Capoeira is a conversation you have with your body. Learn it, and you carry rhythm, balance and presence into every room you walk into.
Mestre Mindinho is a capoeira master, martial artist, educator and cultural force based in Palm Springs, California. He started training as a child, was teaching while still a teenager, and has spent more than four decades building, refining and sharing the art.
Today he trains and evolves his work under the direct supervision of Mestre Paulinho Sabiá — one of Grupo Capoeira Brasil's most respected leaders worldwide.
His approach is built on a lifetime of cross-disciplinary training, and all of it feeds how he teaches — sharp, creative, always rooted in the depths of capoeira.
He has built schools on both coasts, produced national and international events, and mentored dozens of instructors now running their own schools. Thousands of people have found capoeira through his classes — and the network keeps growing.
Mestre Mindinho's students don't just train — they grow. Many advance through the ranks over years of practice and eventually open their own classes and schools across the United States and beyond.
Once they have a school of their own, the work changes. Mestre helps them grow it — a curriculum their students can follow, a graduation system, class structure, and the day-to-day of running a school that lasts.
Mestre Mindinho travels to teach — workshops built from forty years of practice and deep study of movement, music and martial art strategy. Tailored to any level, any room.
Beginners and mixed levels — ginga, kicks, esquivas, roda culture, and the essentials of the game.
Smooth transitions, floor movement, creative entries and exits — capoeira as a flowing conversation.
Safe progressions into aú, macaco and bananeira — integrated into the game, not performed beside it.
Distance control, timing, feints, sweeps, and how to read a partner — capoeira as a martial system.
Berimbau, pandeiro, atabaque, songs, and the rhythmic intelligence that controls the roda.
For instructors: how to teach children — structure, engagement, safety, age-appropriate development.
Class structure, leadership, school culture, retention — building a sustainable capoeira school.
Stage presence, show structure, audience engagement, and the demonstration roda for events.
Schools, gyms, universities, cultural events and festivals worldwide. Tell him the room and he'll build the session.
Book a workshopThe roda doesn't ask
where you're from.
It asks if you'll play.
Mestre Mindinho
Workshops for capoeira schools, martial arts gyms, universities, cultural events and festivals — anywhere in the world.
Book a workshopCurriculum, graduations, class structure, keeping students — help growing the school you already run, or the one you're about to open.
Reach out to connectInstrutora Valente is his wife and his partner in the work. She trains, she teaches, and together they push capoeira forward.