Our Instructors
Master Alan Nakamoto
Shifu Jenny Hsiao-Nakamoto
I started learning Eight Step Mantis Kung Fu & Taiji in 2008 at the San Francisco school and started teaching 2 years after. I love interacting with adults and children, helping them to become more coordinated in both mind and body. The changes we see in people even after just a few classes often influence their daily lives in small but impactful ways, helping them use their bodies with more intention and understanding.
Besides being a Shifu in the Eight Step Mantis system, in 2019 I became certified to teach radKIDS, a children’s safety and empowerment course. This has led me down a path that includes women’s and adult self defense. This is a passion that I feel so grateful to have found, and to have the background to be able to make a powerful impact.
Shifu Ahmad Moghadam
I started training in Eight Step Mantis Kung Fu & Taiji at the San Francisco school in 2012. It was not until I started practicing that I began to view myself with a more positive outlook. Before Kung Fu, I had low self-confidence and little health awareness, which led to a sedentary lifestyle. When I started training, I discovered that I had the potential to better myself physically, mentally, and spiritually through the practice. Kung Fu and Taiji became an important part of my life, and in 2018 I became a Shifu.
These positive ideas and practices from the system have taught me to always strive to be a better person and martial artist. Teaching and helping people through the practices of Eight Step Mantis Kung Fu & Taiji is something that I really enjoy doing. As a teacher, it is my goal to give students a more positive outlook towards themselves, and for them to discover their potential so that it may change their life as it did for me.