The following is Manco’s perspective/opinion of Capoeira.

There are three fundamental styles of Capoeira: Capoeira Angola, Capoeira Regional, and Capoeira. These are consequence of the styles of the Mestres who championed them; Mestre Pastinha, Mestre Bimba, and Mestre Valdemar da Paixao, respectively.  Capoeira Contemporanea is the most popular style. Unfortunately, Capoeira Contemporanea is ubiquitously called Capoeira Regional which forces Capoeira Regional followers to add the "pure" qualifier to its name (Capoeira Regional pura) to avoid confusion.

Capoeira Angola is more folkloric, ceremonial, often lower and slower, and very expressive. Capoeira Regional is efficient as a fight and self-defense technique and well defined (with respect to rules, movements, rhythms, and teaching methodology). The third style, to which I refer as just Capoeira, is the style which presumably existed before Mestres Pastinha and Bimba forked Capoeira Angola and Regional, respectively. Mestre Valdemar kept his own style(along with Traira, Bugalho, Mucunge, Ananias, and others) surviving the Angola/Regional fork to express "Corta Braco"--the spot in Salvador where they met.  This style is characterized as being expressive as Capoeira Angola but faster and higher as Capoeira Regional.

Mestre Valdemar also had a very unique "toque" (berimbau rhythm), but there are no records of it, as his cd was actually played by other capoeiras. Mestre Ananias describes it as somewhat similar to Mestre Traira's and his own toque.

More modern styles surfaced in the last few decades. Groups like Cordao de Ouro (Mestre Suassuna) with Miudinho, Abada (Mestre Camisa), Mestre Acordeon, Barrao, and others, have developed very distinctive contemporary styles.

At the UCI/ARC class, we will focus on Capoeira Regional's methodology--a style promoted by Mestre Ananias via Capoeira Batuque.  I will also bring as much of Capoeira from Mestre Valdemar as possible, as I am involved with one of his peers (Mestre Ananias) in my home town of Sao Paulo, Brasil. I refer to such as Capoeira Mukanda.