Stunt training in Seattle

Yesterday was my first day of training at the United Stuntmen's Association Intenational Stunt School in Seattle. About 6 months ago, while I was training at the Society of American Fight Directors Winter Wonderland Workshop, I met the owner, Dave Boushey, and he said that it would be great for me to come out, so I decided to jump right on it. The training is 22 days and covers 15 disciplines of stunt work, including flame stunts, high falls, trampoline work, and of course, my personal favorite and specialty, fight choreography. Unfortunately, do to my schedule, I missed the first 2 days of the school, and arrived half-way through the third, literally fresh off the plane from spending the past 3 days flying Tokyo-Dallas-Michigan-Seattle. (I actually showed up at the training hall with all of my luggage).

They had spent the past two days learning a fight and were preparing to showcase it in about an hour. After having spent 5 years studying incredibly complex fight sequences in Tokyo however, the one they were doing wasn't too difficult (although the stylistic differences did take a bit of getting used to), so I just took the 30 minutes to learn it, practice it a few times, and an hour later performed it like everyone else. Personally, I felt my performance was kind of lacking (at the time I had a sore back from carrying my luggage for 3 days, and I hadn't slept yet), but I actually got applause for the performance. I think more than anything people were just impressed that I figured it out and could perform it as well as everyone else in only an hour.

Still, it was a great way to start off my training. Coming in two days late, I thought I would be at a disadvantage and would need to bust my tail to catch up, but it actually worked out even better because it allowed me to start off my making an excellent first impression. So far so good...Now the challenge will be to keep my level of performance for the rest of the school. Next up is training with clubs and knives. We'll see how it goes!