Sabu, who was born Manoel Pio Salles in the old town of Goiás, began his career as a wrestler in Luta Livre, in the days when Catch was a hit on TV. He wrestled in masks and adopted the name Sabu, a comic book character. Then he went to Salvador. He stayed there for a few years, learning from Caiçara. When he returned, at the end of the 1960s, he established himself as a capoeira master and musical instrument craftsman. He used the backyard of his house in Vila Redenção, the "terreiro", to form his group.

Showing up at schools, on TV programs and on Sundays at the Hippie Fair, he soon had a huge group of students. He knew how to teach. He had patience. And he treated his students like his own children. His house was our house. Sometimes, we even filleted the buoy. As well as the capoeira group, he formed a maculelê group and even a tapuios dance group, the latter a genuinely Vilaboan folkloric manifestation.

As well as being a great athlete, an inspired artist and a great promoter of folklore, he was, in those times of atrocious dictatorship, a politically motivated man. He had an extraordinary social sensibility. Although he was a man of few letters, he was outraged by the negligence of the authorities in the face of abandoned minors.

He tried to get kids off the streets and, through sport, integrate them into society. He even took dozens of them to live in his house. Some of these kids became excellent capoeiristas. I don't know where they are.

He also helped Bimba's family when the old mestre Baiano died in Goiânia, where he had moved with his two wives and a battalion of children and servants. He also helped mestre Osvaldo at the end of his life. For Sabu, the rivalry between Regional and Angola was restricted to capoeira circles. Outside it, they were all for each other.

Learn more from the mestre:

Mestre Sabu