1722 State St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101    (805) 687-1514

Trial Membership

Academy of Martial Arts originally started out in 1989 with Sifu Michael L. Mac Donald and a few of his fellow college students from various practices. They came together to form a competition group called Channel Islands Martial Arts Club. This group continued until 1991 when Sifu Mac Donald was formally pronounced an instructor and dropped the name club from his group to take on students of his own.

Around this time, Sifu Mac Donald was introduced to full contact martial arts and started to gear his training towards understanding the various systems of martial arts out there. In 1993, he started his training with Master Vincent Ornelas, instructor of Carpinteria Taekwondo, who awarded him a black belt in Combat SAMBO and Taekwondo later that year. It was during this time when Sifu Mac Donald started his professional fighting career, competing in Kickboxing and NHB competitions. It was also about this time that Sifu Mac Donald decided to convert all the terminology of his original kung-fu system to Mandarin and coined the name Wu Ch'uan Fa which loosely means Five Fist Boxing.

In 1996, Sifu Mac Donald opened up Santa Barbara Martial Arts Academy, teaching Wu Ch'uan Fa, Kickboxing, and, with the permission of Master Ornelas, Combat SAMBO and Taekwondo. Keeping with the spirit that Sifu Mac Donald started with, he opened up the Academy on Mission St. with a Hung-gar teacher, Goju-Ryu Karate Sensei, and Tai Chi instructors. Shortly after the departure of the Hung-gar instructor in 1997, Sifu Mac Donald integrated Hung-gar into Wu Ch'uan Fa.

1999 started with a brand new location and fresh start on De La Vina St. next to the Chicken Ranch. It was also about this time that Sifu Mac Donald started coaching others in Kickboxing and MMA fighting.

2003 brought massive changes to the Academy. With the permission of one of his former Sifus (Sifu Darrell Gooden, Eagle Claw), Sifu Mac Donald formerly started to create his own system of Kung-fu dubbed Rising Pheonix (Sheng Ji Feng Huang), a Jeet Kune Do style system bringing in all the aspects of his formal training under one umbrella.  The school then incorporated dropping "Academy" from its name and started simply using the initials SBMA in order to establish a brighter future to its future instructors. Hapkido was formerly adopted by SBMA as was Kenjitsu; both systems being taught by Mr. Michael Whitney. Sifu Mac Donald was accepted in the "Masters Hall of Fame" as Instructor of the Year after being nominated by Master Brian Allen.

Sifu Mac Donald also announced his intention to finally retire from professional fighting with his final fight being against UFC Veteran Shonie Carter. This fight was canceled and Sifu Mac Donald postponed his retirement until a last minute request came from the WEC in August 2004. After this he formerly retired so he could dedicate himself to the future instructors of AMA and his family.  AMA has since assimilated Taekwondo and Hapkido into it's Rising Phoenix system in order to simplify its curriculum.

Vahalla Schedule