Batman, Ethan Hunt and now James Bond. The Keysi Fighting Method is now the Hollywood hero's preferred fighting style.
Jog your memory back to the penthouse fight sequence in The Dark Knight where Batman hammer-fists Joker's henchmen. Remember how the action was fierce and brutal, the movement real and economical, and brought forth Batman's animal-like quality.
Three years ago, Keysi Fighting Method (KFM) was still an unknown form, but after the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, this relatively new streetfighting method is a rage across clubs and martial arts practitioners in Europe and has now spread to Hollywood and the United States. And, it could soon come to Dubai.
Based on a series of tight and efficient movements created by Spaniard Justo Dieguez and Yorkshireman Andy Norman, KFM is an intuitive fighting method that lends itself to close combat and can be applied to fighting against multiple attackers from all directions. While the founders claim that KFM is not a martial art, what sets apart KFM from traditional martial arts is its 360-degree approach to self-defence. The assumption is that the attacker may not be alone, so there is an increased stress on being aware of the surroundings.
"KFM has matured on the streets across the last four decades and is a direct consequence of real events, experiences and subsequent years of investigation. Most martial arts are a consequence of other people's thoughts or experiences, but KFM is a consequence of Dieguez and Norman's (pictured in the film strip) life," says Andy Norman, co-founder of KFM, in an exclusive email interview. "Hence, it has no direct relation or connection with any other martial art or system."
The Origin
A former Special Forces soldier, Dieguez developed the KFM in collaboration with Norman, a Yorkshireman with a mean history of streetfighting.
"The Pensador [thinking man] is the nucleus of all the fighting applications within the KFM. The Pensador is not a new technique or invention, nor is it just a thing to do because we think it looks cool or strangely different. It's a pure consequence of real life experience, study and investigation," says Norman. "It all started when Dieguez was a just four-year-old. As a consequence of his gypsy upbringing in a rough neigbourhood on the outskirts of Seville, fighting with the other kids was a daily occurrence, but what separated Dieguez from the other kids was his amazing genetic predatory instinct."
Dieguez would sometimes end up taking a beating from the older boys, which frustrated him immensely. This frustration fuelled an intense desire in him to investigate and develop a method of fighting that would enable him to survive the brutal lifestyle he was born into.
Redefining predator and prey
One day while watching a street gang beat up a young boy, Dieguez observed how the boy curled up in foetal position with his hands around his head. Dieguez started to see clearly all the things that the young boy could and should have been doing. So he went home and practised fighting from the foetal position under the kitchen table at home, the legs of the table represented the four attackers.
On the street, Dieguez found himself in a similar position but only this time he started fighting back - relying on all the kitchen table training he had subject himself to and worked his way back to his feet whilst attacking his opponents. Dieguez was just five-years old then.
"Instinct is the true blood origin of the KFM and the Pensador is the evolution of the foetal position," says Norman. "To truly understand KFM you absorb it, since KFM lives
in the blood and not in the accumulation of techniques."
Some Hollywood action
According to Norman, on the day of the Batman Begins audition hundreds of stuntmen turned up.
"Two hours after we showed them a little sample of KFM, we got a call from the stunt team saying that this [KFM] was exactly what they had been looking for."
How was it like working with Christian Bale on the sets? "Bale was great! He thought KFM really rocked and the fact that he was very keen to learn KFM made our job a real pleasure. We went in to train him for a couple of months before filming started as director Christopher Nolan wanted Bale to do all the fight scenes himself. He picked up
KFM very quickly and in the end actually achieved a good level of understanding in KFM," says Norman.
Batman Begins was the movie that introduced Hollywood to this explosive new action style. And since then, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has preferred KFM in Mission Impossible 3 and Daniel Craig's very physical James Bond will unleash KFM on the bad guys in the new Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.
Paul Jennings, one of Hollywood's top stunt coordinators (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), Norman and Dieguez have now formed a company to take KFM global. "It's
all very exciting at the moment as there is so much going on and the energy around us is electric. We are also looking to bring KFM out to Dubai and are keen on exploring options here," signs off Norman.
