Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In many ways, 'What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World' is just one big thank-you note to my teachers. The book is dedicated to my fifth and sixth grade English teacher, Dr. Joseph D'Angelo, a massive force of erudition, martial artistry, culture, and love.
I used to love martial arts movies starring Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme. In one of Van Damme's movies, he would break a pine tree. I would kick banana trees because I used to live on a farm. My father would get mad at me because I would break all of the banana trees around.
I knew that the UFC and that mixed martial arts in general was going to prosper because I was extremely selfish and cocky, and I thought: 'Hey, if I like it, everyone's gonna like it.' Well, it came to fruition, and I chose a character that was not a far departure from myself at all.
I was a dancer for about 14 years. I was a martial artist for the same amount of time. I quit that when I realized I should probably not get my nose broken anymore. I love trying new stuff. Now I'm loving archery, and I surf. I just like to explore new things, I guess. I'm a big kid!
Work out really hard and be confident because bodies are beautiful, sensual and natural. I've also trained in Wushu, a form of martial arts - it's very beautiful and flowy, and it's predominantly used in fight scenes in movies, which is how it was introduced to me, and I just love it.
Mixed martial arts, UFC, or what have you, I don't think it has anything to do with rankings. It doesn't have to do with 'this guy beat this guy so he deserves a title shot.' It might be like that every once in a while, but this is entertainment and the two biggest names - the best story.
Without wishing to sound arrogant, when I was younger, I used to win every single martial arts tournament I ever entered. I used to enter the under 14s and under 16s, win both gold medals in those, and then go in the men's tournament just for experience, and end up getting a silver medal.
I think Ang Lee is a very, very talented director. He used martial arts to talk about love and girl, you know... But Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts film to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope the world will become.
Everybody asks 'would you fight Conor McGregor?' - of course I'd fight Conor McGregor but it's not because of the money. It's because he's such a huge martial artist and everybody considers themselves the best if you fight Conor McGregor, if you beat Conor McGregor. I look at it like that.
When I worked on 'Xena' I had to concentrate on fighting like Lucy Lawless. In 'Kill Bill' I not only had to stop fighting like Lucy, after three years of copying her moves, but start fighting like a Wu Shu martial artist. I'd never done Wu Shu before so mentally it was a massive challenge.
I've danced my whole life. Martial arts is just fun for me, it's all choreographed a bit like dance. I have done Muay Thai and Wushu, which is cool because it's very fluid dance. I also do Tricking. It's kind of like Taekwondo with the big kicks and flips and showier aspects of martial arts.
My martial arts came a lot from my uncle, who actually taught martial arts through the military. He was a black belt in tae kwon do, but also, he used a lot of military-style fighting where it's not the high kicks or anything like that. It's basically defeat your opponent as fast as possible.
Strong style is a philosophy for Japanese wrestling fans that was created by New Japan Pro Wrestling founder Antonio Inoki. He wanted you to show every motion and show real technique in the ring. It's important to use real techniques from real life and real martial arts. The detail is important.
Chinese martial artists consider themselves to be gardeners, and it's an honor for them to take care of this garden, to better it and hand it over to the generations that follow. I think that's a very important message in a time when personal achievement seems to be the only criteria of success.
'La Marseillaise' sounds best ringing around a packed sports stadium. Its lyrics evoke revolution, conflict, taking up arms, preparing for the fight - everything my music does not! Even in our largely peaceful times, it retains its rousing, martial air that gives it a power that hasn't diminished.
A good choreographer is one that's going to collaborate, teach, guide - everything. The wonderful thing on 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was that we had Philip Kwok - he choreographed John Woo's 'Hard Boiled,' and in the '70s, he was a martial arts actor, stunt man, fighter, choreographer in Hong Kong.
When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.
The truth is that throughout my careers in both chess and the martial arts, I often knew that my rivals were more naturally gifted than me - either with their mental machines or their bodies. But I have believed in my training, my approach to learning, and my ability to rise to the challenge under pressure.
My entire life, I've always known that I wanted to be a performer, but I didn't know exactly how, where or when. I never learned or studied the craft, formally. I grew up doing martial arts and playing piano. But, something inside of me always said that I was going to do this, as far back as I can remember.
The sixth move of doom? Yeah. So John Cena went to China, took some lessons, and all of a sudden, now he's got a bad palm strike. Listen, I've been traveling the world for years and I've been beating up people with martial arts techniques from far superior styles and techniques. So, I ain't worried about that.
I trained in martial arts and wanted to become a UFC fighter. That was my goal. I only really learned how to dance three weeks prior to making 'Step Up Revolution.' Dancing will always be fun, but MMA is something I'll never give up. I will eventually get back in the octagon and be fighting professionally again.
Karate is my main martial art; that is what I train in every day. It has always been in my life. Sumo is another Japanese martial art that I got into at an early age. It is something that has helped and added to my overall stance and is a good base. It is not something I necessarily use in all my fights, though.
I am the world's most appalling martial artist. I am so bad. I've studied jujitsu, kickboxing, t'ai chi. Once, I was sparring with someone, made a mistake, and managed to knock them down. I was so shocked that I dropped to my knees to see if they were all right, and then they knocked me out cold. From the floor.
The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded up. Human rights activists, including women and senior citizens, have been beaten by police. Judges have been arrested and lawyers battered in their offices and the streets.
Initially I was very drawn to the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist philosophy. It was helping me deal with the balance of these external and internal issues with my chess life. Tai chi is the martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy. Initially, I had no intention of competing in the martial arts; it was just the meditation.
You get a world-class athlete like Hershel Walker, who was a Heisman trophy winner and did some amazing things, but he had a martial arts background. He did kickboxing. He had a combat sports background. It was just rekindling that training and that martial arts workout ethic. He got back into it and did quite well.
I grew up in a very small town, on a farm. There was not even a TV in my house at that time. I didn't have much connection with the outside world and couldn't see martial arts. When I was 10 or 12, that's when we got our first TV. We only had maybe two channels. At 16 years old, I remember watching Marco Ruas on TV.
In my research, I learned that the Boxers' kung fu wasn't all that formalized. The vast majority of them didn't belong to some age-old martial arts tradition. They were basically poor, starving teenagers doing the best they could to figure out how to fight, relying more on their mystical beliefs than formal training.
My father was a very tough guy with me and my brothers. He wanted to teach us a lot of discipline and life philosophy. As I became more interested in martial arts, he started teaching a lot of fighting philosophy and karate philosophy. While he was a tough father, he also knew when to be sweet and show a softer side.
I was writing a scene where a guy was choking another guy to death. You can go online and type 'chokeholds' and watch scenes where martial artists choke each other out. You can hear what noises they make when they go unconscious, see how their bodies flop and everything. YouTube is amazing for the more detailed stuff.
My journalistic mission was straightforward: to await the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nobody knew quite when this would be. But the diplomacy - the meetings in the U.N. security council, the allegations about weapons of mass destruction, the martial language of Tony Blair and George W. Bush - all suggested a war was brewing.
I started training judo when I was 5 years old. I didn't know much. My mom just took me and my brother to do some judo because we were very energetic. We did that for a couple of years. I don't know why we stopped, but I came back to try other forms of martial arts like kung fu and karate when I was 12 and never stopped.
Motion capture is exactly what it says: it's physical moves, whereas performance capture is the entire performance - including your facial performance. If you're doing, say, martial arts for a video game, that is motion capture. This is basically another way of recording an actor's performance: audio, facial and physical.
I do a one-hour workout called Drenched, a cardio-boxing fitness routine, Monday through Friday. There are usually between twenty-five and fifty people there - everyone from stay-at-home moms and professional martial artists to teenagers and seniors. They play great dance music. When I can, I take two classes back-to-back.
I was a very outgoing guy. I loved roaming around, hanging out with friends. From class 5th, I practised and learnt martial arts for about 7-8 years and have won medals at the national level. Then I trained in dancing on stage. In class 10th, I acted in my first play, and that's when I realised I wanted to become an actor.
I've been in martial arts more than 20 years; I've seen fighters who barely have a professional fight say they're the best in the world. I've seen many people use these words. At the end of the day, that doesn't matter. What matters is when the door closes and everyone clearly sees who deserves or does not deserve something.
There was an incident in Argentina when I was making a film called 'The Warrior and the Sorceress.' There were, like, 40, 50 sword fighters and martial artists on the set, and one of the sword fighters challenged me. I said, 'Look, you don't want to fight me. Nobody wants to fight me. You gotta be crazy to want to fight me.'
Growing up as a kid, I wanted to be a ninja. In martial arts, even though I did Chinese kung fu, I always wanted to be this secret samurai or a ninja. There's something about ninjas that was very appealing to me as a kid. So of course, I was climbing a lot of trees and other things and getting up to mischief - good mischief.
My 'Rot & Ruin' series is a post-apocalyptic adventure for teens. My 'Joe Ledger' novels are science-based action thrillers for adults. My 'Dead of Night' stories are zombie tales for adults; my 'Pine Deep Trilogy' is classic horror for adults, and I've written nonfiction books on topics ranging from martial arts to folklore.
The Greeks first identified the Amazons ethnographically, as a nation of men and women distinguished by something outstanding in their gender relations. Later, any ambivalence or anxiety that knowledge of this alternative gender-neutral culture evoked among Greeks was played out in their mythic narratives about martial women.
Cheerfully fessing up to our failures turns crazy mind off, humility and compassion on. I learned this in a karate dojo that had a strange tradition. Everyone there loved recounting failure stories, and after an evening of smacking one another, we'd sit and have a beer while the students swapped tales of martial arts disaster.
I had an uncle who was a postal official at the Polish post office in Gdansk. He was one of the defenders of the Polish postal service and, after it capitulated, was shot by the Germans under the provisions of martial law. Suddenly he was no longer a member of the family, and we were no longer allowed to play with his children.
For interns at 'The Weekly Standard' or 'National Review,' where the martial instinct finds its most insistent voice, what Robert Kagan calls the military 'career path' is not widely seen as a plausible future. Pulling a trigger is what Jose, Tyrone, and Bubba do, not early admission students at the better private universities.
There have been projects out there involving my father, but they've lacked a complete understanding of his philosophies and artistry. They haven't captured the essence of his beliefs in martial arts or storytelling. The only way to get audiences to understand the depth and uniqueness of my father is to generate our own material.
With Michael Jackson, when he moved, it looked like a martial artist to me. He was quicker than other dancers, but he didn't have muscles; he was just quicker and looked more in control of gravity. He looked like a martial arts master, so I tried to steal body movement from him; that's why I imitate Michael Jackson a little bit.
When I was ten years old, my dad and brother did judo, so I went along because I felt like I was missing out. They eventually gave up, and I continued, then moved into Tae Kwon Do, kickboxing and various other martial arts. I did lots of different things, but mostly things like Wushu, Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga and stuff like that.
As a 4-year-old, I saw two men competing in the ring, and I thought it was martial arts. I asked my parents if I could do martial arts. So, I was 5 or 6-years-old, and I was doing karate and jiu-jitsu. Later on, I started kickboxing. Then, it just progressed. I did a little bit of everything, but predominantly, I did kickboxing.
I've always loved UFC. I watched it back since the days it wasn't big in Australia at all, and you had to watch a Blockbuster videos. They would always come like a year late, but I tried as many of the live ones I could or wait for the videos to come out. So, I've loved the sport for that long. I've always been into martial arts.
I mean, being a stuntwoman never occurred to me until I gave up gymnastics and started doing martial arts and met people that were stunt people. I was like, 'What? Wait. You get to fight and flip and get paid?' I was like, 'Mum, dad, check this out - I could do this stuff and get paid instead of having you guys pay for me to do it.'
On 'Black Lightning' I have a stunt double who's a lot younger than me. The fighting style on the show is heavily martial arts-based, and I know boxing; I don't know martial arts. I also have a really bad knee, and he's been doing martial arts since he was 6 years old, so I'm not thinking, 'No, I can do that! I can make that look cool!'