Dojo Mojo: Martial-arts instructors reminisce as kung fu grips nation

Kirk Baird

Tuesday, May 27, 2003 | 8:38 a.m.

Carl Douglas said it best.

"Everybody was kung-fu fighting."

The ancient Asian fighting style is riding a new wave of popularity.

In movies. In commercials. In video games. Even in a Fox cartoon show.

"The Matrix Reloaded," the sequel to 1999's watershed kung-fu, sci-fi spectacular "The Matrix," is smashing records at the box office.

And enrollment in martial-arts academies as is as healthy as ever, if not quite at the level it was in the days of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.

Local martial-arts instructors, most of whom owe their current lifestyles to the movies, say the new wave of entertainment can only help their cause, even though they haven't seen significant increases in enrollment yet.

"We really don't get new students with the movies," said Gary Bosse, chief instructor of Las Vegas Tae Kwon Do, who teaches various classes in Las Vegas, including Tuesday through Thursday nights at the YMCA of Southern Nevada, 4141 Meadows Lane.

And the majority of those who do come to the school don't stay for long, he said. "For every hundred who come through the door, two people will stick around to get their black belt," Bosse said.

It's the same story at World Tae Kwon Do School at Charleston and Decatur boulevards.

The school's enrollment has remained constant -- 15 to 20 students a class -- despite the tidal wave of martial-arts films.

"People just don't have the patience to go from a white belt to a black belt," said Janaka Ranaweera, an instructor with World of Tae Kwon Do School.

Another factor might be that what audiences see on the big screen -- highly stylized kicks and flips that are more products of camera trickery and computer effects than physical prowess -- are not what they can accomplish in real life.

"What you see in the movies and what works is very different. This is what I try to teach the students," Ranaweera said. "Bottom line: When something happens, you need to be able to put up or shut up. I can either teach them something that looks really cool or will work in a time of need."

Vincent Ness, chief instructor for the United Studios of Self Defense at Green Valley Ranch, does take exception to the scene in 1999's "The Matrix" when the film's main hero, Neo (Keanu Reeves), is plugged into a computer and downloads a virtual library of martial arts styles into his brain.

"That takes the value away from it," Ness said.

Still, Ness acknowledges that most students know what they see in movies and on TV is not physically possible.

"People, for the most part, know what's able to be done and what's not," he said. "Sometimes not the kids, but the adults know what's real and what's not."

Eudin Aldana does. A 13-year-old black belt at World of Tae Kwon Do School, Aldana said he took up martial arts six years ago as a means of self-defense.

And also because he wanted to learn the moves he saw in movies.

"I thought before that it looked real," he said. "Now that I practice this, it all seems fake."

Fake or not, Sean Clark, film professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Chinese fight directors, along with their American counterparts, are creating a new "cinematic mythology."

"Instead of a lone gunman against a town of bad guys, it's a lone, hip martial-arts hero taking on a room of bad guys -- or in the case of 'The Matrix,' a whole universe of bad guys," Clark said.

"It's the second golden age of martial arts movies."

What first began with "The Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has led to the renaissance of the martial-arts genre in pop culture. And it's only going to gain momentum with the just-released "The Matrix Reloaded" and the highly anticipated Quentin Tarantino project, "Kill Bill," a kung-fu tale of deadly revenge that's scheduled to hit theaters in October.

For many martial-arts instructors, their love of the self-defense art began with the movies.

"Ask anybody where they started and they'll say Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. The movies definitely get them hooked," Ranaweera said.

"That's where everybody starts. That's where I started."

A third-degree black belt, Ranaweera got hooked on martial arts in the '70s, after watching films from such kung-fu action stars as Lee and Norris.

"That was the era. Everybody was taking martial-arts classes. There were 40 to 50 people in the classes," he said.

It was much the same for Mike Marriott, another black-belt instructor at World of Tae Kwon Do School, who began martial-arts school in the mid-'70s after watching several "corny" kung-fu movies.

"Since it had a direct influence on me, I would think it would have an influence on the kids today," he said.