Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Growing up, my inspirations were Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, all these martial arts legends. I wanted to express my talent on screen in a certain way. I felt that it made me a little different.
Martial arts, for me, is not just some kind of job to gain some money or whatever. No, martial arts, for me, is my lifestyle, my religion, my philosophy... Martial arts are everything for me.
The journey has moulded me into the person I am today. The journey of my mixed martial arts experience has been filled with ups and downs, but through that, I have come out a much better man.
I've always been into sports and yoga and running. I actually study a martial arts self-defense program called Krav Maga. I can't quite say it's easy, but it's fun for me and I love to do it.
I have three things I really, really want to do. I want to do aerial trapeze, I want to do martial arts, and I want to learn Russian. And, because of my life, I'm not able to do any of these.
Since I do seven different styles of martial arts, I don't foresee myself fighting the same in any two movies. I think every fighting style should fit the character that's doing the fighting.
If you fight with big names, with legends of mixed martial arts like Alistair Overeem, Mark Hunt, like Fabricio Werdum, you will go to the highest rankings and get bigger and bigger names too.
Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do, and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do.
I'm trained in mixed martial arts. I started when I was 14 and did my first competition at 18. It was a grappling competition against all guys a weight category above me, and I got first place.
When I'm done my mixed martial arts career, the only people who are gonna remember me and respect what I did and how I lived my life are my two children. That's my legacy, ladies and gentlemen.
When learning boxing and martial arts, there wasn't any fakery in my training. When teaching you the basics of fighting, even though it's faked for the camera, they teach you to do it for real.
'Ashes of Time' was my third film, and as a young director at that point, it's not very often that you have the chance to make a big martial arts film, so of course I jumped at this opportunity.
My father was a big Bruce Lee fan. He's Chinese-Hawaiian, and my mother is Chinese. He used to take us to all these really fantastical films with martial arts in them. And Bruce Lee was amazing.
Best fight ever in a movie: 'They Live.' I want to do a martial arts version of that, where you think it's ended, and it just keeps on going. I love that fight. It was funny as well. Unexpected.
I will continue to practice a martial arts form along with the mental and spiritual aspect that come with building a balanced life, and I will continue to incorporate it into whatever films I can.
I don't get to do a lot of fight scenes on 'Sanctuary,' but I'm a trained fighter; I've been doing martial arts for years and, you know, I'm very active physically; I used to be a circus performer.
I began to study martial arts because it was a great form of exercise, and I knew it would help my acting career. Martial arts reminded me of dancing. It has helped me learn fight sequences quicker.
I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies.
There are two kinds of magic. If you think of it like martial arts, there's sparring, where you are doing it with a partner, and the other is kata, where you're doing an exposition for the audience.
Some people fight and stuff outside the cage, but I never liked that sort of thing. I just always wanted to do martial arts and I finally did it at 22 years old, so later in life, but it's all good.
The first martial arts movie I ever watched was this old Chinese film called 'Five Deadly Venoms.' I was seven years old. My dad and I were sitting in front of the TV on the floor in our living room.
I started working out and doing martial arts when I was about 4 years old, and I was competing by the time I was five or six. So my mom and dad had me doing push-ups and sit-ups from a very young age.
I've been training with my mixed martial arts guy as much as I can when I'm back in L.A., so if I could do another movie like I did in 'The Killing Game,' with Samuel L. Jackson, that would be awesome.
There's a very fine line between martial arts and dance. Kicking with your foot stretched out, or kicking with your foot flat in someone's face, in terms of flexibility, it's all kind of the same thing.
I watch mostly every martial arts movie... I really like movies that aren't just martial arts. I like movies that have spiritual meaning behind them, like samurai movies, or movies that have meditation.
I thought that Wu-Tang was the best sword style - the best sword-style of martial arts. And the tongue is like a sword. And so I say that we have the best lyrics, so, therefore, we are the Wu-Tang Clan.
I have always been a martial arts fighter; it goes to back when I was eighteen. I was competing on the circuit, but when you're performing, you tend to pull punches because you don't want to hurt anyone.
I am a black belt in martial arts. I like to drink scotch. I go skydiving. So I never really saw myself as a woman or a minority. I just went out there and did my thing, and it didn't even cross my mind.
The two things I understand best are stand-up comedy and martial arts. And those things require an ultimate grasp of the truth. You have to be objective about your skills and abilities to compete in both.
As a child, I couldn't afford going to the gym, so I started doing pull-ups, push-ups, suryanamaskar, dand baithak and other forms of yoga. I also trained in martial arts and practiced freehand exercises.
For a bit I was going mad trying to do martial arts twice a week and go to the gym and do weights, but that can make you ill if you balance it with flying around and living like I do, so I narrowed it down.
I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.
A lot of people don't realize, when you are acting in a martial arts film, you're not just performing martial arts. You're not just performing martial arts. You're actually acting as much as any other actor.
I kind of did mixed martial arts as a hobby. At the time I was actually wanting to become a police officer as I was working in a hospital as a security job in Michigan. It was something I did in my off time.
My father didn't compete ever in martial arts tournaments because they were not real. They were tag tournaments or touch tournaments, which he thought was bizarre and not really what the martial arts is about.
I came from doing Wushu and other martial arts, and then I got into movies, and I had to learn that as well - the language of martial arts movie fighting. It's a different thing; it's a different kind of logic.
People understand the simplicity of violence, and martial arts has always been about the more efficient way to deliver said violence upon an adversary. I've kept that philosophy as the focal point of what I do.
It wasn't until I went to Korea out of high school and got exposed to the martial arts for the first time and was just completely enamored with the physical ability of the martial arts and making my black belt.
People say to me all the time, 'You have no fear.' I tell them, 'No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person.'
When my writing career took off, it was pretty easy to keep my ego in check because old-school martial arts isn't about ego gratification. It's about maintaining a balanced view of the world and your place in it.
If you want to see great mixed martial arts, tune in when I fight. If you want to see drama and all of that stuff, you guys can go watch 'Bachelors in Paradise.' They'll give you enough drama you can want to watch.
I love every type of martial arts, but with Muay Thai in general, I want to see it being brought to the public more. There is no movie that has Muay Thai incorporated into it, so I want to bring that to the public.
I have made movies on education and dance, have directed and choreographed legends of Bollywood. Now, I want to make a movie on martial arts. I myself am a black belt, so I am looking forward to do something on this.
My background in promoting martial arts started in 1985 when we were doing PK Karate, which was on ESPN. Fast forward to when mixed martial arts became legal in California. I made the jump to MMA and never looked back.
I tend not to dwell on the parallels between chess and business, chess and the martial arts, or any two things for that matter, because the truth is that all pursuits are connected if we gain an eye for the thematic links.
I just remember I used to go to each tournament to make a couple bucks. I did as a living thing; I got paid to do martial arts, so I'd go to these jiu-jitsu tournaments and make, like, $1000 every time I won the tournament.
My goal is to become the best person I can, and in the process of doing so, I believe, I can help others. I'm also trying to make history in mixed martial arts and become known as the best 135-pound fighter to ever compete.
To be recognized by a brand like Reebok and to know that the company is looking at mixed martial arts shows the growth of the sport. For me, it's an amazing opportunity. I get to be the face of my own shoe, and it's surreal.
I started taekwondo at 5 or 6 years old and did a bunch of kick-boxing later, too. Eventually I became a black belt and coached as well. I did some basketball and softball growing up, but most of my activity was martial arts.
Regular martial arts is traditional, with no music and no flips choreograhed into it. But extreme martial arts is choreographed to music. It's very fast-beat uptempo, and you put a lot of acrobatic maneuvers into the routine.