Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art that involves dance, culture, music, sport, and history. Created by enslaved Africans in Brazil in the 1500s who were forbidden from practicing fighting, Capoeira had to be disguised as a song and dance, Capoeira was a means of self-protection and a way toward freedom originating in West Africa. The much-loved martial art form practiced around the globe today is a mixture of strength, flexibility, improvisation, rhythm, endurance, agility, and reflexes.