Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I wanted to train jiu-jitsu instead of capoeira because the mat was soft. It was better than training capoeira on the hard floor. I started reading jiu-jitsu magazines, reading about the world champions, and becoming one of them became my goal.
There was a show at Sesame Place where you could lay down on mat in front of a blue screen, and the monitor would show you flying with Super Grover. I must have been five years old when I did it, and I still remember it. Likely the origins of my acting bug.
With injuries, every match varies. The black eyes are accidents. The broken noses are accidents. But the bumps from when we land on the mat, they're hard. I think it looks easier, or the fans don't really understand what's happening, but it does take a toll.
Once the smoke of the market crash clears off, you know, the Internet will pick back up and go. Take a look at what's happening to some of the big companies like eBay and Yahoo, the publicly traded stocks. You know, they're all coming back up off the mat now.
I go to a wrestling match, and I love it. But at a wrestling match, on every level - that includes Division I - you go into an empty and cold gym, you roll out a mat, and you set 10 chairs up on each side. That's a dual meet, and it's very hard to act like it's a big event.
My role models are every single woman that steps inside of the cage - inside of an octagon, inside a ring, or on a mat - and proves to themselves and to others that they can do what they need to do. Those are my heroes. Those are my sheroes. Those are the people that I look up to.
I live in this apartment building, and everybody who lives there thinks of me as a housewife. People drop their babies off with me. Or I get notes: 'I'm going to be gone for three days. The keys are under the mat; take care of the cats.' Because they all think I'm home all the time.
There's a lot of trainers in my career, between Terry Taylor and Arn Anderson, who've always told me to keep my damn feet on the ring mat, and there's just that little kid in me - I may be 45, but there's that little kid in me that, if I get a chance to do some flying, I'm gonna do it.
London was the Olympics that I was most nervous about. From coming into the venue and stepping on to the mat, people were supporting with 'Saori' banners and waving the Japanese flag, so even though it was London, I felt much more like fighting at home that way, which was really inspiring.
Yoga stretches out your body and releases lactic acid. I do it four times a week, and my skin feels fantastic afterwards. When I'm doing a film, I do it every day - I keep a yoga mat in my trailer. Sometimes I do it in front of the TV. The stretching makes me feel so good. It gets my heart going and helps me breathe deeply.
I was injured at the end of 'Kill Bill.' I hit the ground, instead of hitting the mat, pretty hard and busted my ribs and had to have surgery. I was being blown out of a trailer in a harness and actually landed on my coordinator instead - who broke my fall a little! My arm smacked into the ground and obliterated one of the ligaments.
I'd like to be remembered for being the one responsible for adapting Brazilian jiu-jitsu for modern MMA. For what I've learned from fence work and some ground positions. Lots of details I developed after years and years studying them, testing what worked on the mat, against the fence, what kept opponents on the ground, control situations.
