Are you wondering what martial arts Blade knows?
In this article, we’ll examine the martial arts Blade knows, Blade’s fighting style, where Blade learned to fight, and the martial arts Wesley Snipes knows.
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What Martial Arts Does Blade Know?
The martial arts Blade knows and uses in the movie franchise are aikido, capoeira, combat shooting, eskrima/kendo, judo, professional wrestling, Southern-style kung fu, shokotan karate, shurikenjutsu, silat, taekwondo, and wushu – a total of 12 martial arts.
Here’s how Blade uses each martial art throughout the movie franchise.
1. Aikido
Japanese martial art aikido has a large emphasis on wrist manipulation, which Blade often uses to throw and flip his opponents to the ground.
2. Capoeira
Brazilian martial art capoeira incorporates dance, fluid movements, acrobatic kicks, and spins. Blade sometimes uses acrobatic capoeira kicks in the movies, where he’s completely off the ground after pushing away with one arm to propel himself into the kick.
Capoeira also focuses on evading strikes instead of blocking them. Blade often evades and quickly counters as he’s always outnumbered.
3. Combat shooting
Combat shooting is a modern martial art simulating defensive/combat situations to improve gun skills. It features shooting one target to the next, both short and long-range, as quickly as possible while maintaining accuracy.
It also teaches movement efficiency and the ability to quickly transition between guns and weapons. Blade’s especially skilled with the guns he uses so combat shooting is evident.
4. Eskrima/Kendo
While it’s unknown the exact weapon-based martial art Blade uses, it’s likely to be either eskrima (arnis) or kendo.
Eskrima teaches weapon-based fighting with various weapons such as swords, sticks, and knives, and also the ability to fight with improvised weapons – something Blade does often (shovel scene).
5. Judo
Blade often uses judo to standing grapple and push his enemies away, as well as execute throws. Blade also uses the guillotine choke in the standing position, another judo technique.
6. Professional wrestling
Not exactly a martial art, but Blade uses some professional wrestling techniques such as the brainbuster. The brainbuster is a wrestling throw of putting an opponent in a face lock, lifting them high, and dropping them vertically onto their head.
7. Southern-style kung fu
Southern-style kung fu focuses on close-quarter techniques, short explosive movements and steps, low stances, and economical movements and techniques combining both attack and defense for speed and directness.
The focus of the techniques is to use the hands rather than the legs.
Blade uses southern-style kung fu throughout the movies as he’s often fighting close range and using speedy short punches and chopping attacks.
Blade also uses trapping, which comes from the southern kung fu style of wing chun. Trapping hands is the technique of grabbing an opponent’s wrists or hands to prevent them from attacking while opening a path to attack them.
8. Shotokan karate
Blade uses shotokan karate throughout. He often strikes opponents between the thumb and fingers in a chopping motion, known as yubi hasami.
Blade also often uses karate strikes: elbow attacks, backfists, and punches with great precision, explosiveness, and directness, owing to the technique efficiency promoted in karate.
Shotokan karatekas also use low stances, and Blade has no problem getting low and attacking while low.
Also, very commonly seen in karate, when Blade punches he brings the other arm backward to set up the next strike or technique. Blade also moves with great efficiency between opponents and while fighting.
9. Shurikenjutsu
Shurikenjutsu is the martial art of throwing small, bladed weapons. Blade throws shuriken and his boomerang blade with elite precision.
10. Silat
Southeast Asian martial art silat is known for using very quick and aggressive attacks, especially knees and elbows which Blade uses often when up close.
Silat also focuses on speedy footwork and hand movements, as well as pressure point and nerve attacks – most resembling Blade’s street-like fighting scenes.
Lastly, silat teaches weapon fighting with a dagger, machete, staff, sickle, spear, and curved knives, and while none of these are a sword, silat weapon training carries over into the way Blade fights with weapons.
11. Taekwondo
Korean martial art taekwondo has a heavy focus on kicking techniques and very sharp and precise movements.
Some of the taekwondo-style kicks Blade uses are the hook kick, spinning hook kick, side kick, flying side kick, spinning crescent kick, and push kick.
Taekwondo kicks are powerful but more so about precision and speed, which Blade uses when outnumbered.
He also sometimes adopts the bladed taekwondo stance (side stance) to make himself a smaller target, paired with his hands low, staying light on his feet, and light bouncing.
12. Wushu (demonstration)
Wushu kung fu became a demonstration sport in 2014, where competitors use large, graceful, and quick movements to demonstrate kung fu techniques.
Blade can be seen jumping especially high and performing graceful wushu-like techniques throughout the movies, especially when CGI is used.
What Is Blade’s Fighting Style?
With the number of martial arts he knows and uses, Blade’s fighting style is of a mixed martial artist (MMA) because he uses a huge variety of techniques from many martial arts.
While his overall style is very mixed, he also moves between the different martial arts depending on the situation.
For example, when there’s more distance and space, Blade uses a taekwondo fighting style based on kicking speed, accuracy, and staying light on his feet, but when he’s close quarters, Blade uses a mix of kung fu, shotokan karate, and silat with quick, powerful, direct, and street-like techniques together.
Similar to Bruce Lee, Blade takes what is useful and casts away what is useless in terms of techniques from different martial arts. This is especially important as they each have useful techniques and Blade needs to be as effective as he can.
Also similar to Bruce Lee, Blade (Wesley Snipes) has adopted a lot of fancy capoeira and taekwondo kicks because they look great on screen.
Overall, Blade has created his own unique style of fighting by mixing a huge variety of martial arts into a street-smart, aggressive, and excellently choreographed display of techniques. Blade has a high fight intelligence and looks to end fights as quickly as possible.
Where Did Blade Learn to Fight?
Blade learned to fight under the mentorship of Abraham Whistler. Whistler is a vampire hunter who takes Blade under his wing and teaches him everything there is to know about vampires, including how to fight and kill them with both armed and unarmed combat.
What Martial Arts Does Wesley Snipes Know?
Wesley Snipes has been training martial arts since the age of 12 and is a 5th dan black belt in shotokan karate and a 2nd dan black belt in hapkido.
He’s also trained in capoeira under Mestre Jelon Vieira, in kung fu at the USA Shaolin Temple, in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Rigan Machado, and in kickboxing.
Alongside his martial arts training, Snipes’ friend and mentor Brooke Ellis trained him to fight while he was in New York.
With Wesley Snipes’ experience and skill in shotokan karate and hapkido, it’s easy to see how this translates into the fighting style of Blade.
The Bottom Line
So, ‘what martial arts does Blade know’?’
Blade knows and uses aikido, capoeira, combat shooting, eskrima/kendo, judo, professional wrestling, Southern-style kung fu, shokotan karate, shurikenjutsu, silat, taekwondo, and wushu.
Together, Blade’s fighting style is of a mixed martial artist as he’s excellent in armed and unarmed combat and he incorporates techniques from all 12 of the mentioned martial arts throughout the movie franchise.