Many people living in Australia have been exposed to or brought up in more than one ethnic culture.  Whether that is because many of us were born overseas and now have the privilage of living in Australia or we were brought up by parents who were born overseas or who had a strong connection to an overseas culture.  Australia is definitely a multicultural nation with more exposure to multiple cultures in the big cities than rural areas.  

There has always been an argument which comes and goes that immigrants should assimilate fully into Australian society, rather than live in cultural enclaves.  I think most Australians would feel that this is true to some extent in that the laws of the land need to be respected and obeyed and that immigrants coming here come because they love the country.  Most immigrants have contributed enormously to this country.  But I also feel that most Australians are in love with the diversity in food, dance, and customs that our multicultural society brings and that most immigrants also love to watch Australian sport as much as locals love eating banh mi!  

Multiculturalism should be a blessing. To put it simply most of us would realise that every culture has good and bad aspects.  Preserving culture should not exist purely for the sake of culture.  Those of us (most of us) blessed with knowing more than one culture has the privilage of taking the good from each culture and throwing out the bad.  That's how society progresses and how most arts progress and grow.  By learning from each other.  This is not something that many countries who happen to be mostly monocultural would be able to do.  And aspects of culture need to not only be demonstrated and seen (or eaten!) but rather taught to anyone who wants to learn. And embraced by anyone learning so much that they can develop it, fuse it and let it grow to match society's needs.  

People are scared of the unknown.  And want to get rid of it.  So teach what you know to everyone, let them make it their own.  That's how you combat racism.  Again it's another philosophy from that great man Bruce Lee about martial arts but we can certainly do this for every aspect of culture.  

Our martial arts are based on traditional arts from overseas - Chinese and Filipino and taught to be useful for Australian conditions.  Our performance arts are there for everyone to learn but also for everyone to enjoy.  Yes they are based on traditional arts but we perform them to bring that culture to you, and again fit for purpose for Canberra conditions!  We are open to new ideas and open to blending these arts with other arts, working with other artists and letting our imaginations run wild!  We are proud to spice up the streets and malls of Canberra to bring enjoyment to all.

Our deepest hope is that you can join us and continue to innovate the asian martial arts and performance arts to make them so much mainstream in Australian society that they become taught in schools and community not as asian arts but as part of the Australian curriculum.  

We had only one student attempt a grading in term 2.

Congratulations Brandon Trousdell #131 on achieving Junior Yellow Sash Dragon with Honours!

Martial arts training has been around since the dawn of civilisation and probably before that!  At the Moonbear Kung Fu Academy our training is based on traditional Chinese kung fu and Filipino Eskrima.  The techniques may be ancient but the applications are used for a modern day encounter and our training techniques based on modern sports science.  

This mix of various traditional eastern combat disciplines with modern western training techniques I believe is an efficient (and relatively injury free) way to prepare  for any encounter.  Encounters may be purely verbal (and online) intimidation all the way to overpowering physical situations involving mutliple opponents, weaponry and anything the surrounding environment will throw at you!   

This is not a new way of training - it was made famous by the one and only Bruce Lee in the 1960s and it's ideas are the basis of modern day MMA fighting.  

Im a qualified instructor in 3 martial arts, a fitness instructor and a sports medicine doctor who works with elite sporting teams and their staff.  

Our art will constantly evolve to provide you with the means to defend yourself in the modern world.    My instruction and the art is there for you, not the other way around.  

But it  takes hard work and dedication to succeed and that part is all up to you.

Sifu Wilson Lo
28th March 2026

We held our Christmas party and annual awards presentation at Sifu's house last weekend.  The awards announced were:

Rookie of the Year - Chloe Van
Most Improved - Abigail Andrews
Proficiency Dragon - Brandon Trousdell
Proficiency Lion - Max Ai
Student of the Year - Zoe Saarinen
Wolf Pack - Jesse Lo, Hayley Van Loenhout
Moonbear Cubs - Mattias Hatala
Three Virtues - Nicholas Morphett

Results from our recent gradings are as follows:

Chloe Van #136 - Black Sash level 1 (UCSKF)
Sky Ho #135 - Senior White Sash Dragon
Elijah Esampalli #133 - Senior White Sash Dragon
Brandon Trousdell #131 - Senior White Sash Dragon with Honours
Oly Ai #134 - Senior White Sash Lion
Connall Ashcroft #123 - Senior Yellow Sash Dragon
Xander Sullican #119 - Senior Yellow Sash Lion with Honours
Andy Lo #94 - Junior Green Sash Lion
Max Ai #120 - Junior Green Sash Lion with Honours

Congratulations to our students who have put in a lot of hard work towards their gradings

The ACT Minister for Multicultural Affairs Mr Michael Pettersson presented the ACT Multicultural Awards on 9th September 2025.

And our very own Canberra Dragon Dance won the Award for Multicultural Arts, Media or Culture for 2025!

By not only showing the beauty of Asian performing arts, but teaching it, letting anyone who wants to learn embrace it, then make it their own is what we think multiculturalism is about.  These arts will one day be mainstream Australian arts just as much as making pizza and pasta,  and dancing Brazilian samba is!

You can read more about the award here: 

We took up a team of 13 students (and a squad of coaches, manager and parents) to perform at Market City, Chinatown Sydney on 7-8 June 2025.  Saturday was the Kids Lion Dance Open Competition and Sunday was the Australian Lion Dance Exhibition. 

We entered in 3 kids teams to perform in traditional lion dance routines along with 2 kung fu forms and a drumming performance.  Our junior kids teams had to compete against older teenagers but were brave in their effort with the boys teams being 8 and 11 yo and girls being 9 and 5 yo (including our first Moonbear Cubs entrant!).  Congratulations to our teens team with Zoe Saarinen and Andy Lo in the lion who achieved 2nd place! (out of 18 entries) Thank you to Allie and Austin from Dragonstyle Kung Fu andf Fitness who helped with percussion at very short notice due to illness of two of our entrants. 

Our adults team with Rex Li and Jesse Lo in the lion performed a bench and drunken lion routine on the Sunday and put on an amazing display together with 9 other teams from Sydney and Perth.  

Thank you to all the parents who provided transport, photography and management of our kids entrants.  Everyone had a great time and made a lot of friends with other teams.

 Term two just began and we welcome back students after their Easter break.  It wasn't much for a break for some as we performed at 3 weddings and the Falling Leaf Festival in Tumut all in 1 week!  

We also held extra training sessions as we prepare for the Australian Lion Dance Exhibition and Competition in June in Market City in Sydney! 

Results from the gradings at the end of term one are:

Junior White Sash Dragon with Honours - Elijah Esampalli #133
Junior Yellow Sash Lion (supplementary grading) - Xander Sullivan #119
Junior White Sash Lion - Oly Ai #134
Junior White Sash Dragon - Sky Ho #135
Junior Green Sash Lion - Nicholas Morphett #117

Congratulations to our students who were promoted. ​

From 2025 all our weekday classes will be held at the Group Fitness Studio at the University of Canberra which means all our classes in total will be on the same campus.  This strengthens our ties with the university and the new area will be larger, airconditioned all year round with mirrors to aid teaching.

The times will also change so that Mondays and Fridays will both be at 4:15  -5:30 pm.  Expert some changes for 2025 with a focus on increased intensity and more realism at training in both martial arts and also performing arts.  

Our Sunday classes for UCSKF will now also have a break and start again on Sunday 5 January 2025 to help prepare for our busy performance season for Lunar New Year and the National Multicultural Festival.  The weekday classes will resume on Monday 3 February 2025.

Results from the recent gradings are as follows:

Congratulations to :

Nicholas Morphett - junior green sash dragon
​Abigail Andrews - junior white sash dragon
Prajiet Eswaran - senior green sash lion​