Born in New York and raised in Redhook projects in Brooklyn Instrutor Feijao (Ahmad Amar Mansoor Ali El-bey Simmons) was always into the martial arts.  His was first exposed to the martialarts by his father, who is a fifth degree black belt in Gyojin Ryu Karate, when he was just months old.  He began training as soon as he could stand on his own. Throughout the early years he dedicated his life to Shotokan Karate, and Senuces Ryu Ju-jistu( created by the late grand master Dr. Moses Powell).  He received his Black belts in both at age 21.

As Ahmad grew older the influence of the projects began to take its toll on him.  He began to hang with the “wrong crowd”.  It got to the point where his high school basketball coach and gym teacher were extremely worried about the future of he and his friends.  The solution was a free after school capoeira class taught by Mestre Jelon Viera (founder of Grupo Capoeira Luanda).  This was Ahmad’s first exposure to capoeira.  That same week was the week that Tekken 3 was released (the introduction of capoeira in a 3D video game), and a friend of his showed him “Only the Strong” ( a classic capoeira movie).  And it was at that point that Ahmad’s love for both dancing and Martial Arts had found a common ground. I was a match made in heaven.

After this first exsposure to capoeira Ahmad joined Grupo Capoeira Abada under Mestranda Edna Lima.  It was with Edna Lima that Ahmad visited Brasil for the first time in 1999.  The second time he would go by himself, with no plans and only the desire to find out more about the history, philosophy, practice, and life of capoeira.  During this trip Ahmad was asked to leave Abada Capoeira because of personal differences and spent the next 2 years as a Ronin capoeirista.  It was after this two year period that Ahmad found himself in California and came across Capoeira Brasil Los Angeles.  He realized at that point that he had found his home.

Now after 13 years of experience in capoeira, 4 years of personal training and nutrion experience, and almost 30 years of Martial arts experience in general he is representing his group in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.