Celebrities studying martial arts?

[Taryn P.]

Originally Posted by GeneChing

I wonder what style of tai chi he's doing.

I'd be willing to bet he doesn't remember.

[TaichiMantis]

Below is a quote from a 2007 article in the Guardian

Chartered sports and exercise psychologist Paul Russell has encountered many people like Tony. "Exercise addiction tends to be a more transient addiction, marking time before the person returns to the basic ones, the drink and drugs. People become addicted to something because there's an underlying unhappiness, and if they haven't sorted out the underlying reasons, via counselling or whatever, they'll have to direct that need to something else."

Back with Doherty, though, the prognosis could be favourable. Chi gung and tai chi are believed to work in a different way to the types of activity that fit the Sympathetic Arousal Hypothesis. These martial arts stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system - the instiller of calm. Steve Pinnington is a trainer for the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association, and he uses a combination of acupuncture and chi gung on inpatients at drug rehab centres such as those run by Phoenix Futures. "With an addiction, it's all about the sympathetic nervous system; you're stuck in it 24-7, all stress, all agitation. Chi gung does the opposite: it helps you move into the parasympathetic nervous system, it brings about relaxation and real calm.

"Our clients sit down, and they're agitated and angry. To get them to sit still for 45 minutes would be impossible without the chi gung. I give them a very simple five-finger exercise, and combine it with acupuncture needles, and they move really quickly into the parasympathetic zone. I believe that this primes them for the counselling that's vital for looking at the roots of the addiction. They'd be too angry, too dismissive to do the counselling otherwise."

Pinnington taught mainstream martial arts for many years, before switching to chi gung. "There was too much ego addiction going on; with chi gung, you're not looking for something to boost your ego, but you're actually dealing with something much more powerful. Coming to chi gung isn't about swapping one addiction for another. It's literally a different mindset."

[SoCo KungFu]

I remember one story.

The Sigung of the first kungfu I studied way way back in the day was himself a student of Daniel Pai. Supposedly they had a body guard type/security/escort service. Anyways, one of the clients was David Lee Roth. Mostly I guess to keep away the crazed groupies or whatever. Apparently he was crazy interested in the kungfu and stuff they would do but the guy being you know, who he is, had some crazy ideas. One time in a meeting with a producer or something, Roth was totally not interested at all. He pretty much just let his manager deal with it. So Sigung was in the corner of the room staying out of it all. Roth comes over and starts asking about iron body and all that. They try to brush him off but he's all persistent. So they tell him so lame story about how you just have to breath with the attack or something like that. Well he goes in the corner and starts practicing his "breathing." Bout 10 minutes later comes back and is all like, "Ok I'm ready." Raises his arms up and demands Sigung start kicking him in the ribs.

Other story. Sigung was in a chop socky movie once. Just as an extra and stunt man in a fight scene and he used to do some choreography stuff. Don't remember the name but it was waayyyy B-flick. Maybe even C or D. In the scene he plays a bad guy that is dressed up like a chick. Even had this funny wig and makeup. Only time I ever seen Sigung with earrings. He was laying beside a car in one of those big city garages. The hero was a cop that used karate, and apparently he was never issued a sidearm.... So he lays there pretending to be a lady unconscious like from an assault and the cop comes and see what up. Sigung jumps up and pulls a machete out from nowhere and starts doing broadsword techniques.

[GeneChing]

That's a goofy headline - hard to parse - especially as Church is studying karate. I have no idea who this is, but she looks very slim....yes, very slim indeed. Click the link and look at the slideshow for the before and after pics.

Kung fu dares win for slimmer Church
By ALEX PEAKE
Published: Today

SUPERFIT Charlotte Church is keeping in trim by learning KARATE at a secret SAS training hideout.

The Over the Rainbow judge, 24, is having martial arts lessons from a beefy ex-Para in Wales' remote Brecon Beacons.

Pals say she is trying to get as fit as her rugby star boyfriend Gavin Henson, who has just filmed a TV endurance show in the Arctic Circle.

One said yesterday: "Charlotte's learning karate and jujitsu - as well as having boxercise lessons. It's not the soft stuff, she's insisted on a hardcore regime.

"You often get people doing it for fun, but she's really determined and takes it to the extreme.

"She's always had the voice of an angel, now she's got the moves of the Karate Kid too."

Charlotte, mum to 2½-year-old Ruby and Dexter, one, puts herself through the gruelling exercise sessions at least three times a week.

She travels from her £1.5million mansion in the Vale of Glamorgan to the mountain hideout where the SAS train for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Her friend said: "Charlotte's trainer is a martial arts expert who was with the Parachute Regiment and the French Foreign Legion.

"He also did freelance bodyguarding work and was in Africa five years - so he knows his stuff.

"Charlotte isn't one of these pampered stars She's really tough. She might be gobby, but she could back it up without a doubt."

Charlotte, who revealed her sensational new figure last month, has also been spotted training in a Cardiff park.

[GeneChing]

But now he's fronting Wing Chun on the cover of Men's Journal.

In the May Issue: Robert Downey Jr.
Mon, Apr 12, 2010

In the May Issue: Robert Downey Jr.
Photo credit: Mark Seliger
In the May issue of Men’s Journal: Robert Downey Jr. on how an ass-kicking martial art helped him find his focus and resurrect his career, professional BASE jumper Jeb Corliss on his attempt to execute the perilous no-chute landing, and an inside look at the brutal, murderous turf war over a libido-enhancing aphrodisiac fungus in Nepal.

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From Stephen Rodrick’s profile of Robert Downey Jr.:

On advice for practicing Wing Chun, a martial arts discipline:

“Seriously, don’t worry about looking like an idiot. It’s like life: The less self-conscious you are, the better it works. And remember, lots of ice and Advil afterward. Trust me on that one.”

On how Wing Chun helps him cope:

“This is all about focus. Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you’re here or out in the world dealing with problems. It’s second nature for me now. I don’t even get to the point where there’s a problem.”

On being reluctant to punch a stuntman full in the mouth while filming Sherlock Holmes:

“I was like, ‘I can’t or he’s not going to be able to play with his kids this weekend.’ And Guy (Ritchie) was basically saying, ‘He doesn’t have any kids.’ ”

On if he is worried about burnout from filming and promoting films:

“You don’t worry about something that has already happened,” he says with resignation. “You don’t need to worry about your car breaking down when you’re already on the side of the street with the hood up. Worrying is done. The hubcaps have already come off going around the corners.”

On being an actor:

“This is still art for commerce, at best. I consider myself to be a pain-in-the-ass artist who’s self-aware enough to still be tolerable. While I have a little bit of juice, I try not to rub it in anyone’s face, because it’s just disgusting. And I use the term ‘artist’ loosely.”

On his Iron Man character Tony Stark’s relationship with his dead father:

“We’re having Tony go back and really deal with the ramifications of his lack of connection to his dad, his almost professional-stock, prop-smile answers, and how he’d been using Dad’s memory as a weapon against others. He’s really feeling hugely conflicted by assumptions about his dad’s feelings about him and whether or not there’s any real connection between them at the most basic level, which is: You’re not here anymore for this. Is there something you have for me, is there something you left for me, is there some sort of bread-crumb trail I can find that will help fill me at this point in my life?”

Eric Oram, Downey’s Wing Chun instructor, on working with the actor:

“When he first came to me, insurance companies wouldn’t bond him for movies; he couldn’t get roles. I told him if he didn’t show up to a lesson, I was going to chop off his toes and feed them back to him. One day he didn’t turn up, and I told him goodbye. Then he had a couple of producers call me and vouch for him, saying, ‘He was with us in a meeting; he didn’t have a phone. It’s our fault. Don’t cut his head off.’ He has committed himself to it ever since and turned his life around.”

Guy Ritchie, on working with the actor:

“The word to describe Robert is hard. I know that’s ****ing ridiculous in describing an actor, but he really can scrap. He’s done time in jail, which didn’t exactly soften him up. He has a real physicality that is pretty ****ing amazing.”

[SnowDog]

LOL!!!! After reading this: The word to describe Robert is hard. I know that’s ****ing ridiculous in describing an actor, but he really can scrap. He’s done time in jail, which didn’t exactly soften him up. He has a real physicality that is pretty ****ing amazing.”

I can't get the image of Robert Downey Jr. having a throw down brawl in the prision yard with bikers and gang bangers out of my head....... And it's a pretty **** funny image.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I love this guy as an actor and he SEEMS to have gotten his life in the right direction.

[SnowDog]

Same here, I've always liked him as an actor too.

And it appears he is getting his life back together with the help of his Wing Chun training, which is a great endorsement for CMA.

And I have to admit his fight scenes in Sherlock Holms impressed me, they were pretty tight and entertaining.....although maybe a little bit too Wing Chunny to be late 19th century England.

[solo1]

Originally Posted by SnowDog

Same here, I've always liked him as an actor too.

And it appears he is getting his life back together with the help of his Wing Chun training, which is a great endorsement for CMA.

And I have to admit his fight scenes in Sherlock Holms impressed me, they were pretty tight and entertaining.....although maybe a little bit too Wing Chunny to be late 19th century England.

Same he was a friggin basket case in the late 80s and most of the 90s looks to have gotten his life together, seems like a decent guy bet hes a blast at a barbeque.

[GeneChing]

Well, her kids at least.

Monday, May 10, 2010
Britney Spears: Karate Mom

Ever the doting mother, Britney Spears was spotted taking her boys to their Karate class on Saturday afternoon (May 8).

The “Toxic” songstress escorted Jayden James and Sean Preston to a Studio City dojo with the help of her nanny and an assistant.

[GeneChing]

Russell Brand turns to martial arts to shape up for his wedding to Katy Perry
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:36 PM on 10th May 2010

Since relocating to Los Angeles with fiancée Katy Perry, Russell Brand has embraced the healthy Californian lifestyle.

She's constantly at the gym and now it appears he's looking to add a few muscles to his skinny frame in time for the couple's wedding later this year.

The 34-year-old has started taking lessons in Krav Maga.

The martial art, which features hand-to-hand combat, derives from Israel and the former Czechoslovakia.

Spotted having a private lesson in Hollywood Hills yesterday, Brand showed off his surprisingly muscular figure in a pair of burgundy shorts and white T-shirt.

The funnyman had also tied his long, scraggy hair up in a bun.

After working up a sweat with his trainer, Brand then met up Perry to attend actress Rosario Dawson's 31st birthday party.

The Seven Pounds star hired an area at the Moroccan restaurant Tagine in Beverly Hills.

Perry, 25, was unusually covered up in a city nightscape tunic and leggings, while Brand wore his signature skinny jeans, boots and leather jacket.

Following their engagement on New Year's Eve in India, Perry and Brand are hoping to return their later this year to tie the knot.

In the meanwhile, Perry has been busy recording her new album - a follow-up to her 2008 breakthrough hit LP One Of The Boys.
Dinner date: Brand later joined his fiancée Katy Perry for dinner at Tagine in Beverly Hills last night

The upcoming LP will be her third album. She released her debut disc Katy Hudson, a gospel-rock album, in 2001.

She said: 'Well, I have to plan my new album, first and then I'm going to get to my wedding - but I'm really excited about that, too.

'Russell is a real match for me - in previous relationships I feel like I've just steamrolled the guy, so it's nice to find someone I can't do that to.'

Brand proposed to Perry after fewer than four months of dating on New Year's Eve, during a romantic trip to India's Taj Rambagh Palace hotel.

They are hoping to return to India later this year to tie the knot, Perry's friend and bridesmaid Rihanna revealed last month.

Rihanna told US radio DJ Ryan Seacrest during a recent interview on his KIIS FM show: 'She put (organising the hen night) on me last week.

'I have to come up with something cool because she's getting married in India so I'm like "OK, now what do I do to match that?"

'That's at the end of the year so we've got some time to plan that.'

Couldn't have been that private a lesson if they got pics

[GeneChing]

Check out our Shaolin Journeys thread.

[Brule]

Originally Posted by GeneChing

Couldn't have been that private a lesson if they got pics

I thought Krav Maga was more H2H and weapons and less on the stomp the cat move. Where's the bubble over the cat that says, "Help Me!!".

[GeneChing]

More like celebrities supporting martial arts. Wish Kobe would donate $25,000 to the magazine...

Thanks to Kobe Bryant, students get a kick out of the martial arts
The Lakers star's helped provide funding for classes by film fighter Hu Jianqiang at three schools.
May 16, 2010

The students at Richard Merkin Middle School in South Los Angeles had not heard of Hu Jianqiang before they met him.

They hadn't seen the movie "Shaolin Temple," in which he performed with Jet Li.

But one demonstration of his lightning-fast fists and the butterfly kick in which he throws his body off the floor light as a Frisbee and the Chinese kung fu master was a celebrity in their eyes — maybe even more than the person whose money helped bring him to them.

Thanks to intercession from Kobe Bryant, a $25,000 donation pays for the two-time Chinese national champion in martial arts to teach students at this school and two others how to kick, punch and roll — and in the process speak some Mandarin.

"Kobe has a particular affinity for China," said Doug Young, the spokesman for the Kobe Bryant Family Foundation. "The Beijing Olympics was a formidable experience for him. It magnified his interest in using sports as a way to foster cultural respect."

The Lakers star is so popular in China, Young said, that his basketball jerseys are consistently top sellers there. And as someone who spent part of his childhood in Italy and speaks Italian and Spanish, Bryant particularly appreciates the growing importance of the Chinese language — and thinks inner-city kids should be exposed to it.

"Martial arts seemed like an exciting way to get kids interested," said Young.

The martial arts classes are part of a pilot program run by the nonprofit After-School All-Stars.

"Our goal is to keep the kids on campus, so they will be in a safe environment to do their homework and engage with something that is interesting and meaningful," said Ana Campos, executive director of program's L.A. branch. "Mr. Hu is a real champion martial artist. We are lucky for him to be willing to take this project on."

Hu, 51, began his career as a gymnast at age 10 and switched to wushu, Chinese for martial arts, because his teachers thought that's where his best promise lay.

He won numerous awards as an all-around national champion famous for his speed, power and agility. His big break came with "Shaolin Temple" in 1982. Since then, he's appeared in more than a dozen martial arts movies.

Hu and his wife, Zong Jianmei, a fellow wushu master, left China in 1992 and came to the U.S. after a stint in Buenos Aires.

In 1997 they started their own martial arts academy, the Shaolin Wushu Center, in Connecticut. They opened one in L.A. in 1998.

So far, about 100 students have signed up for Hu's after-school sessions.

"Try it! It's fun! It's easy!" the students holler at first-timers as Hu asks for volunteers to roll around on the rug with their legs folded like pretzels.

"He makes us laugh," said Eve Louis, 11. "He shows us how to do the windmill with our arms. It's really fun."

When the students kick their feet in the air, or stretch their legs on the floor, they count out loud from one to eight in Chinese: "Yi er san si wu liu qi ba."

Hu asks them to bend their legs into a horse stance — legs wide, knees bent as if on horseback — and then to hold the pose.

"One more time!" Hu tells them just as they begin to collapse from the tension.

"Zai lai yi ci!" the students repeat after him in Chinese.

The students had a wide range of reasons for wanting to learn from Hu.

"I want to take this class because me and my mom watch a lot of soap operas where men are mean to their wives" said Sari Hernandez, 11. "I think we should learn to defend ourselves."

Cristal Cardona, 11, said it was great to learn a little Mandarin.

"I want to be a doctor when I grow up," she said. "It helps me to know Chinese because in the hospital, if Chinese people come, I'd know what to say."

[GeneChing]

Jillian Michaels: How I lost 55 pounds doing martial arts (photos)
June 16, 6:58 PM
Celebrity Fitness and Health Examiner
Samantha Chang

The Biggest Loser star Jillian Michaels may be the picture of good health now, but the 5'2" fitness trainer was once a 175-pound couch potato!

Michaels, who stars on her own reality show, Losing It with Jillian, says a dysfunctional home life led her to an unhappy, sedentary youth of overeating and self-hatred.

'I HAD A THERAPIST BY AGE 5'

Jillian, who describes herself as a "really disturbed kid," began therapy at age 5.

"You know how kids have night terrors? Mine were really bad," Michaels, 36, says in the July issue of Redbook.

She recounts: "I thought sharks were coming out of the drain in the bathtub. I couldn't sleep at night, every night, waiting for aliens to come. I'm not kidding you: I. Was. Traumatized. And mom got me into therapy."

'I WAS TEASED FOR BEING FAT'

Michaels, 36, says she began a rapid downward spiral into overeating and gaining weight at age 12, when her parents decided to split.

"Being big as a kid was pure hell," says Jillian. "I spent all of eighth grade in my classroom because God forbid I ever left. I was terrorized."

Michaels was stunned when her mom kicked her out of her home when she was 17. "They were kind of midlife-crisis-ing, and I was sort of the afterthought," Jillian recounts. "I became pretty angry -- no one wanted to deal with me -- so when I was 17, my mom was like, 'You're not living here.'"

Being on her own helped Michaels to become more independent and introspective.

"I learned a lot being on my own," she says. "I grew up. I had to make money. I learned how to make decisions that are right for me."

'KARATE CHANGED MY LIFE'

One of those "right decisions" was taking a martial arts class -- something which literally changed her life.

"Karate saved my life," she says. "It all stopped the day I broke two boards with a kick."

Armed with a newfound self-confidence and a fitter physique, Jillian became a certified fitness trainer, and auditioned for The Biggest Loser. After starring on the hit reality TV show since 2004, Michaels branched out by writing fitness books, releasing her own fitness DVDs and starring in her own spinoff, Losing It With Jillian. [see slideshow below]

Michaels, who's now helping other people transform their lives, confesses there are still lots of things she'd like to change about herself.

"I'm impatient," she says. "I'm demanding. I'm neurotic. I'm high-stress. High-anxiety. Perfectionist to the point of impossibility. Nothing's ever good enough. I'm never happy."

It's not up on the REDBOOK site yet. The Examiner reporter made a slideshow using one of Jillian's FB photos, but there's no pic of her doing karate.

Martial arts for weight loss. If anyone can push that, it's Jillian. And once people put that one together, our economy could really grow.