I was inspired to learn martial arts when I was young because I wanted to learn how to defend myself as well as try something different. As a result, I was always a fan of martial arts film even if most of them fell under the B-movie category. One of my favorite martial arts films was "Blood Sport" that starred Jan Claude Van Damme based on the story of Frank Dux who was said to be the first American to win in the mythical "kumite". I remember reading about him in an article in "BlackBelt" Magazine back in 1981. Going back to the movie, I remember the soundtrack which was sung by Stan Bush called "Fight To Survive".
One of the reasons why this is one of my favorite films because if you look at past martial arts films, it was either one or two dimensional meaning it featured primary one style or it pitted one martial art against another. In Blood Sport, what attracted me to it was the fact that it featured different martial arts where fighters fought other fighters with different disciplines. the scene where the different fights were featured while this song was played was my favorite. If I recall, there was an article about Dux in Wikipedia but sadly it challenged his claim about his experiences as well as disputed the existence of the kumite which Dux insists is real. Still it was a good movie and the fight scenes were awesome.
I have to admit after watching the film, I wanted to take up other arts and self-defense systems. Though I still love Karate, I also wanted to see what other systems are like. I have earned a 1st Degree Black Belt in Combat Aikido and have studied Arnis. There are other arts that I want to try such as Sorinji Kempo, Hapkido, Kendo and other fighting systems. Right now I am occupied with my work and other obligations. When I have the time, I want to continue studying other arts as well as refresh my Karate and Aikido skills and watching this film keeps me inspired to do just that.
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