Russo de Caxias

 

Si jago beladiri dari seluruh penjuru dunia versi rapinya

 Jonas Rabelo was born on September 22, 1956. He first trained capoeira in 1968 in Duque de Caxias, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, with Idelfonso Ribeiro dos Santos «Crioulo». From 1972 to 1975, he was a student of mestre Barbosa in a gym named «Lider» in Duque de Caxias. In 1973, Russo and a few fellows decided to have a roda in the street every Sunday on a square in Duque de Caxias town center. This initiative caused disagreements with mestre Barbosa, an adept of capoeira as modern sport, adherent to its federative system, who disaproved of capoeira practice outside sport halls, more so with no uniforms or belts, which, according to his judgment, were too much of a remembrance of capoeira’s past image as a vagrant’s pastime. Quite the reverse for Russo and his friends who felt concern about keeping capoeira alive in the underpriviledged crowds in which it had risen. Russo abandoned capoeira as sport in 1975. Though a number of his fellows, around Pedro Trindade Moraes (mestre Moraes, who created GCAP) decided to identify themselves with the Capoeira Angola current, Russo prefered to disclaim this tag. In the "Roda Livre de Caxias" (Caxias Free Ring), anyone may play, so long as one respects the place and the people. "To maintain the integrity of the game was always the ideal of the organizers" – an ambition which was quite difficult to sustain in several occasions.

The Caxias "roda livre" has turned one of the great references for capoeiristas. It has been going on since with only an interruption in the 1990s.

In the Free Ring everyone keeps its own personality and style. What we apreciate at first sight in Russo is his ginga.