It’s pretty amazing to see how far martial arts has come in just the past decade. We’re all familiar with the evolution of MMA by now, but you may not be aware of the evolution of “tricking“, which is basically a combination of aerial martial art kicks, gymnastics, and street acrobatics.
When I was pre-black belt, machine gun roundhouse kicks and triple kicks were all the rage. George Chung, Simon Rheee, Hee Il Cho, and Stuart Quan are on my O.G. list for innovators in the kicking arts. But I feel it was the definitive influence of Ernie Reyes and Ernie Reyes, jr. and their West Coast Demo Team that started this movement back in the eighties.
Working hard to establish myself as a young black belt without a sponsor on the tournament circuit, a 540 kick was the advanced “trick” at that time and was what helped me stand out. Those early trick kicks helped me break into the business because there were really only a handful of us that threw them. When I first entered form competitions, there was just “hard” and “soft” divisions. Now a 540 is considered a basic staple the way we used to consider a jump spin hook kick to be, and Tricking is it’s own division.
The next generation of incredibly talented Tricksters took the baton and RAN WITH IT. With the likes of Jon Valera, Carmichael Simon (my Godson), Steve Terada, Matt Mullins, Mike Chatt, etc… I feel that these guys really put the game on the map.
Sorry if I’m leaving names out, there’s certainly a lot of players in the game that deserve recognition.
Now our current force of Uber Tricksters have taken it to the next INSANE level…
Last night at the Oscars dance performance (introducing nominees for “best soundtrack”) tricking was really introduced for the first time on a worldwide scope. Congratulations to Jeremy Marinas, Anis Cheurfa, and Danny Graham for their amazing representation of the martial arts last night (they’re the three kicking in unison throughout the performance). I was elated to see their performance and grateful for what they are doing to promote the arts.
I wish them all an incredible journey with this…
