JCVD Shotokan lineage?

[username18526]

Anybody familiar with JCVD's (Jean Claude Van Damme) Shotokan ancestry?

Who taught him Shotokan, and what lineage?

[sensei8]

This might help to answer some of your questions. Check it out...

https://web.archive.org/web/20060405094621/http://www.jeanclaudevandamme.net/articles.htm

[Shojiko]

great resource from sensei8

I also wanted to share this additional article I found that offers further details.

It seems that Tsutomu Oshima sensei taught his instructor Shotokan.

"“When I was a teenager my karate teacher Claude Goetz (the European karate pioneer who studied with Tsutomu Oshima, a disciple of Gichin Funakoshi) would teach us that martial artists always live in the now, not in the past or in the future. He would say that there is nothing I can do about the past, and the future is just that -- the future. Therefore, I must live in the now, as this is the only thing I can control. I think that these early lessons come to the surface for me all the time,”

http://www.fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=320

[sensei8]

Then, Tsutomu Oshima has to be JCVDs Shotokan lineage. Solid lineage!!

[Shojiko]

What has always struck me about JCVD is how he begins his Karate demonstrations in interviews or videos.

He is constantly displaying his high kick (not that there is anything wrong about it).

He has the most beautiful mawashi I've ever seen.

I don't see him ever demonstrating punches common to Shotokan or speak about concepts like distance or timing, let alone punches.

He has more of a TKD aura about him than a Karate aura.

[username18526]

Thanks for the information, I was listening to the Bloodsport soundtrack on YouTube while working out and it piqued my interest because I remembered Karate was his martial art, though in the film Bloodsport, he was trained in ninjitsu, I believe.

[bushido_man96]

JCVD does have his base in Shotokan, but as he progressed in his movie career, I believe he leaned more into doing what made for good looking fight scenes, as opposed to whether or not it looked like Shotokan. He was probably more freestyle with it while he was acting. I always thought is reverse punch in the movies was vicious, and that jump spin hook kick was a thing of beauty.

Interestingly enough, Wesley Snipes was a Shotokan stylist, too. His best work is in the Blade trilogy.