The master
Aang Willians
Brazilian, with his heart in the Chinese martial arts.
Since age 7
He has trained in martial arts since he was 7.
That is almost four decades of training.
Jackie Chan’s films made him start. In 2025 he wrote that those films taught him respect, tradition and honour, and never to give up.
I can consider him, in a way, my first Kung Fu master. The first one with whom I took my first martial steps.
Everything is Kung Fu, and Kung Fu is in everything.
His teachers
He learned most of what he knows from Master Gilmar Dantas, whom he calls “my kung fu father, in the Northern Shaolin family”.
He also trained directly with Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai, for about a decade. On his page on the Pak Shao Lin site he writes that the grandmaster “taught me so many things, in the years I trained with him”.
In January 2024, two years after Chan Kowk Wai’s death, he posted a tribute to “my kung fu great-grandfather”. He wrote that the students keep the grandmaster’s spirit alive when they bow at the altar, greet their kung fu brothers and sisters, practise every style he brought and live by 武德 (wu de, martial ethics).
At Chinese New Year 2024, in the Liberdade district of São Paulo, he gave a demonstration of internal-energy control, the “Iron Neck”, from Golden Bell (金鐘罩) training. In the post he thanked Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai for the legacy he passed on to his disciples.
In 2024 he represented the Academia Sino-Brasileira de Kung Fu, Chan Kowk Wai’s school, at the Chinese Moon Festival on Rua 25 de Março in São Paulo.
He trained for about a year with Master Chen Ming Wah, one of Chan Kowk Wai’s oldest students and Gilmar Dantas’s first teacher. There was no fixed schedule: Chen Ming Wah travelled, talked with other masters and taught them techniques, and came back more often to the people he judged worth it. He taught Willians many techniques and qigong styles directly.
He trains with many other disciples of Chan Kowk Wai, who meet today to keep the grandmaster’s legacy alive.
In 2021 he did the Kung Fu Day live stream with the Academia Sino-Brasileira de Kung Fu, Bao Wei Arte Marcial and Pak Shao Lin. In 2023 he was a guest at the 10th internal championship of Shaolin Valinhos, Master Valdir Cremasco’s school.
At Pak Shao Lin
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.
In 2002 he began teaching at a Pak Shao Lin branch, Filial 2 (Cassasp).
He is a 5th-degree master (師傅). In the Pak Shao Lin lineage he stands directly below Master Gilmar Dantas, the founder.
He still goes to Pak Shao Lin and teaches there as one of the school’s masters, but he holds no classes of his own at the association.
At Pak Shao Lin he is listed as Willians Correia.
The Pak Shao Lin video index lists a video of him demonstrating an advanced martial qigong technique.
Teaching today
Today he teaches online, at R$ 350 a month, for students in other cities and countries. In São Paulo he teaches in person at Associação Pró Vida, where Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai taught from 1981, and in Ibirapuera Park on Saturday mornings. In Jundiaí he teaches on Tuesday evenings (confirm with the master).
He once ran his own martial arts school. In 2019 he wrote: “I still teach, I just no longer have a school of my own.”
He trains in Ibirapuera Park. In 2026 he recorded videos of his 100 FLEXÕES (100 push-ups) series there; in the one from 9 May he wore the T-shirt of the Academia Sino-Brasileira de Kung Fu, Chan Kowk Wai’s school.
In 2023 he did 100 push-ups a day for 365 days, with one day of 1,000 push-ups.
He created the Firebending form from his Northern Shaolin training. In the 2021 video where he teaches it, he says it is not part of Grandmaster Chan Kowk Wai’s curriculum.
He posts videos to train along with him, such as “Waterbending – Tai Chi Chuan – 8 Form” (2019), “10 Regras Essenciais para Prática de Tai Chi Chuan” (10 essential rules for tai chi practice) and “BASES de Kung Fu – Fortalecendo as Pernas” (kung fu stances: strengthening the legs).
In March 2024 he was a guest at the Copa Bao Wei in Porto Alegre and performed as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.
Other work
On his Pak Shao Lin page he lists his work: action stuntman, actor, voice actor, massage therapist and professional civil firefighter.
Aang Willians is a stuntman with the Action Kung Fu team (Dublês Marciais) and a civil firefighter.
In 2019 he did fight training for action scenes with Action Kung Fu, led by Gutemberg Lins.
In 2021 he and Gutemberg Lins choreographed a fight for the SBT talk show The Noite.
In 2021, with the Action Kung Fu stunt team, he worked on scenes of the SBT series “Os Exterminadores do Além”. The team played zombies, the Woman in White, a punk and other roles.
He is in the cast of the film “Stand Up – Minha Vida é uma Piada”, directed by Miguel Rodrigues, which premiered on 23 November 2023.
On 26 November 2017 he performed kung fu with Equipe Avatar on RedeTV’s show Conexão Models, and the team passed the first round.
In 2020 he co-directed, edited and performed in the video “Quarentine Stuntmen – Dublês em Quarentena” with other stunt performers.
He has worked as a voice actor since 2020: Gomorrah in One Piece and Akiteru Tsukishima in Haikyū!! (Brazilian Portuguese dubs).
He took the civil firefighter course. In 2021 he did a live stream with Fernando Ribeiro, a civil firefighter and one of his instructors on the course.
Training abroad
Over his life he has trained and spent time with hundreds of martial arts masters.
From December 2012 to January 2013 he travelled in China with Edson Michelangelo. He visited the Shaolin Temple and Master Hu’s traditional kung fu school, which teaches XinYi Chuan. The video series “Avatar na China” shows the trip.
In 2025 he was selected for a stunt training programme in China. He paid for the trip with an online crowdfunding campaign and was in China, in Beijing, from 9 to 27 July.
He filmed the trip as a daily YouTube video series, AVATAR na CHINA.
In 2026 he went back to Beijing to train with the same team again. On his second visit he knelt in front of the training centre and wrote that kneeling is the highest sign of respect toward a master, a lineage and sacred ground.
In 2026 he did a 20-day Mandarin immersion programme in China, at the Connect Mandarin school.
Chenjiagou
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.
Year by year
- 1981 Born in São Paulo.
- 1988–89 Starts training in martial arts, at 7.
- 1995 Joins Pak Shao Lin, Master Gilmar Dantas’s school.
- 2002 Starts teaching at a Pak Shao Lin branch.
- 2004 Becomes a Si-Fu.
- 2012–13 Travels in China and visits the Shaolin Temple.
- 2017 Kung fu performance on RedeTV’s Conexão Models.
- 2018 Becomes a Master at Pak Shao Lin.
- 2019 Fight training for action scenes with Action Kung Fu.
- 2020 Starts working as a voice actor.
- 2021 Fight choreography for SBT’s The Noite.
- 2021 Stunt scenes in the SBT series “Os Exterminadores do Além”.
- 2021 Publishes Firebending, a form he created.
- 2023 100 push-ups a day all year.
- 2023 “Stand Up – Minha Vida é uma Piada” premieres, with him in the cast.
- 2024 Demonstrates the “Iron Neck” at Chinese New Year in Liberdade.
- 2024 Performs as Sun Wukong at the Copa Bao Wei in Porto Alegre.
- 2024 Represents the Academia Sino-Brasileira at the Chinese Moon Festival.
- 2025 Jackie Chan Stunt Team training programme in Beijing. Meets Jackie Chan in person.
- 2026 Returns to Beijing for the 2026 training programme.
- 2026 20-day Mandarin immersion in China.
- 2026 Spends a month in Chenjiagou at the Chen Bing Taiji Academy.
- actionkungfu.com.br
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- actionkungfu.com.br
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In his words
My life is Kung Fu of Body, Mind and Soul.
A physical, mental, spiritual and very passionate experience.
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.