A Quote by Donnie Yen
I think a lot of people don't realize that martial arts are just an expression like anything else. It's just that most people are not trained to punch or kick, but you can walk or run or dance, which is also part of expression.
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Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.
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.
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.
To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.
Bruce Lee loved all different styles of martial arts. He believed that you shouldn't limit yourself to one style, because martial arts is just another form of human expression.
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.
In my mind, martial arts movies are martial arts movies and action is action. It's quite different, because martial arts doesn't just have physical form; you have a philosophy, internal and external. A lot of it involves your life. How you see the world. An action film I think is just about the movement. I think it's different.
You have to make those mistakes. You have to do the work. You have to fail. I also realized that I should practice what I preach, which is that if you only do get one kick at the can . . . When you go to places like Africa or Asia or the Indian sub-continent, you realize that a lot of the people there don't ever get a kick at the can. There are no "kicks" at the can - you just don't have that shot.
People in Tibet have an expression. When you reach a certain degree of venerableness and age, and people ask, "How are you?," there is an expression that people use that means, "Just barely not dead." Some people might be frightened by it but I think it's quite funny.
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.
The most important thing to a lot of people, is to belong to something that's hip or whatever. To be a part of something that's not society, just a clique. And they get real sidetracked trying to think like everyone else. They don't realize that you have to motivate yourself to do things you want to do. Some people just like going along for the ride. And those are the kind of people I don't get along with too well.
I also think there's something about dance, music and the arts that transcends all other types of communication and expression.
Culture, as Indian people understood it, was basically a lifestyle by which a people acted. It was self-expression, but not a conscious self-expression. Rather, it was an expression of the essence of a
people.
When you step back and watch people, you realize that we use every single body part. Movement, dance - I find it genius because it's ultimate expression, really.
I think that a lot of people who like training with guns are probably drawn to it not only for practical reasons, but also in that same restless quest for physical excellence that draws people to a martial arts dojo.
When I first started snowboarding, nobody trained off-hill. People weren't going to the gym and getting stronger. Snowboarding was more self-expression, like skateboarding. It was just something you went and did. It wasn't something you trained for.
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