Bimba’s Rhythm is One, Two, Three: From Resistance to Transformation in Brazilian Capoeira

Bimba’s Rhythm is One, Two, Three is Lang Maria Liu’s first book. Part ethnography, travelogue and personal odyssey, it bridges many genres in its search for truth and hope. The reader is taken deep into the Afro-Bahian world of capoeira on the northeast coast of Brazil, where slave ships once plied the shores. During three trips to Brazil undertaken for her Ph.D., the boundaries between research and personal experience blur. Recently divorced and having left behind the capoeira school she co-founded with her ex-husband in Canada, the author finds herself falling in love with a capoeira master. Will she find her place in this world, one so different from her own? And can the wounds of her past, stretching back generations, ever be healed? Here, amongst the Afro-Bahians whom she fears at first, the author learns about our common humanity, and that the act of surrender - something she has fought all her life - may be the only true path to joy.