Meet the founders
Professor Molinha
Rui · Co-Founder and Lead Coach
Rui was born in Portugal and moved to the UK at seven, growing up first in East London and then across Essex. Building CCE around East London and Essex is, in that sense, going home. His roots are Angolan and Portuguese, and Angola sits at the deep origins of capoeira itself, which shaped his relationship with the art from the start.
He started training at fourteen, drawn quickly to the discipline, the acrobatics and the music. Some of his closest capoeira friendships are still with the people he trained with as a teenager. He is part of Capoeira Club London, where Mestre Hiram Ribeiro presented him with his Professor corda and the title Professor Molinha.
Rui has been teaching for over twelve years, running kids and adults classes six days a week across East London and Essex. Outside capoeira he is a qualified personal trainer and boxing coach, and that breadth shows in his coaching, with equal attention to conditioning, technique and musicality.
Music runs just as deep. Rui plays every instrument in the roda and has a particular love for the atabaque. He writes his own capoeira music, and travels regularly to events across the UK, Europe and further afield to keep deepening his understanding of the tradition.
Acrobatics is where his artistry really lives. He has performed across the UK and abroad, and one of the credits he is most proud of is his work with the collective SAULT, appearing alongside other dancers and performers at two of their live shows.
Formada Maya
Maya · Co-Founder and Partnerships
Maya grew up in East London and started capoeira at just eleven. By sixteen or seventeen she was already teaching, helping run kids classes alongside her own training. Capoeira has been part of how she moves through the world for most of her life.
Like Rui, she is part of Capoeira Club London, where Mestre Hiram Ribeiro presented her with her Formada corda and the title Formada Maya.
Maya has worked extensively with young people with disabilities, using capoeira in social projects where the music, movement and community of the art can reach people in ways other spaces do not. At eighteen she won funding from Starbucks Youth Action, selected from over a thousand applicants, to design and run a capoeira programme for teenagers with disabilities.
At CCE she leads on partnerships and communications, staying close to the families in the school and building the connections that let CCE grow into new spaces across East London and Essex: schools, nurseries and community programmes. She still teaches, mostly adults now, and some kids classes too.
Music is where her heart sits. Singing especially, though she plays across the instruments too.
