Our Story
The story of our school began many years ago with the great master, Mestre Bimba, who revolutionized the art of capoeira between the 1930s and ‘60s in his native Brazil, and his student, the renown Mestre Acordeon, who pioneered the practice in North America since the ‘80s and to this day. In the 1990s in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, Mestre Acordeon teamed up with Mestre Rã to found the United Capoeira Association, and in August, 2000 they graduated their student, Patrick “Galego” Hilligan from their program.
Capoeira Água de Beber began in 2000, when “Galego” graduated and moved to Sacramento to fulfill his quest to become the first North American to open his own capoeira school. After gathering a small band of dedicated students, ADB opened its first academy, AND that same month we had the first of many annual batizados.
Through the years ADB as evolved and grown and moved through several locations. But for more than 20 years now we have held our weekly classes without break, and we’ve held our annual batizado every fall since that first one back in 2001.
