How do you make a fight scene?

As a rule, the fight scene itself needs to look dangerous but at the same time be safe enough for the actors to feel confident that they are not going to get hurt.

A good fight scene is one in which there are blocks and strikes mixed in with kicks joint locking and take-downs. Designing a choreographed fight scene is really fun for students. It lets them show off their skills in a very positive way.

Yes, many of the moves look cooler on camera, and some may not work in a real fight, but the skill involved in making a choreographed fight look good is real. 

Fight Choreography

One of the best ways to keep kids engaged in their martial arts training is to give them some freedom in how to apply some of the self-defense movements that they learn in Kung Fu class. This is where fight choreography class comes in. For the kids in this video, this class (held on Friday evenings at 5 pm) is one of their favorites.

Fight choreography is like a dance. both parties need to know their part. It involves timing, knowing your range or distance and memorization of the moves. 

Your child will be working with partners to derive a fight scene using a variety of different martial arts styles.

In addition, your kids will learn what a proper reaction would be for the different kinds of strikes, so it would look good on film.

At the end of class, they learn how to perform in front of an audience. All fight scenes are going to have different requirements. Later, students will learn various filming techniques and how to make them look good for the camera. At an advanced level, they will learn how to how to edit their scenes on the computer.

Notably, we are the only martial arts academy in Las Vegas that offers a fight choreography class on an ongoing basis.

Fight choreography class

Consider this...

The best part is, without any training at all, young children will imitate martial arts movements they see on tv.  Most kids will play fight like this without having any formal instruction. 

How can you beat that?

However, although it is unstructured, it is at the same time very valuable practice, because we actually teach them the correct way to block, strike, grapple, and roll. The kids learn through repetition like any other skill and they practice their fight scene much time in a single class.

Also, this may seem like a purely theatrical class, there is a lot of learning going on here. Timing, rhythm, distancing, striking and blocking are taught to the kids in a very disciplined format.

Eventually, we do correct their technique and the details of each movement. actually teach them the correct way to block, strike, grapple, and roll. Your kids will learn through repetition like any other skill. 

Initially, we don't allow the students to incorporate dialogue into their skits. However, when they get better at creating scenes, they can introduce humor into their skits, similar to what Jackie Chan does in his movies.

Your child will have to wait for the right time to initiate their moves. Timing an opponent in a real fight requires experience. While sparring is the best way to get that experience, fight choreography class is a close second.

Obviously, these kids are not very experienced in martial arts, but you can tell they are having a blast.

Awesome fight scene

A few weeks ago we were fortunate enough to have a very talented filmmaker named Ben Malto enroll his kids into our school. His kids are  Matthew and Marisa.

He shot and directed a short film in our fight choreography class. It was a really fast filming session

Over the course of a just single hour, he shot all of this footage! I couldn't believe what he came up with.

Fight choreography is the most talked about class at our school

Fight Choreography is one of the most fun and exciting classes that we offer.

Again, this is not real fighting but rather the kids make up their own scenes. It's really a great outlet for their creativity. 

The bottom line is when you watch the video you can see that it's not just simplistic punching and kicking. There is a lot of thought that went into choreographing the scene. 

What's more, you might be surprised to know that, I did not help them with creating this scene. All of the fighting moves were put together by these students. It has certain artistry to it and it becomes almost like a dance.

To summarize, I'm pretty sure that none of these kids will grow up to be an actual stuntman working in Hollywood. However, you never know, I hope one day they make it!.