Born Manuel dos Reis Machado in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, Mestre Bimba studied capoiera at the age of 12 under the tutlage of Bentinho, an African navigation captain. Once he perfected the sport, Mestre Bimba incorporated new moves and techniques from other martial arts (including Batuque that he learned from his father) which would become Capoeira Regional.

After a performance at Governer's Palace in Bahia, Mestre Bimba convinced the authorities that capoiera was important as a cultural sport rather than the violent, riot-inducing fight that it was seen as being. As a result, the long-suffering ban had ended, and the first capoeira "academia" was founded by Mestre Bimba, but the sport wasn't fully realized just yet. In order to liberate capoeira from the streets, he set particularly high standards for students to follow, such as clean uniforms, good grades, good posture, etc.

With the success of his Academia-escola de Capoeira Regional, Mestre Bimba soon opened another school, taught capoeira to the army and the police academy, and became well known as the Father of Modern Capoeira, and continued to teach capoeira until his final days where he suffered a stroke and passed away at the age of 74.