6th Dang, vice president of the German Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo association.

Võ Sư Chiêu was born on March 13th, 1952 in the province of Bạc Liêu (South Vietnam). He started training Vovinam in 1966 in a class of Võ Sư Trần Văn Bé at a school in Saigon.

Towards the end of 1970 Võ Sư Chiêu finished school and went to Germany to study at the University of Stuttgart.

Back then, he wore the Hoàng Đai Nhị and started to give his first Vovinam classes at this university.

In 1974 a phase of cooperation with other masters of Vietnamese martial arts in Europe started under the command of Master Phan Hoàng (Vietvodao International) by order of Grand Master Lê Sáng. Additionally Võ Sư Chiêu participated in various events, for example with the masters Dương Quan Việt, Nguyễn Ngọc Thạch, Nguyễn Tiến Hội, Trần Nguyên Đạo and many others.

From 1983 until 1985 Võ Sư Chiêu lived in West-Berlin where he started a small Vovinam group. In April 1985 he moved to Frankfurt due to work-related reasons.

Towards the end of 1985 he founded another Vovinam section in a Frankfurt sports club (Frankfurt Nied) . This section still exists to this day. Furthermore, he temporarily led another Vovinam group in a second club in Frankfurt (TSG Nordwest). Currently his sons Trần Đình Du and Trần Đình Ân manage the training in this club together with other students of him. Since 1996 Võ Sư Chiêu has taken part in the setup of the first European Vovinam organisation “Vovinam Intercontinental”. Additionally, he organized the first international cadet championship in 2001 in Frankfurt. In April 2004 he also organised the Oversea Vovinam Championship in Frankfurt, which was attended by various international countries and amongst other people Võ Sư Nguyễn Văn Chiếu from Vietnam.

Since 2002 he has held multiple seminars in Europe, for example in Poland, Russia and Uzbekistan.

He passed his exam for the Chuẩn Hồng Đai (4th dang) in 2000, for the 5th dang in 2008 and for the 6th dang in 2014. All of the exams were carried out at the Tồ Đường in Ho-Chi-Minh-City in Vietnam.

Võ Sư Dietmar Thom (master of Vovinam in Munich and current President of the German Vovinam Federation DVVF has trained many years with Võ Sư Chiêu and commented, that he is “a master with competence, and lots of commitment to the job of training and being a master. Võ Sư Chiêu has trained many athletes with a high performance level at several European and World Championships.”

Võ Sư Chiêu played a vital role in the founding of the German Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo Association DVVF in 2010, and still holds the position of Vice President of the organization. Another important process he took part in, was the founding of the European Vovinam Việt Võ Đạo federation EVVF in 2010. He became one of its Vice Presidents and was later also appointed permanent member of the EVVF Masters Committee by the Grand Masters Council in Vietnam.