One day after class we were all sitting around as we always do, making fun of each other and discussing very silly topics very seriously – when it became apparent that nicky ryan had NEVER SEEN THE MOVIE blood sport!!!! There was a cry of mixed horror and rage from Garry Tonon – I have never seen him get so emotional! Mr Tonon immediately laid down the law – no more lessons for Mr Ryan until he watched Blood Sport or some equivalent JCVD movie – to which Mr Ryan replied, “who is Jean Claude Van Damme?” ☠️☠️ Fresh cries of horror and rage from Mr Tonon!! ☠️☠️ ☠️☠️ Pandemonium broke out on the mats as it turned out several other squad members had also failed this basic requirement of martial arts training! It took me several minutes to convince Mr Tonon not to instantly demote Mr Ryan back to white belt!! Out came the iphone and the guilty parties all had to watch a YouTube highlight of Blood Sport before next class!! I guess nicky can't be blamed – the movie came out almost fifteen years before he was born! What are your martial arts movie favorites? Do you think jiu jitsu could ever translate well to movie fight scenes? Has anyone succeeded so far? If not, why? Watching Blood Sport again reminded me of how under represented grappling arts were in mainstream martial arts thinking in the eighties – it was a paradigm of punching and kicking – how much has changed since then!
