The Sanda Fight, My first public fight

"I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life."

MUHAMMAD ALI, comment after losing to Ken Norton, Mar. 31, 1973

Yesterday I took part in my first Sanda competition at the NZ national wushu champs, Weighing in at 69.1 Kg, and having trained about 4 times between the announcement of the competition and competition day without any sparring in between, I wasn't over confident nor naive to think I would do well, relying on natural ability and drive. However I thought that the experience of the fight and the opportunity to test myself against an opponent outside of the club was too big to be missed. Not only would this help me grow as a martial artist, but it could also be a catalyst to help me get my life back together . It didn't disappoint.

I knew in my heart I wasn't prepared and they say a fight is won or lost before you even step inside the ring. I thought that even so, I would be OK. A couple days before the fight I learnt some takedowns from Sifu and one of his talented students, but as brucelee said, you shouldn't punch but let the fist hit all by itself. I can kick and punch without thinking, but takedowns and counter attacking is still very thought taxing for me and I believe that downtime cost me this fight. (And obviously, the lack of real life training thanks to my car and transport issues. )

Walking into the gym bleary eyed and heart beating at 9 in the morning (fights at 11.30) I was instantly struck by the level of fighters there. I could already see from the build and the way they conducted themselves these guys had been training very hard for this, and possibly do this thing all year. I definitely felt way out of depth here. We warmed up in a nearby gym outside of the main stadium, before the organisers went over the rules.

Then we went back to warming up and they called the draw out. Murphy's Luck they called my name for the first fight of the tournament. The guy I was fighting was called Jack something, he was a member of an mma club (they told me after he had fought before), and he took me by surprise with a square sock to the face, a little dazed I continued fighting, trying to work my way in, but my efforts tired me quickly. His takedowns were pretty efficient and he made good work of the thigh kick punch combo, in fact, it really impeded my efforts to fight my thigh was so bruised from the whelps.

Anyway, The fight ended near the end of the second round having been thrown off the mat 3 times. He went on to win the gold medal so I'm not complaining, Well done to him, it's uncontested that the better fighter on the day won that fight. I'm grateful to learn this lesson the hard way. Since then I have fought in the ring at my club, with a slight limp, but did well, dominating and in control, not on the back foot retreating like I did back then, now I'm back to my normal self, dancing to my own rhythm, striking with my own trigger. When takedowns become second nature to me and a punch is nothing more than an annoyance instead of a threat, I'm going to get one of those medals next year. Til then, I'm going to train, train, train :)

Here's some pics, 

and here's my bruise from my opponents leg kicks. thanks friend ;)

I'll post the video too once I edit what I have together in one coherent clip. Til next time!

Now I Have shot my first Short Film in Auckland :)

I directed my student film project this weekend, 'Everyone's a Loser When It Comes to Love'.

DAY 1- Drama Scenes at the Auckland Domain. Where the Detective begs for Julia's forgiveness.

My Actor (Lee Ah Yen, an actor who is definately going places) and Actress (Safaa Humadi, an actress who though it was her first time really impressed me with her skills and manner) were both really talented and it didn't help that i had been nervous all week but we managed to get all the scenes done on the day which was great. From the moment we all met and went through the script there was some real chemistry and its to their credit that the footage i walked away with looked fantastic. Saf was very emotional ( i dont know how she pulled that off i felt guilty even though she wasnt really crying, it was just acting lol) and Lee responded with the same intensity which really made the scenes dramatic and work, then after i said cut! they would both crack up laughing and joke around, man, professionals, i find it hard keeping a straight face and i'm BEHIND the camera!


Was a very fun afternoon. I could have done without the helicopters chilling overhead and the slow drivers going through the shot but it is a public place so thats the risk. After this shoot i said to myself i will secure closed locations as i believe it would be easier, however look at all those free extras in the scene lol. Set Photo is below and was taken by a kind mother who sat with her 2 kids in the park having a picnic while i had my actors have a domestic fight in public haha awkward but this is the career i want right?

DAY 2- Action Scene at an Abandoned area with awesome look for our drug dealer and detective fight.

I had 2 Locations in mind, 1) A rooftop which i knew was empty on sundays though i couldn't ask for permission and 2) an abandoned area close to my house, i knew it looked cool but i was worried if it was safe to shoot there as i knew homeless people might be around due to alcohol dirty beds and grafitti everywhere. I thought hell, its the day time and it looks good plus theres 3 martial artists on set so i didnt think there would be any trouble if any one wanted to make trouble, here are a couple pics i had Lee take of me and Sam below in the location.

So Today was Fight Day, My cameraman bailed on me last night and my back up camera man couldnt say yes or no. I originally planned to fight Lee as the character Kevin however i changed to plan C and went to a friend of mine, Sam Jing and asked if he could play my character and i would shoot the scene as well as choreographing it, thank fully he said yes and after you see the footage in a month's time you will agree.

For his first time he was awesome and Lee helped alot with bringing that out, This was definately Lee's time to shine since I had choreographed some cool scenes and they pulled them off which was great (punch combos etc). Lee helped with bringing my drawings and ideas to life and showed me some cool ideas of his own which we chucked in there, The emotion and Intensity of this scene was incredible and probably the best fight scene I've directed yet! (i say that which each action film i do though lol, wait til you see King Style ;) haha) Below are photos we took after the scene was finished.

This scene also had the most pressure when it came to shooting, turns out there were homeless people living upstairs and our noise sort of rattled them out, but like i said we were friendly anyway so they just did their thing, A couple stood around and watched which was nervewracking. I was hoping they wouldnt get it confused for a real fight and start something but most got bored and left. The first one showed up out of nowwhere like 'he wasn't there before!' (turns out there was a side door we didnt see that everyone came down from upstairs from). Lee even gave the first one his lunch- what a nice guy man.

The other incident was that not only did we wake whoever was hiding upstairs but somebody called the Police on us! The cops showed up in the middle of one of the fight scenes when i had my back turned to them, i turned around and saw them and the one in charge smiled to his partner then to us and said "You're lucky, I almost tasered you". I said "Sorry I tried to get permission to shoot here but couldnt figure out who to ask" and then the cop said "You know there is some rough people around here right?" and I'm like "Yeah but we talked to a couple and they didnt mind, (Lee chipped in saying he gave someone his lunch lol) did someone complain?" then he's like "Yeah somebody called up and heard lots of shouting and fighting sounds so called us in" "They can hear us?" "We can hear you from the street" so i finished off with "Ok, whoops sorry, we'll keep it down, we'll just finish up" then they left. And we finished so a special thanks to Lee and Sam, sorry to put you through all that haha but the footage we walked away with was worth it. Promise :) All in all when it comes to my series or next short film I'll be sure to cast them, and this time hope to act with them too :)

In other news currently bumping on my sound radar is Eminem and Royce's Bad meets evil project, years after they started with classic tracks like scary movies, Nuttin to do etc the time is right again for them to collab after Royce and his group of super emcees Slaughterhouse were signed to shady records. This Album is Awesome, loving all the tracks! The weakest of them is lighters, hardout hiphop with the top lyricists in the game and then to hear his Bruno Mars pop voice show up? kinda takes you out the zone for a minute but yeah, 9.5 out of 10, this album is a definate must have :) anyway til the next entry, have a good week :)

The secret of comedy is believability

<---Wednesday's Shoot for school was fun :)

The Secret of good comedy is believability, jokes coming out of the characters situations and reactions, good pacing as well as writing gags with detail, anyway thats what my research is telling me. I'm still rewriting my episodes for Ivy Investigation. I'm gonna research props (for my character at least) tommorrow and i will take some photos and post them here, i wanted to make my character socially awkward but he knows martial arts. Thing is martial arts over time makes someone confident (speaking from experience) so now i have changed the character (which is why i'm rewriting the episodes) so Ken is instead a loudmouth (confident to the extreme) and doesnt show much tact hence his lack of friends apart from Anna (the other lead) who is quite the alpha female so shes always the leader when it comes to the team. I dont know. I'm working on the believability behind their friendship, its not as easy as creating the characters themselves :) Who knew writing comedy isn't all that funny ;)

In other news we have finished filming the majority of our scenes for our class project at school around Auckland and i have posted some of the pictures that my classmates took during the shooting (which was great!), next week we will start adding the 3D elements and special effects but so far it looks worth it, plus its great to be directed by other people and felt pretty encouraging. Was a very fun week :) See you next week when i report on how shooting 'Everyones a Loser...' went after it wraps on Sunday night :) (PS. I am the hooded one in the pix below, the other actor was awesome too, the trenchcoat suited his old school magician character against my street magician version :D)