Mestre Yoji Senna

Yoji Macieira Valverde Senna was born on April 6, 1963, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil—the same city where his father, Mestre Carlos Senna, had founded the third capoeira school in history eight years earlier. Born into a capoeira lineage, Yoji's connection to the art was predestined. As he once explained: "Really I was born into it; my father was a master."

At age eleven, Yoji ran away from home—a detail that hints at a turbulent childhood. Despite this difficulty, capoeira became his anchor. In 1975, at age twelve, he formally began his capoeira training at the Colégio Militar de Salvador (Salvador Military School) under his father's instruction. His father, Carlos Senna, had pioneered capoeira's introduction to this prestigious military institution as part of his broader effort to transform the art's social perception from street fighting to respectable cultural practice.

Yoji proved to be an exceptional student. By 1977, at just fourteen years old, he became the youth champion of the state of Bahia—a remarkable achievement that demonstrated both his natural talent and the quality of his father's training. This early competitive success established him as a rising figure in Bahian capoeira.

In his early twenties, Yoji left Bahia for Argentina, where he became a pioneer of capoeira in that country. He introduced the art to the Brazilian Embassy Cultural Center in Buenos Aires and brought it to the University of Buenos Aires. From 1987 to 1991, he founded and directed the university's Departamento de Cultura Afro-Americana (Department of Afro-American Culture), institutionalizing capoeira and Afro-Brazilian culture within Argentina's premier academic institution.

In 1992, Yoji relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he founded the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Association (ABCA)—the first capoeira school in the Twin Cities. The organization follows the Senavox system established by his father in 1955, continuing the family's innovations including the abadá uniform, the salve greeting, and the belt graduation system. The ABCA describes itself as an "all-inclusive capoeira school" that embraces "Afrocentristic" values while welcoming practitioners from all backgrounds.

Mestre Yoji's teaching philosophy emphasizes the cultural and historical dimensions of capoeira alongside its physical practice. He requires his students to complete written assignments examining the art's history and traditions, ensuring practitioners understand their art form's roots. As he observed about capoeira's physical practice: "You train upside-down...you extrapolate that to life. There are moments in life that your life is upside down, and you got to find a way to stay upright."

Reflecting on how capoeira shaped his own journey, Yoji has stated that it "has helped me stay out of trouble, helped me escape a lot of bad situations, too"—words that resonate with capoeira's historical role in providing resilience and discipline to those facing adversity.

The ABCA has become an established institution in Minneapolis, offering adult and children's classes, school outreach programs, and cultural performances. The organization has collaborated with Minneapolis Public Schools to offer 12-week programs teaching capoeira fundamentals, history, and the lineage of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Association.

In 2007, the ABCA hosted Mestre Nô, founder and grand master of the Associação Brasileira Cultural de Capoeira Palmares, who performed a demonstration at the University of Minnesota's Northrop Plaza—a testament to the school's recognition within the broader capoeira community.

On June 8, 2020, at age 57, Mestre Yoji Senna was appointed to the World Capoeira Federation's Council of Masters, recognizing his decades of dedication to the art and his "enormous amount of experience, energy and knowledge" in developing capoeira internationally.

Speaking of capoeira's global reach, Mestre Yoji has observed: "In Siberia for example, there is a capoeira group, and in Europe it's popular...In the most desperate places, you find people who practice capoeira." His own journey—from Salvador to Buenos Aires to Minneapolis—exemplifies this worldwide expansion that began in the 1970s and continues today.