Professor Lamartine Pereira

Lamartine Pereira da Costa was born in 1935 in Rio de Janeiro into an Azorean family spread over several countries. At age 16, he entered the Naval College, then began studying Operational Engineering at the Navy's High School (Escola Naval da Marinha). More motivated by sports than by engineering, he transferred to the Physical Education School of the Army (Escola de Educação Física do Exército), graduating in 1959.

His fascination with capoeira led him to train with Mestre Artur Emídio and his first student Djalma Bandeira. He also visited famous masters in Bahia to understand the art more deeply. Based on his apprenticeship with Artur Emídio and in close collaboration with the master, he began documenting capoeira movements systematically.

In March 1961, the then-Lieutenant Lamartine began administering a course on the "methodology of teaching capoeira" at the Navy Sports Centre (Centro de Esportes da Marinha), with the assistance of his master Artur Emídio and Djalma Bandeira. According to Jornal do Brasil (April 9, 1961), Lamartine taught 208 officers and enlisted men. The objective was "to train capoeira monitors, who would propagate the practice of capoeira in all Navy establishments, in particular the Navy's air force." This marked one of the first institutional adoptions of capoeira by the Brazilian military.

That same year, he published "Capoeiragem: A Arte da Defesa Pessoal Brasileira" (Capoeiragem: The Brazilian Art of Self-Defense), a manual that catalogued and explained capoeira's main movements in a didactic manner using illustrations that became iconic. The first edition was still of quite artisanal making, published by Editora Autor with 33 pages. The book represented the fourth major published work on capoeira and initiated "the first systematization of capoeiragem," prioritizing learning and seeking greater autonomy for the learner.

The publishing house Tecnoprint financed a new edition soon after and decided to change the title to "Capoeira sem Mestre" (Capoeira Without a Master) in 1962, following a common editorial line at the time for popular pocket books. This 116-page edition by Edições de Ouro proposed a kind of distance learning for capoeira. The new title did not fail to raise polemics in the capoeira community - many Bahian masters who defended the traditional method criticized a capoeira learned without any master having personally passed on the fundamentals of the art. Nevertheless, the book sold thousands of copies and was re-edited in 1964, 1968, and 1970, playing a very important role in the dissemination of capoeira throughout Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s.

Beyond capoeira, Lamartine became a protagonist in Sports Training Science. He was instrumental in Brazil's conquest of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, being responsible for the altitude training planning. The Brazilian delegation was the first to land in Mexico on May 2, a month before their first match. As coach Zagallo noted, "we won most of our matches in the second half" - of Brazil's 19 goals, 12 came after the interval, demonstrating the effectiveness of their physical preparation.

His academic career was equally distinguished. He earned a doctorate in Philosophy from Universidade Gama Filho (1989), a livre docência (habilitation) in Sports Management from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1988), and held numerous academic positions including full professor at Universidade Gama Filho, member of the International Olympic Committee Research Council in Lausanne (2001-2008), and visiting professor at universities in Portugal, Spain, and England.

In 2005, he organized the "Atlas do Esporte no Brasil" (Atlas of Sport in Brazil), a monumental work of nearly 900 pages involving 410 qualified collaborators and 17 editors working voluntarily for two years. In 2019, PUCRS (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul) awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, recognizing him as one of the great names in Brazilian Physical Education.

As of 2025, Lamartine continues his work as curator of the eMuseu do Esporte (eSport Museum) at UERJ in Rio de Janeiro, a virtual museum he co-founded with Professor Bianca Gama Pena, inspired by the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.