STICK TO THE BEAT

Spider Martial Arts is built on the philosophy of Capoeira.

We use film, movement, and storytelling to expand the legacy of an art that was born from survival, resistance, and creativity. Our work lives on screen, but our roots live in the community.

Capoeira is more than movement. It is rhythm, strategy, and freedom in motion.

Spider Martial Arts exists to carry that philosophy forward.

The Mission

JOGO DE ARANHA              (THE SPIDER'S GAME)

The roda is traditionally the circle where the “jogo” or game of Capoeira takes place. Inside its circle, a player learns to read another person, hold their ground, and change rhythm when the “jogo” shifts. Jogo de Aranha is Spider Martial Arts’ new contribution that opens that circle to the terrain around us while incorporating parkour. Now walls, blocks, and rails become part of the game.

In addition to the kicks and takedowns of Capoeira, players can tag with their hands, overcome obstacles with parkour, flip and twist through the air, and use juking and misdirection to put an opponent off balance without touching them. Unpredictability is the point.

The roda is a microcosm of the world, and what a person learns there about timing, boundaries, and respect carries into the rest of their life. Jogo de Aranha asks players to stay connected to others while moving through a space that keeps changing.

On film, those principles become action design. Improvised exchanges are shaped into choreographed sequences with a clear beginning, escalation, and resolution, so each move serves the story.

WHO WE ARE

Spider Martial Arts was founded by a biracial American-born Capoeirista raised inside the art.

For us, Capoeira was never just something to learn — it has always been a language of identity, survival, and self-expression.

The spider is our symbol for a reason.

Small but powerful. Patient and observant. A builder of webs that are both functional and beautiful. Strong enough to hold weight, flexible enough to absorb impact.

The spider hunts through craft rather than brute force.

That is how we approach movement, storytelling, and the work we build.

THE PHILOSOPHY

Capoeira's History

Capoeira was never just a movement practice.

It was a survival system.

Enslaved Africans in Brazil adapted ancestral knowledge, built community, and disguised resistance in plain sight. The fluidity of Capoeira was not aesthetic — it was strategic.

As the art spread internationally, parts of its history have been diluted or disconnected from its roots in Afro-liberation. Spider Martial Arts exists in part as a counterbalance to that drift.

We believe Capoeira can evolve — but its evolution must still carry its soul.

Capoeira's Legacy

Capoeira’s influence reaches beyond the roda, influencing two complementary acrobatic disciplines that emerged in the early 21st centurey: martial arts tricking and parkour. Tricking blends kicks, flips, and twists performed on a single leg in open space. Parkour is a movement practice focused on getting from point A to point B—over, under, or around obstacles—using speed, precision, and acrobatics.

Both art forms influence each other today, and many practitioners have transitioned into stunt performance. Both disciplines also borrow numerous movements directly from Capoeira, often retaining the same names: Raiz, Macaco, Envergado, Reversão, Helicóptero. The last of these was popularized in tricking and parkour by our own Eurico Senna.

Yet it remains rare for a seasoned capoeirista to translate their acrobatics or martial skill into stunt work as Eurico has, even though Capoeira is a fight disguised as a dance and stunt work is a dance disguised as a fight. These shared foundations offer many unexplored parallels that Spider Martial Arts continues to examine and develop.

Malandragem

Central to Capoeira — and to SMA — is malandragem: the art of wit, timing, and adaptive intelligence.

The malandro does not attack power head-on when it isn't necessary. They read the room. They move sideways when moving forward would be a trap.

Power can be hidden in plain sight.

This philosophy shapes how we choreograph action and how we approach storytelling. Our work does not imitate traditional martial arts performance — it adapts the strategy that allowed Capoeira to survive.

Rhythm

If art decorates space, then music decorates time.

Capoeira decorates both.

In the roda, music is not background — it is instruction. It signals danger, sets tempo, and guides when to move or wait.

Our motto Stick to the Beat carries this understanding.

The best movement — in a fight, on a film set, or in life — is not the most forceful.

It is the most timed.

Our Values

  • Freedom


    We pursue autonomy in how we move, create, and build community.

  • Joy


    Joy is not the reward for discipline — it is the method.

  • Evolution


    We carry lineage forward by adapting Capoeira to modern platforms like film and stunt performance.

  • Malandragem


    Wit over force. Timing over power.

  • Responsibility


    We are accountable to the communities whose culture we carry.

  • Connection


    Just like the roda, everything works when everyone is paying attention.

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