Scott Brailey with his girls’ fight team
Aussie doco spruiks
martial arts for girls
Sydney-based martial artist and filmmaker
Rosemary Smith has joined forces with
fellow jujitsu instructor Scott Brailey to
make a documentary on girls in martial
arts. Following a group of Brailey’s young
female students over a period of almost
two years while training and competing
in National All Styles (NAS) competitions,
the film is designed to show the positive
effects martial arts can have on the girls’
development as they approach adulthood.
“Our aim is to give a well-rounded view
of both NAS and some of the challenges
all martial arts face in keeping women —
and particularly teenage girls — involved in
martial arts, and why it is so valuable that
we do all we can to keep them involved,”
Smith explained. “I have not shot it from
the point of view of my own martial art,
instead, from the point of view that it does
not matter what style you do, but rather
that you should just get out and do one.
“It is my hope we will be able to use
this as a resource in Australia and NZ
to help martial arts schools everywhere
promote self-defence and martial arts
of all kinds to women and girls, and
encourage them to take up learning the
valuable life skills we already know and
benefit from.”
Smith’s fire was lit when local papers
refused to do even a small story on her
team of girls and their success at NAS
two years in a row, with one winning two
state championships. Taking matters into
her own hands, Smith decided to make “a
little documentary” about the girls, which
rapidly grew in scope, with footage shot
over more than 18 months so far.
“We follow the girls through theirtraining, their wins and losses, and
some genuinely funny moments as they
cope with the usual teenage issues and
challenges all the while working towards
the NAS National tournament,” said Smith.
“I want to encourage martial artists
everywhere to do more to keep young
women in martial arts, as well as
encourage girls to overcome their fears
about training, and empower themselves.
It is my dream to put on a friendly, girls-
only competition and have girls from all
over NSW and eventually Australia come
together not just to compete, but to do
what girls do best: cheer, support, sing,
demonstrate and encourage.”
Smith has taught jujitsu for more than
20 years, mostly to teenage girls, and
works closely with good friend Brailey.
As well as coaching the girls featured
in competition, Brailey is involved in the
Unified Weapons Master competition, itself
the subject of a pilot live TV project.
Putting a documentary together is an
expensive business, however, and despite
having a background in the television
industry, Smith has found it hard to
secure funding, in the end going it alone
and funding it herself. With production
currently stalled while funds are raised
for the editing, Rosemary has started up
a GoFundMe campaign in the hope of
getting the doco out to the world.
“I feel it has been a long time since
something really inspired people to go
back to martial arts and it is my dream
that I may in some small way contribute
to this.”
For more info and to help via
GoFundMe, visit http://www.strikingdistance.orgJohn Wick’s kicks
are sick
Keanu Reeves is back reprising his 2014
action role as John Wick in John Wick:
Chapter 2. Recently hitting cinemas and soon
out on DVD and digital channels, the film
sees assassin Wick returning to the criminal
underworld to repay a debt, only to discover
that a large bounty has been put on his life...
and just when he was set on retiring from the
killing game.
Not only must he battle a gangster who
wants to pay Wick back in full for killing men
in his family — resulting in a helluva lot of
gunfire and spectacularly damaged cars — but
another crim’, Santino, who wants him to take
one last job: killing assassin Gianna (Claudia
Gerini), who is set to ascend to the High Table,
a group of powerful killers-for-hire in Rome.
When Wick ultimately accepts the job in
a last-ditch attempt to leave the assassin life,
he must first face her protectors, and then
the man who put him up to it...then put a $
million contract to kill John in New York. After
a lot of fighting with fists, guns, pencils and
whatever else Wick can lay hands on — and a
lot of dead assassins — Wick seeks help from
former nemesis the Bowery King (Laurence
Fishburne) to escape and track down Santino
in Rome. And it’s there that all hell breaks
loose, with the entire assassin world turning
against Wick.
For those who like bone-crunching
fight choreography, this will be the perfect
companion to a bucket of popcorn — as long
as you’re not squeamish, as it’s bloody, too.
Assassins are like that.SCAN TO
WATCH A
PREVIEW
OF SMITH’S
DOCUMENTARYBLITZ & PIECES |ƫ333ċ (%06) #ċ*!0ƫđƫ^17