoeira, as well as other elements of Brazil’s vibrant culture.

Peninha lives in Montreal, Canada, along with his wife, Brigitte (also a capoeirista), and their son, Caue. From Montreal, and joined by an ever-growing community of students, colleagues, and friends, Mestre Peninha continues to teach and spread his knowledge and understanding of this singular art form, capoeira. Mestre Peninha’s local and international work serves as an example to all of a culture and life philosophy based on healthy principles and values beneficial to any community, one that continues to span the world today.