A martial arts practice hall, a dojo, is a place you go to practice being the best you can be. But the true combat in a dojo is not between one person and another as most people believe it to be. The true combat in a martial arts practice hall is between the people within ourselves.
I do practice martial arts, more as a recreational thing, but a lot of my friends have been heavyweight champions the in mixed martial arts world.
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.
I practice the martial arts. I don't practice MMA. MMA is my job, MMA is a new sport. Martial arts is the knowledge from the ages.
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.
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.
Miles and I had been looking to do a martial arts show for some time. Our first two movies that we wrote were "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Shanghai Noon" with Jackie Chan. Then we sort of got pulled into the superhero world, but then you look around at what's not on television and there wasn't really a martial arts shows. There are shows that do martial arts to a degree, but there's not a martial arts show.
I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show?
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.
I've always been a fan of martial arts, even before I did jiu-jitsu tournaments. I did point karate tournaments and wrestled in high school. To me, it was just an evolution and mixed martial arts was the next step. I just wanted to compete and train in it. I had no illusions of it being a paying gig.
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.
I tried martial arts classes for three weeks, but I quit because you actually get hit. I just want to do the movie kind of martial arts.
The goal of the martial arts is not for the destruction of an opponent, but rather for self-growth and self-perfection. The practice of a martial art should be a practice of love - for the preservation of life, for the preservation of body, and for the preservation of family and friends.
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.
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.
A lot of Chinese martial arts films were based on Chinese martial arts novels. And these novels created a world of putting history, calligraphy, and martial arts into one.