A reader (Ilmari) wrote to me about Bimba's sequence(s) - I know that the purists called them 'sequence', but I am quite used to plural so I use both interchangeably.
I answered:
"In my opinion, Bimba put even more into the sequences that he himself realized; meaning, in his time, Bahian capoeira was already degenerated to some extent and he did not understand everything. Still, we have to be thankful to him as he managed to save these gems for us today to decode - without Bimba's sequence, it would be Abada all over the world.
Bimba's sequences are - as are old kungfu forms - a time capsule of the art, conserving capoeira as it was done at the time; I owe my basic understanding of Bahian capoeira to these sequences. Without Bimba's sequences, there would be nobody to tell me you can escape rasteira with Au (as people cannot do it today - but that is because they do not have LightLegs; and they cannot have LightLegs because they do the kicks and ginga the wrong way - it is a very nice puzzle that fits together only one way) etc.
The kicks from Cocorinha are something that I myself puzzled over for a long time. Now I think I understand it.
First of all, these are not counters to kicks. They come too late for that; and in Bahian capoeira, you counter a kick with rasteira(or negativa if it is Bencao). So properly, there should be Rasteiras from Cocorinhas to counter kicks in the sequence; but Bimba did not want beginners to use Rasteira as they could hurt themselves (it is written in Mestre Decanio's book).
So you are not supposed to evade opponent's kicks with Cocorinha, stand up and respond with Bencao for example.
Instead, they are what I call fake-counters; counters to fakes. The opponent fakes a kick, you drop down, but then you realize it was a fake, so you get up quicky and nail him with Bencao (or Armada or Mldc which all can be done from Cocorinha)."
That is, in my current understanding, the purpose of these kicks from Cocorinha in Bimba's sequence (and in Bahian capoeira in general)."
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I can only add that the whole idea of opponent kicking, you evading into 'esquiva', then returning back with your own kick etc. is extremely stupid; because you missed your time to counter when opponent's kick was at its apex.
After you return from your beautiful esquiva, it is already too late to do anything.
And the stupidest thing you can do after returning from the esquiva is to launch a kick - because now, it is completely expected by the opponent and he would do best if he rasteirae'd you on your back (so you stopped doing stupid things in roda).
The fact that this is taken as 'normal' in modern capoeira is just another proof it is crap even tactically.
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