Beginning
Brazilian, with his heart in the Chinese martial arts.
He was born in São Paulo in 1981.
He has trained in martial arts since he was 7.
That is almost four decades of training.
He joined the Pak Shao Lin Association, Master Gilmar Dantas’s school in São Paulo, on 26 August 1995. He became a Si-Fu on 20 August 2004 and a Master in 2018.
Os dois dias mais importantes das nossas vidas são: o dia em que nascemos e o dia que descobrimos o porquê.
translation The two most important days of our lives are the day we are born and the day we find out why.
Lineage
Chan Kowk Wai 陳國偉
He was born on 3 April 1936 in Taishan (台山), Guangdong province, in southern China.
He arrived in Brazil on 11 April 1960. He did not teach in his first years there; early in 1963 he began teaching students at home. In 1973 he founded the Academia Sino-Brasileira de Kung Fu in São Paulo, on Rua Vitorino Carmilo in Barra Funda; today the academy is on Rua João Moura in Pinheiros.
Pak Shao Lin remembers him as the master who brought traditional Chinese kung fu to Brazil.
He taught five styles: Northern Shaolin, Yang-style taiji, baguazhang, xingyiquan and choy li fut.
In September 2004, in Vancouver, the World Organization of Wu Shu & Kung Fu Masters awarded him the 10th degree.
Chan’s teachers
On the Pak Shao Lin chart, three masters stand above Chan Kowk Wai. Two taught him in Hong Kong; the third taught his teacher.
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Ku Yu Cheong
Yim Sheung Mo’s teacher · one of the Five Northern Tigers
He was born in Funing, Jiangsu province. He trained for more than ten years in Shandong with the Yan family and inherited the Ten Routes of Northern Shaolin, the weapons and Iron Palm.
In 1929 he was one of the Five Northern Tigers, the masters sent to Guangzhou to teach in southern China. There his style came to be called Northern Shaolin.
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Yim Sheung Mo
Chan Kowk Wai’s Northern Shaolin teacher
He was already a Hung Gar master when he challenged Gu Ruzhang to a friendly bout, lost, and became his disciple. In Guangzhou he also learned liuhe quan, ziranmen and Choy Li Fut.
In the early 1950s he moved into Chan’s family home in Hong Kong and taught there. He made Chan heir to Northern Shaolin, martial qigong and healing massage.
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Yin Yue Chui
Chan Kowk Wai’s teacher in Choy Li Fut and Chinese medicine
He learned Choy Li Fut from his father, Jan Yim Cho (甄炎初), but preferred to practise medicine, where he earned a high reputation. He chose to have few students: only three came to know the style in depth, and Chan was one of them.
In Hong Kong he taught Chan, besides fighting, the healing techniques of Chinese medicine and the qigong exercises he had gathered from other masters.
The line of transmission
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Chan Kowk Wai
Grandmaster · 1936–2022
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Gilmar Dantas
Master, 7th degree · founded Pak Shao Lin in 1984
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Willians Correia
Master, 5th degree · Aang Willians
Gilmar Dantas met Chan Kowk Wai in 1979 and began to train with him. In 1986 he received his diploma from the grandmaster.
He founded the Pak Shao Lin Association in São Paulo in 1984. He is a direct disciple of Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai.
Taught directly
Besides Master Gilmar Dantas, Master Aang Willians was taught directly by three masters: Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai, for about a decade; Master Chen Ming Wah, for about a year; and Grandmaster Chen Bing, in Chenjiagou, in 2026.
Chan Kowk Wai and Chen Bing were not only masters but grandmasters. Chen Bing is a national-level representative inheritor of Chen-style taijiquan, which China protects as intangible cultural heritage. In 2020 UNESCO added taijiquan to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
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Chan Kowk Wai
He trained directly with Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai for about a decade. About him he wrote that he “taught me so many things, in the years I trained with him”.
Today Master Aang Willians teaches at the same Associação Pró Vida where the grandmaster taught.
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Chen Ming Wah
Chen Ming Wah was born in August 1954 in Taiwan; his parents came from Futian, in China. At 11 he came to Brazil, a 60-day voyage on a Dutch ship. In 1967 he began training with Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai, who taught at weekends at the Chinese social centre in Liberdade, São Paulo.
Chen Ming Wah travelled among masters, taught them techniques and came back more often to those he judged worthy. There was no fixed schedule. Over about a year, he taught Master Aang Willians many techniques and qigong styles directly.
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Chen Bing
Chen Bing (陳炳) was born in March 1971 in Chenjiagou. He is the only son of Chen Yonghe (陳永和), the elder brother of Grandmasters Chen Xiaowang (陳小旺) and Chen Xiaoxing (陳小星), and a direct descendant of Chen Wangting. He began training at 6 with his two uncles and later became Chen Xiaowang’s formal disciple.
In 2007 he founded the Chen Bing Taiji Academy in Chenjiagou and has led it since. China recognises him as a national-level representative inheritor of taijiquan’s intangible cultural heritage.
Training partner
Robson Nobre
Robson Nobre was one of Master Aang Willians’s first training partners at Pak Shao Lin, and is his friend.
He was born in 1972 in Rio de Janeiro state. An Air Force sergeant, he came to São Paulo and began training with Master Gilmar Dantas in February 1994, at the Santana academy. He was São Paulo state, Brazilian and South American champion, in forms and in fighting; in 1999 he won the top fighting category of the South American Championship.
He received the Si-Fu title from Master Gilmar in December 2001 and the master title in July 2024, at Pak’s 40th-anniversary celebration. Today he teaches in São José dos Campos.
Kung fu’s China
Tradition tells: Bodhidharma (達摩) brought Chan Buddhism to Shaolin in the 6th century and meditated for nine years facing the wall of a cave above the monastery. Tradition links him to exercises called the "18 Hands of the Luohan".
17 kung fu styles on the map of China, from the Shaolin Temple in Henan to Hong Kong cinema.
- 少林 Shaolin
- 陳式太極拳 Chen-style taiji
- 楊式太極拳 Yang-style taiji
- 八卦掌 Baguazhang, Eight Trigram Palm
- 八極拳 Bajiquan, Eight Extremes Fist
- 形意拳 Xingyiquan, Form-Intent Fist
- 螳螂拳 Northern Praying Mantis
- 北少林 Northern Shaolin and Changquan, Long Fist
- 鷹爪 Eagle Claw
- 武當 Wudang
- 峨眉 Emei
- 洪家拳 Hung Ga
- 詠春拳 Wing Chun
- 蔡李佛 Choy Li Fut
- 五形拳 Five Animals of Shaolin
- 醉拳 Drunken boxing
- 京劇 From Peking opera to Hong Kong film
Chenjiagou
Chenjiagou is in Wen County (溫縣), Jiaozuo City (焦作), Henan Province.
The village is on the north bank of the Yellow River (黃河). The Taihang Mountains (太行山) lie to the north.
In 2007 the China Folk Literature and Art Association (中國民間文藝家協會) named Chenjiagou the birthplace of taijiquan.
Laojia Yilu (老架一路), the first form of the Chen style’s Old Frame, has 74 movements:
太極起勢 金剛搗碓 懶扎衣 六封四閉 單鞭 金剛搗碓 白鶴亮翅 斜行 摟膝 上三步 斜行 摟膝 上三步 掩手肱拳 金剛搗碓 撇身拳 青龍出水 雙推手 肘底看拳 倒卷肱 白鶴亮翅 斜行 閃通背 掩手肱拳 六封四閉 單鞭 雲手 高探馬 右擦腳 左擦腳 轉身左蹬腳 上三步 擊地捶 踢二起 護心拳 旋風腳 右蹬腳 掩手肱拳 小擒打 抱頭推山 六封四閉 單鞭 前招 後招 野馬分鬃 六封四閉 單鞭 玉女穿梭 懶扎衣 六封四閉 單鞭 雲手 擺腳跌叉 金雞獨立 倒卷肱 白鶴亮翅 斜行 閃通背 掩手肱拳 六封四閉 單鞭 雲手 高探馬 十字單擺蓮 指襠捶 白猿獻果 單鞭 雀地龍 上步七星 退步跨虎 轉身雙擺蓮 當頭炮 金剛搗碓 太極收勢
In 2026 Aang Willians lived for a month in Chenjiagou, Chen Village, in Henan province. He stayed at the Chen Bing Taiji Academy and learned Chen-style taiji from Master Chen Bing and the academy’s teachers.
Many masters
Over his life he has trained and spent time with hundreds of martial arts masters.
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Master Gilmar Dantas, Pak Shao Lin
He learned most of what he knows from Master Gilmar Dantas, whom he calls “my kung fu father, in the Northern Shaolin family”.
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Chan Kowk Wai’s disciples
He trains with many other disciples of Chan Kowk Wai, who meet today to keep the grandmaster’s legacy alive.
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Action Kung Fu, São Paulo
Aang Willians is a stuntman with the Action Kung Fu team (Dublês Marciais) and a civil firefighter.
In 2021 he and Gutemberg Lins choreographed a fight for the SBT talk show The Noite.
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Beijing, 2025 and 2026
In 2025 and again in 2026 he trained in Beijing in the Jackie Chan Stunt Team programme.
Classes
Start my martial arts journey
Your first class: horse stance, 馬步. Feet apart, knees bent, back straight.
Soon your legs shake. The master watches and corrects your elbow, the height of your hips, your breath.
Your breath slows down, and you stay in the stance.
He learned those corrections from Master Gilmar Dantas and from Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai, who brought Chinese kung fu to Brazil in 1960.
Where he teaches
- Online classes
R$ 350 a month - Associação Pró Vida · São Paulo
Ask the master for days and times - Ibirapuera Park · São Paulo
Saturday mornings - Jundiaí
Tuesday evenings · confirm the time with the master
For in-person classes, the master gives the price in his reply.
Your message goes straight to the master. He replies himself, with the days and times.
Find him
- Instagram@aangwillians_avatarrealHis main profile: Aang Willians, stuntman and actor.(opens in a new tab)
- WhatsApp+55 11 97207-9665To ask about classes. The master replies himself.(opens in a new tab)
- YouTube@AvatarRealBrazilVideos and live streams, including the travel series AVATAR na CHINA and the 100 FLEXÕES (100 push-ups) lives.(opens in a new tab)
- TikTok@avatarrealShort videos as Avatar Real.(opens in a new tab)
- FacebookavatarrealBRThe Avatar Real page.(opens in a new tab)
- E-mailcontatoavatarreal@gmail.comTo write to the master directly.