Master SiFu Luca Damante

Luca Damante, founder and Head of School of WTDS, personally holds lessons at the headquarters in Gela.

He also coordinates, with the help of qualified WTDS instructors, all courses in the various provinces of Agrigento, Bari, Campofelice di Roccella, Catania, Collesano, Licata, Messina, Palermo, Ragusa, Reggio Calabria, Syracuse, Taranto, Termini Imerese and Valencia (Spain).

Sifu Luca Damante was born in Gela, Sicily, in 1972 and, since he was a child, he showed great interest in martial arts. In his early adolescence he began practicing some Japanese disciplines but then, growing up, he gradually approached the Chinese ones until he arrived at Wing Tsun, in 1993, in which discipline he will continue and specialize until the present day without interruption.

In 1996 he started the first Wing Tsun course in Licata (AG) and shortly thereafter, in 1997, he opened the first Wing Tsun school in Catania, a city very dear to him. With the Wing Tsun School, a long period of growth and improvement began, also thanks to the fact that the environment of a dynamic university city put him in contact with new, rooted realities. But, at the same time, Catania offered him the opportunity to show his Wing Tsun to a vast Sicilian and southern Italian audience.

From 1993 to 2007 he improved more and more, going from student to instructor, until he was appointed Sifu at the WTOI “Wing Tsun Organization Italia”, under the coordination of EWTO “Europe Wing Tsun Organization” and IWTA “International Wing Tsun Association”, where he was able to learn from the best Masters.

In 2007 Luca left the WTOI and followed Sifu Michele Stellato. From then on, the momentum and growth of Sifu Luca Damante and his students is clear for all to see: his schools are among those with the largest following of students and great appreciation, almost as if they wanted to represent the right way to best express the skills acquired in many years of growth and improvement.

In the following years, Sifu Damante is committed to spreading the discipline of Wing Tsun and tries to make it accessible to everyone, also driven by the great versatility of this system. In fact, in addition to teaching the actual martial art, he tries to adapt the principles of Wing Tsun to the characteristics and type of users who receive them, such as police forces and security teams, but he also specifically addresses female groups and provides training courses in schools.

The versatility of Wing Tsun is not limited to the age, gender or “physicality” of those who must learn this discipline, but extends to include the growing need to seek legitimacy for one’s defensive action in a martial art. In this last area, Sifu Damante proudly carries forward a broader vision of the martial art itself, integrating it with aspects, differences and peculiarities of “self-defense” in relation to “legitimate defense”.

The study of these issues leads Master Luca Damante to also compare himself with the reality overseas, the USA, with the aim of demonstrating that it is possible to defend oneself within the law and in compliance with the legislation of each country. Thus begins a special, more universal training and education program called “Only Three Days Program”: an intensive program that in just 3 days provides the basis for best managing all situations involving the crime of aggression, respecting the various international rules on legitimate defense.

Luca Damante maintains that the in-depth study of martial arts is intended for athletes and enthusiasts, while the need for personal defense is a need that extends to everyone.

In 2022 Sifu Damante achieved the recognition of 8th GS in the AWTA, and in December 2023 he founded the new Wing Tsun Damante System school.

In 2024, the 8th GS recognition arrives from LIBERTAS (National School of Sports Training) and from FIAMS (Italian Federation of Martial Arts and Sports).