What does film making have anything to do with martial arts or life?

   I'm always up to trying new things and learning from my new experiences. Yesterday, I was part of a cast for a new feature film, titled "Fight 4 Your Life." (The independent film is a story about Fleet Blackwood, a young boxer who is thrown into a night of peculiar events.) The scene I was a part of took place in a dojo where a very well choreographed fight scene takes place. I'm not sure exactly how long the scene will be in the feature film "Fight 4 Your Life," but the filming started around 8 pm and lasted until 4am the following day. My assumption is that for about a 3 to 5 minute performance in the film, we spent about 8 hours filming..... And that's just filming! In addition to the filming, the fight scene members, collected from an assortment of different martial arts, had to choreograph and rehearse the fight before the filming about a week for about another 8 hours. Rounding up, this amounts to about 20 hours of preparation or "training" for about 5 minutes of performance. Let's not forget all the editing and action that goes on behind the scenes the make the movie look even more dynamic and action packed. It just feels like the amount of time needed to package a perfect product is endless. 

     The same concept applies in martial arts, jiu jitsu, wrestling, and life. Practice and preparation are essential elements in performance. The better you want to perform, the more effort you need to invest in yourself. If we were to just look at the physical filming and preparation time and relate that to the time we will see on the screen we could say we spent an input of about 1,200 minutes to get an output of maybe 3 minutes. And again, I'm doing a serious disservice by not including all the time that will be spent reviewing and editing the clips for the final product. 

     The underlying common theme is that we spend just as much time, if not more, training in our martial arts for just a few minutes of performance. The amount of time you invest in making the performance is going to take more than the actual performance will. Therefore, we need to remind ourselves that enjoying and appreciating the time we spend "training" is very important. The final product or performance may or may not be exactly what we desired, but the time spent training is just as significant and precious as the performance itself. I like to think of the time I spend "training" as personal development time. An opportunity where I get to focus on my needs and making myself stronger, calmer, and happier. I'm very thankful for the personal development I went through the last few evenings with the Fight 4 Your Life cast and crew. I can't wait to see the final product!

If you would like to make a financial or physical contribution to Fight 4 Your Life and support film making in the Sacramento area visit their website: Fight 4 Your Life 

Eliot Kelly

916 595 4064

EDH Jiu Jitsu