'

'There are so many times when we are called upon to be creative: an athlete on the field, a lecturer before an audience, a musician on stage, a cook at the stove, a parent with a child… How do we keep the channel open?'

Deng Ming-Dao

 

 'Like mindedness and similar interests will always lead to bonds and friendships and quite often, those who are talented creatively are eager to share their skills with their peers: the talented singer with the dancing friend will find themselves eager to 'move to music', the painter may itch to try their hand at sculpture and the actor be eager to pick up a musical instrument.'

'For myself, having friends who practised in the world of martial arts my interest was drawn to them.'

'It seems to be true of almost every performance medium one thinks of, the idea that into one, another can so easily bleed, more often than not leading to fantastic expressions and discoveries. The superb blending of drama and singing gives us opera, the merging of story telling and movement gives us creative dance, mix theatre and song and you have the classic musical and even still life and sculpture are so often accompanied by music to enhance their expression….'

'It's no surprise to me then to see the success that has come about when people have mixed drama with martial arts'

'It is not for want of a more appropriate term that the martial arts are so called. They are indeed an art. They are expressive, creative and fluid. The martial arts practitioner does not wait for set formalities. He is not a robot but a living being, supple and alive and expressive. It is my opinion that many of the great martial artist currently working in Asian film industries are very fine actors indeed'

'I began to find a new awareness with regard to physicality and the body, as well as an improvement in fitness and concentration.'

'Hours of training in the kwoon with my instructors reminding me to be aware of what my feet were doing, where my hands were, how low my centre was had given me a heightened sense of what my body gave to an audience. What an opponent picks up from your physicality in martial arts, a theatre audience watching a performance would too.'

'Whilst not negating the importance of the use of content, (or scripts for us actors) and the voice, in my opinion being as finely tuned in to your body and your physicality as possible is the key skill of the story teller.'

 'It is a well known fact that the messages we convey to others in performance are received by three aspects of our communication...'

'...our content, our voice and our body, and not surprising that when these are put into figures of influence, the body is found to be significantly more than 50 percent.'

'It is in this way that my training as a martial artist over the years has been most valuable'

'Martial art is a form of expression, expression from your inner self to your arms and your legs. When you watch my films… you're actually feeling my heart'

 Donnie Yen