Chinese combatants, men and women, inheritors of a millennial culture, are people of uncommon intelligence and an invincible spirit of struggle.

People say that I’m a boxer. I actually started with kick boxing, and then I moved onto boxing, and then I moved onto grappling.

I love wushu a lot and I would love to see it included in future Olympic Games.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

I’ve learned new footwork patterns that are very unusual. I’ve learned how to find a lower centre of gravity, and I’ve found more angles to throw shots.

I’m in the game of spinning plates. I’m spinning a boxing plate. I’m spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I’m spinning a Jujitsu plate. I’m spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I’m spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

I sometimes just don’t like to see the Ultimate Fighting. I just find it, as a martial artist, I just find it too violent.

I think I am the greatest fighter in any class. I know I can hold two, maybe even three belts.

The goal of jiu-jitsu in self-defense isn’t to take someone down to the ground – the goal in jiu-jitsu for self-defense is actually to be able to defend yourself on the ground, get up, and get away from an attacker. That’s what the goal is.

If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously, you learn to control it.

I want to make a good, solid kung fu movie.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church – things like that – I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

I’m going to change the way martial arts is viewed. I’m going to change the game. I’m going to change the way people approach fighting.

Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.

The thing about Jiu Jitsu is it is also not for everybody. It can be very humiliating and humbling. If you have a hard time dealing with the fact that someone smaller than you may be able to tap you out, it is going to be difficult.

Who wants to leave the door open to being dominated physically by another human being? Jiu Jitsu gives you the ability to not be dominated by that person, and to me, that’s real peace of mind. I don’t have to worry about that when I’m walking around in the world.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

I want to be an expert in different fighting styles, new training methods, new ways of thinking.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

When you are learning about a martial art, it is about respect.

Jiu Jitsu is a great workout both mentally and physically. You want to be strong for it and flexible for it.

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

My view of my role is that together with like-minded men and women, I could help contribute to a bipartisan view of American engagement in the world for another period; I could do my part to overcome this really, in a way, awful period in which we are turning history into personal recriminations, depriving our political system of a serious debate.

Jackie Chan is a myth.

Posture for combat is so vital.