Michael Nguyen

Michael Nguyen

My name is Michael Nguyen, I come from a family of artists; one is a musician, one is a film guy and one is a writer/dancer and so visual arts is my forte. All of our inspirations come from storytelling in film. We love how a story can be told through film so each us chose a discipline to tell our stories in; that is my goal every time I create.

One of my friends told me to do this project based on something that I love. Martial arts has been a part of my life for so long so this was the perfect subject to do my project on. When the UFC first debuted in November 1993, fighters from various martial arts came together to compete and see who was the better fighter and what was the better style. This trend dominated the sport in it’s early years but as the sport grew, athletes became more well rounded, rather than being single style specialist.Casual fans of the sport still see this as an eclectic sport, where its style vs style. My project will show that this is a transcendent sport, where it transcends the component martial arts into an entirely new skill set: Shootboxing: Integration between striking and takedowns in the open position Clinchboxing: Integration between striking and takedowns whilst locked in a standing clinch Fenceboxing: Integration between striking and takedowns whilst propped on the fence Grappleboxing: The skill of striking, positional exchange and submissions whilst on the ground.