Top 10 Most Influential Martial Artists of All Time
Most of the time I like to keep my posts practical and useful, but sometimes you have to swing for the fences and ask the big questions. There aren't too many bigger than this:
Who are the most substantial influencers in the martial arts universe; the movers and shakers that, without them, the martial landscape would be much different today?
The big disclaimer for this video is that it is a highly subjective topic. There is no possible way my list could be considered definitive. In fact, in a few years I might even disagree with myself! Nevertheless, it is a fun experiment trying to appreciate the real roots of our collective martial culture.
Is your brain churning already in regards to whom you might include on "The Top Ten Most Influential Martial Artists of ALL TIME"? Well, let's find out if you and I agree or disagree. To the list!
If the video doesn't pop up when you click it, just visit the youtube page here.
I really hope you enjoyed watching this little romp through history and present day development. If you feel that your style or system was excluded unfairly I do apologize – there were so many to consider and so few slots available. If it makes you feel any better, I didn't even include the founder of my own style. So I at least ATTEMPTED some objectivity.
When you stop for a moment and really consider the lasting impact of individuals like this it makes you appreciate the complexity of martial development. Without the efforts of just a handful of special people what we know and accept today as martial arts could be completely different.
Consider now the seriousness of your training and your value in preserving martial culture for generations to come. Who might bloggers include on a list like this 100 years from now when they sit down to write on their futuristic brain-implant-computers? Will you be on their list? 
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The Top 11 Training Montages in Martial Arts Movie History
Last year I put in the hard research and came up with the Top 7 Kicks in Martial Arts Movie History. That countdown was full of face crunching footwork, so I decided it was time for another list.
This time I’m upping the ante and listing not just the best kick, but the best martial arts training montages of all time. That’s no mean feat as there are some epic sequences to consider.
As I began my research this time around I decided to create a series of criteria upon which to grade each montage. This helped me in ranking them and deciding which ones would make the cut and which wouldn’t. Here is a quick description of each criteria I used (this works on a 5 star system, * as the poorest grade and ***** as the best):
- Training Intensity: How hard is the trainee working? 1 star means things aren’t too intense, 5 stars means I broke out in a sweat just watching.
- Campiness: Does the scene hit all the heartstrings that make montages a classic piece of cinema corniness? 1 star is not at all campy, 5 stars is deliciously so.
- Music Awesomeness: Part of a successful montage is epic music that makes you want to run out your door and do situps. 1 star is not too inspiring, 5 stars is chest poundingly awesome.
- Montage Purity: How closely does the scene follow montage format? A good montage will show many cutscenes of the protagonist first struggling, then growing, and finally demonstrating super skills. 1 star means it’s a montage (but not that pure), 5 stars is perfect montage gold.
Ready? Here we gooooo:
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11. Ninja Assassin – Raizo’s Routine
- Training Intensity: ***
- Campiness: *
- Music Awesomeness: ***
- Montage Purity: **
This montage is decidly low on camp, and doesn’t follow the strictest guidelines of montage purity. Nevertheless, the action is undeniably cool and has a unique style that makes it a pleasure to watch. Directly after the clip shown below, the movie takes us into Raizo’s past and shows us more of his development. That is why this movie makes the montage list in place of others like The Matrix, which have singular training scenes.
Pain Breeds Weakness
Take-away exercise to try: inverted pushups on nails.
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10. Kill Bill 2 – The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei
- Training Intensity: ***
- Campiness: ***
- Music Awesomeness: **
- Montage Purity: ***
This scene features one of the best characters in all of martial arts cinema: Pai Mei. Pai Mei is a “white browed” taskmaster that has appeared in some classic kung fu cinema, and indeed this whole training sequence honors the campiness of those old movies. It also features the talent progression in our hero that explains her highly refined skillset.
Take-away exercise to try: One inch punch. Or the five point palm exploding heart technique.
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9. Mulan – Let’s Hear it For the Ladies
- Training Intensity: **
- Campiness: **
- Music Awesomeness: ****
- Montage Purity: ****
You didn’t think I was too tough and hardcore to ignore this montage did you? I don’t remember many scenes out of Disney movies, but this one really sticks out. It hits all the great montage notes of a helpless hero, a band of doubters who are eventually won over, and a tough but honorable teacher. Throw into the mix a message about gender equality, and forget about it! It was a tough call between this and Kung Fu Panda, but the inspiring music put Mulan over the top.
Take-away exercise to try: Breaking concrete with your face.
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8. Ninja: The Final Duel – Water Spider Madness
- Training Intensity: ***
- Campiness: *****
- Music Awesomeness: **
- Montage Purity: **
I almost wanted to break my own rating scale and put 6 stars for campiness here. The ninja techniques demonstrated are exactly the kind of weird nonsense that makes old kung fu movies so fantastic. Sure, it perpetuates some bad stereotypes…but…you know. It’s fun. This clip would have ranked higher if it followed the montage format a bit more closely and had more mind blowing music.
Take-away exercise to try: Water spider assault.
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7. Batman Begins – The Will to Act
- Training Intensity: ***
- Campiness: *
- Music Awesomeness: ***
- Montage Purity: ***
Modern films don’t feature montages quite as much as they used to, and when they do it is often for comedic effect. Batman Begins is a serious affair and displays a well polished training scene. In a lot of ways, this clip rates lower than some of the previous entries. However, when you take into account the quality of the film and acting I believe this is the appropriate place for it.
The Will to Act
Take-away exercise to try: Dealing with emotions and stuff.
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6. Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow – Jackie’s Ring Work
- Training Intensity: **
- Campiness: *****
- Music Awesomeness: **
- Montage Purity: ****
This movie is one of the Grandaddies of Kung Fu Cinema, and the training sequences are just as influential. Movies like Kill Bill and The Matrix would not have been the same if it wasn’t for efforts like Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. Maxed out on campiness, this montage deserves it’s high placement.
Take-away exercise to try: Egg based workouts.
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5. 36th Chamber of the Shaolin – We Get It, You Train A Lot
- Training Intensity: ****
- Campiness: *****
- Music Awesomeness: **
- Montage Purity: ****
You wanna talk about training? How about a movie that’s filled with it. 36th Chamber revolves around the protagonist progressing through his Shaolin training. Every skill a monk needs is presented via a separate chamber. Has any premise been better setup for a progressive montage?
Take-away exercise to try: Bo circling with pointy, injurious consequences.
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4. KickBoxer – A Tree’s Worst Enemy
- Training Intensity: ****
- Campiness: ****
- Music Awesomeness: ****
- Montage Purity: *****
If you didn’t know Jean-Claude was going to make this list then shame on you. JCVD has an almost supernatural talent for creating training montages, and Kickboxer is one of his finest masterpieces. Who knew coconuts and palm trees could be so nightmarish?
Kickboxer training (full video) by bRu7-eXeC
Take-away exercise to try: Just don’t kick trees.
3. The Karate Kid – Daniel’s Private Training
- Training Intensity: ***
- Campiness: ***
- Music Awesomeness: *****
- Montage Purity: *****
Here’s the thing – this isn’t even the best montage in this movie. That’s how insane the original Karate Kid is. As we all know, the tournament sequence at the end of the movie is one of the best montages of all time. However, that’s not really for training, and thus doesn’t make the cut here. But that doesn’t mean Daniel’s private training isn’t a fantastic moment. It gets such a ranking due to the scope and emotional charge of the movie. A real classic.
Daniel’s Training
Take-away exercise to try: I’d say the crane kick, but I’m not sure you can handle that yet.
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2. Rocky IV – U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.
- Training Intensity: *****
- Campiness: ***
- Music Awesomeness: *****
- Montage Purity: *****
Say the words “training montage”, and “Rocky” will be the first word uttered in response. I probably could have picked any of the Rocky movies for this, but I feel like IV is the most monumental. You might argue that boxing isn’t a pure martial art, and therefore Rocky should be disqualified from this list. That’s a tricky call, and since it’s so close (and Rocky is such a dominant montage force), I decided it was right to include it.
Cross-training
Take-away exercise to try: Draaagooooooooooooooooooo.
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1. Bloodsport – To Keep an Open Miiiind
- Training Intensity: ****
- Campiness: ****
- Music Awesomeness: *****
- Montage Purity: *****
In the purest sense, Rocky is a better montage. But since we are listing the best martial arts montages, Bloodsport rules as King. This sequence is the perfect collection of campy 80s music, training development of the protagonist, hardships endured, winning respect from the hard nosed teacher, and techniques just real enough that we want to try them. Surely Bloodsport holds a special place in the montage hall of fame.
Take-away exercise to try: Unnecessary splits. Blindfolded tea. Everything.
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That’s it! I hope you enjoyed this journey. I won’t keep you any longer because you probably want to go running through the woods, carrying giant rocks on your back while hitting yourself with sticks. I understand, I’m pumped up too.
Don’t forget to add your two cents in the comment section below. Do you think there are any other movies that should have broken the top 11? Do you think some of these movies should be swapped around in rank? Let me know!
7 Questions to Enhance Your Bunkai
Without bunkai (applications), kata is little more than pre-arranged dancing. The hands can be flowing in exciting and vibrant ways but if we never discover the meaning of the motion then our time would be much better spent hitting a heavy bag or sparring.
Bunkai is the key to developing useful and effective techniques preserved for us by those individuals who developed and tested them in fierce, life protection situations. Over the course of time much of the true meaning of these movements has either been lost or purposefully disguised. If your desire is to unlock some of the skills of our predecessors, you’ll need to know the right questions in order to find the best answers.
The following are seven things to ask yourself that might illuminate your kata in a different (and hopefully productive) way. These are in no particular order and are not prescriptive. Use some when you can and invent others.
1. Can I change the angle in which I address my opponent?
Many times during bunkai we assume that an opponent is coming straight from the front or from the sides, and that we must stay directly in front of them and try to defend. What happens if you cut a 45 degree angle during your technique? What if turning from left to right allowed you to arc around the same opponent instead of addressing a new one?
2. What came just before and what is coming right after?
When we learn kata, it generally occurs in a set cadence. Step1 – block up. Step2 – block down. Step3 – punch kiai! That being the case, our mind generally sections itself off in those little boxes. It is our job to look at what is occurring right before our current technique and right after and how the body moves from one to the next. Stringing techniques together makes for a more devastating outcome to your opponent.
3. Am I utilizing all of the technique or just the end piece?
Techniques are often more dynamic than we give them credit for. Take for example the knife hand block. When we perform a knife hand block we generally step somewhere, prep the block, and then shoot the block out. The block itself is what we use to defend against an attack, but what about all the stuff that came before it? Can’t we use that too? Can’t the body shift be used to off-balance or attack our opponent, and can’t the prep be used to either defend or attack?
4. Can I condense the number of opponents I have to face to get through my applications?
If you find yourself going through a dozen bad guys for your bunkai you may be too segmented. In order to mentally escape from a tricky technique we often dismiss the current bad guy and invite a new one in from a different direction. Worse yet, if we are using two hands at once and don’t really know what’s going on we might invite two bad guys to attack us at once from different directions. Multiple opponent training is valuable, but kata is not suggesting that GuyA is likely to kick low while GuyB punches from behind. Those scenarios are too unlikely and miss the real intent of what’s happening. Condense the number of opponents as much as possible.
5. Are my opponents behaving naturally and with likely techniques, or am I forcing them into increasingly unlikely scenarios?
Patrick McCarthy Sensei developed the acronym HAPV, or habitual acts of physical violence. The point of HAPV is to keep focused on the techniques you are most likely to encounter. Furthermore, the longer you make the string of actions done by your uke the more unlikely an actual attacker will follow that pattern. Therefore, when performing bunkai, we want our opponents acting as naturally as possible. If the opponent has to punch, step back punch, step back punch, step back block up and receive your strike, you’ve asked your uke to behave in a way they never would in real life.
6. Have I affected my opponent in a way that makes more technique work?
Let’s say you manage to block your opponent (so far so good). You then put them in a wrist lock or arm bar in order to control them. That progression seems very effective, especially after years of training, and generally works in the dojo. However, if you’ve ever come across a live opponent who is experiencing adrenaline dump you’ll know that manipulating that arm is extremely difficult. Your attempts to bar or lock it will be met with iron resistance and counter punches to your face. Always be sure to negatively affect your opponent as soon as possible, then go into more technique.
7. What is the emotional content of my encounter?
What kind of scenario is your kata taking place in? Is it a school yard pushing match? Is it a life or death home invasion? The emotional environment you place yourself in is going to alter your bunkai dramatically. Your technique may need to restrain or it may need to kill.
Mental Gymnastics
With all of these questions/problems/complications we have to address the concept of simplicity. In a real life altercation, your simplest and most effective techniques will be the ones that help you. Thinking about responses in the heat of the moment will keep you one step behind your opponent.
Why then bother with all of this business about bunkai? Shouldn’t we simply practice a series of basic, effective techniques and avoid the mental gymnastics?
The short term answer is yes. For the first 5-6 years of your training you need to become “brilliant at the basics”, as Bill Hayes Sensei would say. Without a rock solid foundation and instinctual integration of your style’s stances, punches, and basic techniques nothing else can be built firmly. However, once you do achieve that level of proficiency, you acquire the privilege of exploring your art even deeper and improving the way you go about your business.
Simple techniques practiced a certain way seem like the best option until you learn how to improve them. That doesn’t necessarily mean complicate them. Instead the goal is to find ways to improve your angle, distance, timing, striking locations, and technique progression in order to enhance what’s already been built. This style of study leads to an understanding of tichiki, or “what the hand is doing”, which can be used extemporaneously with great percentage of success.
