Satya Bellord, Ninjai Gang member interviewed by Black belt Magazine

After donning a blond wig and yellow garb, Satya Bellord looks a lot like Uma Thurman.

Seing Double - Excerpts from Black Belt Magazine's interview with Satya Bellord, a member of the Ninjai Gang. For the full interview, check out Black Belt's December issue.

Many of us martial artists seek out jobs in the movie industry, especially as stunt doubles. But Satya Bellord, martial arts double for Uma Thurman in the movie Kill Bill, was in a much more enviable position. Kill Bill’s action director, the legendary Yuen Wo Ping, and director Quentin Tarantino sought her out.

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Black Belt: What’s the difference between a martial arts double and a stunt double?

Satya Bellord: The martial arts double specializes in martial arts, especially moves that require a higher skill and energy level. A trained martial artist develops an inner strength that isn’t there in an actor or stunt person whose martial arts training is limited.

BB: How did you get the job on Kill Bill?

Satya Bellord: I was working with my brother and sister on a couple projects of our own when we got an email from our old friends Yuen Wo Ping and Fish Fong. They told us about this movie project and how they were having a hard time finding the right martial arts doubles for the lead characters, especially Uma Thurman. We had told them in the past that we wouldn’t be interested in stunt work and that we only wanted to do our own projects unless they came up with significant co-starring roles. But it soon became clear to us that Yuen Wo Ping, Fish Fong and the "Kill Bill" production was in a tight spot.

BB: Why couldn’t they get somebody else? Didn’t they hold auditions?

Satya Bellord: By the time they contacted us they’d already been holding auditions for months in China and the United States, but they couldn’t find a really good martial arts double for Uma. The talent was there in China, but all the potential doubles were too short and Asian-looking to pass for Uma. In the U.S. they found some people who were tall enough, but Yuen Wo Ping wasn’t satisfied with their level of skill. Anyway, they asked us if we would at least come to LA to meet Tarantino and other people on the project, we agreed.

BB: What’s your martial arts background?

Satya Bellord: My siblings and I were born in Hong Kong and spent a lot of our childhood studying in Far East convents where martial arts was a big part of every day life. So we’ve been training since childhood, specializing in taekwondo, wushu, tai chi, and yoga. Our training in the last twelve years or so has been especially intense, we’ve been training anywhere from five to seven hours a day, six days a week.

BB: I understand you guys have been really fortunate to have had as your full-time Wushu coach for the last ten years Liang Chang Xing, the former captain of the first Beijing Wushu team.

Satya Bellord: Yes. And that wushu team is still renowned as the most skilled team ever. Jet Li was one of the younger members of that team. They were champions of China ten years in a row. I’ve never seen anyone who possesses the perfection of form and spirit Chang Xing has. Even after years of training with him, I am still awestruck at how graceful yet powerful his moves are. Chang Xing has been training us in wushu for over a decade. He is also the main action director for our projects Karma Kula and Ninjai: the Little Ninja.

BB: What’s the most important factor in making a fight sequence look good?

Satya Bellord: I understand the financial reason movie studios use non-martial artist actors in the starring roles. And if you have a really good action director, director, good martial arts doubles, and good camera and editing techniques, you can make fight sequences look good. But nothing can compare to fight sequences that have really first-class martial artists. The big budget martial arts-centered movies we see nowadays can look good, but I still don’t think the action can compare to movies starring real martial artists like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and others. Qualities that develop over a lifetime of training come across on the screen and can’t be faked.

Another key is to stay away from what I call “fighting in a bubble.” That’s where a participant is just in their own little bubble doing their moves and they’re not really adjusting to or communicating with their opponents. The most frustrating situation is where all the different opponents are in their own little world focused on doing what they’re supposed to be doing and expecting the other players to adjust to them.

BB: What was the hardest part of being Uma’s martial arts double?

Satya Bellord: It was actually very easy except for one thing: keeping my head down. The martial arts double is supposed to try to keep her head down, otherwise people might recognize it’s not the star. But I had a hard time doing that in the main martial arts sequence where I was moving down a corridor killing guys left and right in. Quentin told me after the first take that it was really great, but he asked me to do a take where I’m not looking so strongly at the bad guys I was slicing because I was facing right into the camera. So on the second take I tried to lower my head and gaze, but it really threw me off. It didn’t have the same energy and power. I’ve been so used to being the strong warrior who keeps her head up and faces her opponent head on. There is a saying in Chinese, "A lowered head and a bent back mean low level of skill." I explained to Quentin that in martial arts, power comes from focus, and the more you focus on each move, the more powerful it is. In other words, your body twists to face the person you’re cutting, your arm reaches out with the sword to slice him, your hips snap to the left as that sword comes down and your eyes zoom in on your target and make sure that blade goes right through that sucker with one clean fast slice (laughs). Fortunately Quentin appreciated how much better and powerful the sequence was when my head was up and my gaze focused on the opponents. So he had me stick with that. He later told me that it all worked out great.

Uma shows off her resemblance to her martial arts double, Satya Bellord.

BB: I saw a picture of you and your little baby on the Kill Bill set. I can’t imagine a woman who just had a baby two months earlier actually being a martial arts double. Weren’t you out of shape?

Satya Bellord: Not by the time the cameras rolled. The last few months of my pregnancy was the first time in ten years that I actually had more than a two-week break from training. I had just gotten back into training two-weeks before we were asked to go meet Quentin in LA. So I still needed to lose weight. I was surprised how quickly I got back in shape. Of course it was really exhausting in China, especially since I chose to breastfeed my daughter. That meant waking up every two hours at night to feed her. When you’re training twice a day, it gets pretty exhausting. The production shut down on weekends, so the first six weeks in Beijing I spent the weekends catching up on sleep and training at the hotel gym.

BB: That’s pretty amazing. Hadn’t Uma just given birth as well?

Satya Bellord: Yes. She had given birth two months before I did, so it was quite cool in the sense we were shedding our pregnancy weight together before the shooting started. Quentin was like, “Hey, you and Uma should write a book together about the weight you’ve lost!”

BB: Your martial arts training sounds intense and hard.

Satya Bellord: It is sometimes, but we’re used to it. During the summer time I usually sweat through 5-6 shirts a day and we battle with sore muscles and fatigue a lot. Some mornings it seems almost impossible to get up, like my body is glued to the bed. But those are the times when you can’t give up, because that’s when improvement is made. Our wushu coach always said that when you feel like training, that isn't training. The times when you don’t feel like training but you still train, that is called real training.

BB: How do you prepare for a fight sequence?

Satya Bellord: What I do is I go through the moves slowly and clearly so that all the distances and positionings are all worked out, then as soon as I feel confident I pick up the speed and after many repetitions I start to be able to focus on and feel the rhythm, drama and mood of the sequence.

Black Belt’s December issue

But when the shooting starts, I let go of all the preparation. The saying that the camera “reads everything” goes for fighting as well. If you’re thinking, “What's my next move?” or, “I messed up on that one,” it will show.

BB: Do you have any hints for our readers who might want to get a job in the movie or television industry as martial artists or actors?

Satya Bellord: First, have your head on straight. Don’t need the job. The key is to be satisfied or happy within yourself. Most people will have to audition sooner or later, and 95% of the time you won’t be accepted for the job. If your strength comes from within, then rejection won’t undermine your well-being and happiness.

Second, hone your skills. If you’re trying to get a job as a martial artist-stunt person or martial arts double, then train, train, and train some more. If you want to get dramatic roles, you have to put as much energy and effort into drama practice as you do martial arts.

BB: Thank you for your time Satya Bellord, and good luck on Karma Kula and Ninjai the Little Ninja.

Satya Bellord: My pleasure.

Author - Amber Smyth