Superheroes Don't Make Contact

By: Robert W. Young
From: Black Belt Magazine

You tune into Mighty Morphin Power Rangers every week. You gawk at the tube from the beginning of each episode to the end, especially during those cool fight scenes when the good guys never fail to beat the tar out of the evil monsters.

You watch fullforce punches thrown at the face, lightningfast kicks aimed at the body and weapons strikes hitting all over. The amazing part is that few characters ever seem the get seriously hurt. Blood seldom flies, and bones seldom break. You never see eyes popping out of their sockets or teeth flying out of the someone's gums.

One day you decide to give those techniques a try on your little brother. You let loose with a jumping side kick aimed at the back of the knee. When you make contact, his leg collapses and his knee makes a sickening cracking sound.

Your brother starts bawling, and your mother comes running into the room. She asks you what happened. You admit to doing a kick you saw on TV, but you say you never really meant to hurt him. She packs your brother into the car and lugs him into the emergency rooms for X-rays. The leg's broken.

On the Set

Wushu expert Richard Branden has performed thousands of kicks and punches on many popular shows, including WMAC Masters, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the movie Mortal Combat. He had stood in front of the camera and thrown more karate techniques than you can imagine-all with a perfect safety record.

Richard knows how movies and TV shows are filmed and how the fights look from behind the camera. "We are not really hitting each other," he says. "It's all done with camera angles."

The secret of making a near miss look like a real hit lies in positioning the camera directly behind or in front of the person doing the attacking. Kicks and punches never get closer than a foot away from their target, Richard says. "But because of the angle of the camera, it appears that we're really hitting each other."

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense not to hit the opponent. It's extremely hard for actors and stunt people to make contact while filming because if they do, the opponent often tightens up just before impact so he can absorb the power of the strike, Richard says. "Then the reaction can't be as big."

But when an actor knows the other person is not going to smack him, he can make his reaction much more exciting. "In the movies, the bigger the reaction, the better," Richard says.

On the Playground

"If you're at school playing Power Rangers or WMAC Masters, you should never jump off things and really hit each other," Richard says. "You shouldn't kick each other in the side of the knee or back of the leg because you can break something. It's the same with kicks to the kidney or spine- you can cripple someone."

Because the leg muscles are so powerful, kicks can cause a lot of damage, Richard says. "In the movies, fighting distance is always kept. You should do the same- especially when kicking." When you're out on the playground, you need to remember that safety zone and never cross it, Richard continues. Keep at least 12 inches between your hand or foot and your friends.

"As far as weapons go, you have to realize that on Power Rangers, everyone took a lot of martial arts lessons before the show," Richard says. "I see a lot of [untrained] kids fighting each other with sticks- those sticks could easily be poked in someone's eye. Don't fight each other with the sticks or else you can get hurt. Take turns doing stick forms, but make sure there is at least 10 feet between you.

"The problem is that half the kids on the playground have never even stepped into a martial arts school," Richard says. "They're just watching TV and going at it any old crazy way. And that starts giving Power Rangers, WMAC Masters, or any other show that has martial arts in it a bad name. Parents say, 'I'm not letting my son watch that because they do all these kicks on each other.' What the parents should do is see that the kids are interested in martial arts and take them to a local martial arts school and get them enrolled."

In the Gym

"At Richard's martial arts school, kids must know all the basic kicks before they spar. "And they have to show control," he continues. "We develop that with focus pads. We hold up a pad and see how close the kids can come without hitting it. Once we start to see that their control is really good, they have to purchase fighting equipment for their hands, feet, shin, groin, mouth, and head."

Once kids have all thier safety equipment, sparring takes place the right way-in a controlled atmosphere. "One side just does the blocks, and the other does the attacking," Richard says. "They all do the same technique until they have it down. They do not hit the person too hard-just enough to let them know they are making contact. We don't allow any kind of heavy contact."

Throughout sparring, Richard pays attention to the kids' attitudes. "A person with nay type of attitude problem will not be allowed to spar," he says. Hopefully we can correct them and teach them how to have a better attitude."

Respect is perhaps the most important attribute for martial kids, Richard says. "If one child does hit another, even though they are fully protected, it can hurt," he says. "Then the other fighter must show respect and concern for him. He should not think: 'Well, he should have blocked it. That's his fault.'"

In the Hospital

On Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Richard was part of a team of five martial arts stunt doubles. He has doubled for every Ranger-except the Pink and Yellow-and for the bad guys. "One time, a guy was doing a spinning kick into my chest, and I had my hand up to block," Richard says. "He did it twice, and it was really good. Then they told me to move my hand down to get a better camera angle. When he tried to kick me, his body turned and his foot came straight up and hit me in the chin.

"You actually do see stars when you get hit really hard," Richard says. "About a half hour afterward, it starts to really, really hurt, but the next day you really feel it.

Richard relates another painful incident from the set: "A lot of those crazy flips the stunt people do on Power Rangers are done freestyle. One of the choreographers-it was his first day on the job-hooked me up to the wires. He wanted me to spin consecutively, but the wires snapped. I went spinning backward and landed on my instep. I broke my leg and tore more of the ligaments in my ankle."

If accidents like these can happen to professional martial artists like Richard Branden, just think how careful you have to be to avoid them.