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.
For me, I think you can coach guys in martial artsm, and wrestling can be one aspect of it, but I have no desire to be an NCAA wrestling coach again. It was one of the worst coaching jobs I have ever had.
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.
More entertainers should come forward to support sports. I’d love to see Akshay Kumar in a film on Indian martial arts.
I’m doing what I love to do. Martial arts is my everything. It’s my life, my philosophy, how I think, who I am.
I do martial arts mostly. But if I am bored, or my body is aching, I swim or go the gym. I can sometimes be doing cardio on the treadmill, kick boxing, stretching, dance, whatever I feel like. I just make sure I have something to do every day but no particular set routine.
My love for cricket, body-building and martial arts later helped me in modeling and then acting.
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.
I’m a huge lover of ‘Seven Samurai’ and anything Kurosawa ever did. The comedic work out of Japan in terms of martial arts movies, some of them are hilarious.
Tournaments, traditionally, are kind of the way martial arts contests happen.
When you’re doing something like wrestling – wrestling is one of the toughest and hardest martial arts to learn – but it’s still a form of martial arts. It’s still controlled.
The true game of mixed martial arts is putting your wrestling in there, putting your striking in there, but also being deceiving – hiding behind your punches if you’re wrestling and hiding behind your wrestling if you’re punching. It’s just a matter of blending it all together.
I love martial arts, so why wouldn’t I want to help people understand it more?
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.
I’ve been training in martial arts since I was a baby running around the school. Everything from wrestling to muay thai. I started wrestling when I was 15.
I see martial arts as moving forms of meditation. When you’re sparring or drilling techniques, you can’t think of anything else.
As a martial arts promoter and as a fan of martial arts, you go, ‘What would happen if this guy fought this guy?’
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.
As a martial artist you have to be truthful about yourself so you can approach your training properly and get better.
When I learn martial arts, my master will have me try a punch for a week and he will keep saying, ‘No, you don’t have it. No, that’s not right.’ When he finally says, ‘Yes, you did it,’ it’s a wonderful moment. You worked on it. You got it.
I know I’m the least technical guy in the sport. Most of the champions or guys at the top are real martial artists.
People don’t get it. Martial arts is my life.
I want to prove to people who sit on a couch and don’t do anything but criticize other people that, if you’re a true athlete or martial artist, you’re not old until you can’t get up and walk around anymore.
I work out two, two and a half hours a day. For ‘Immortals,’ it was body-weight stuff: crunches, pullups, and martial arts-based cardio.
Besides working out for nearly six hours a day, I am also learning different forms of martial arts.
In martial arts, for every attack, there is a counter you can throw. Somebody traps you, you can throw a hook. But there is no counter for bias.
Most of the martial arts techniques go in waves of popularity and usefulness, but they all work.
I respect Brock, all the other fighters, and the sport of mixed martial arts.
Martial arts was founded on the spirit that it’s not only a sport, but a way of life.
I remember watching Anderson Silva fight Dan Henderson at UFC 82. I had never really watched MMA, but I looked up to Dan Henderson. He was a wrestler, like me, but also a tough, powerful mixed martial artist.
Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is my favorite full-length ballet, Sergei Prokofiev’s breathtaking score a favorite composition of music. As a student of martial arts, I loved drawing my sword in defense of my Capulet kin.
Back when I was maybe 19, guys would go, ‘I can kick your butt!’ So I had a few showdowns. To my advantage, I learned martial arts, and what you really learn is not to fight.
Once I dedicated my time to mixed martial arts, I became careful about what I let into my mind. I made a goal of being the best on Earth in mixed martial arts and fighting. I wanted to build my mind into something good, not just of the world. I wanted to be different.
I did ballet, piano and all that – my brother did martial arts, my passion.
It takes years of building that experience as a filmmaker, as well as physically. You have to have a high level understanding of martial arts.
I enjoy football, cricket and I have been watching mixed martial arts for the last five years.
I started my own martial arts school at 16. And by the time I was 21, I had three different schools.
Rather than go to the gym, I would prefer to do martial arts because the time goes by quicker.
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.
Martial arts is about honor and respect.
My father was the first person to introduce me to self-defense and martial arts, which I’ve been doing all my life now.
I think the most important is when I was young, I learnt martial arts; that is my special key.
It’s not just about knockouts, son. This is mixed martial arts. It’s about finishing people. It’s about putting in that time, putting in all five rounds.
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.
I’m getting to put all my time and effort into studying my martial arts and to be the best fighter I can be.
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 have a new appreciation for how fit martial artists are. There is so much energy being exerted when you fight.
When I first started training Tae Kwon Do, it was more just for discipline. My brother and I were two knuckleheads and my mom being a single mother wanted us to get more discipline somewhere other than her yelling at us. But I had no visions at all or aspirations of going from Tae Kwon Do into mixed martial arts.
Fight choreography has far more in common with dance choreography than it does with actual martial arts. You learn martial arts techniques, but those are just the movements for the choreography. You’re working with a partner in choreography. You’re working on timing.
When you’re dead weight, in the right position, you win. And in reality, you wouldn’t see someone my size kicking seven martial arts experts and winning.
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.
When I started training, I learned a lot, you know – respect. I think you learn a lot of things, and kids should learn mixed martial arts for discipline.
In high school, during lunchtime I would go in the room where the wrestling mats were and try different flips and different moves. Like windmills. I just started mixing martial arts with jazz and contemporary stuff and it would get mashed together and became my style.
The thing I hate about mixed martial arts is that it’s no longer a sport. It’s a big-money business, and it’s an entertainment industry.
The thought has crossed my mind to quit even dealing with organized mixed martial arts in general and just fight my own fights, however I feel like.
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.
Martial arts will always be a part of my life. I started when I was five, and if I don’t open a school one day or teach or manage, I would still practice to stay in shape.
I learnt a blend of different martial arts – not in great depth, obviously – but various moves such as kicks, blocks and punches. It was all quite fun.
I really don’t believe in being ‘gifted.’ I really think what you put in is what you get. People say, ‘Oh, this guy is so athletic and so naturally talented,’ well think about it. He’s been doing martial arts since the age of 4 or whatever.
