What do you get when you cross Bruce Lee with
Jackie Chan and the boy next door? Well , you are going to get a man named Chris
Young who combines martial arts with dance with modeling and then to ice the
cake ... acting!
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The discipline of martial arts is apparent in
this man’s demeanor and yet he is totally at ease and very well spoken on all
subjects concerned. To say he is a rarity within the business of fashion would
be an understatement or possibly an anomaly and yet he fits right in with the
flock. He is the essence of athleticism meets esthetics.
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Chris is one of many who fights against the
stereotypes and ill-conceived notions of what makes a model. He is dedicated to
all his crafts and skills and as he duly pointed out to me that they are not
always inextricably linked; one is learned and one is honed. That is a rather
astute and a telling observation for a man whose intelligence belies his
professional choices or maybe not!
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So in
his own words and with some prodding on my part
… in his own words please allow
me to introduce you to Chris Young.
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Jeffrey Felner: What is your most prized possession
and why?
Chris Young: I would say my health and physicality. I know that isn't
exactly a possession in the way, say, my favorite sword or an heirloom is, but
I derive a lot of my peace and happiness through movement. To me, it is as much
spiritual as it is physical. So my health and physicality is central to my
happiness and the way I live my life.
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JF: If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who
would they be and why
CY: I have to admit I’m a little torn, so I am going to cheat
and give two scenarios.
First is very
simple: it would be fascinating to me to have my teachers and mentors together
at dinner. That would actually be six people but I’ve never been good at math.
I believe that despite the obvious differences, there is an underlying type of
thinking and discipline that is in common with all these arts in which I
engage.
Then there is a
more fantastical ideal of having historical heroes of mine at dinner. For that,
I am inclined to choose Liu DeKuan, who
was a great martial artist and who is part of my martial lineage, Mestre Pastinha who is often considered the
father of Capoeira Angola, Richard Bolislavski the actor, director and teacher
who to my mind really first made acting technique understandable to the actor
with all due credit to Stanislavsky, Herb Ritts, the photographer, and Rumi the founder of Sufism which is a
joyous spiritual tradition so profound you need not be a Sufi to benefit from
it.
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JF: You are a triple threat ... actor, model and
martial arts professional; would you tell us how this all came about to bring
you to this point?
CY: It was all very unplanned since I was actually on
track for a career in artificial intelligence (AI) research and development. I
had been engaged in martial arts and gymnastics most of my life. While I was
pursuing this career in AI, I started a Chinese lion dance team, which is based
upon kung fu skills. Eventually the guys on the team wanted to learn to fight
so I started teaching these guys a martial arts, specifically a style called
Eagle Claw. Then my Sifu (teacher) suggested I start teaching an additional
style, known as White Ape Connected Back. While all that was happening, I was
scouted by an agency in Pittsburgh which I actually thought was a scam, but eventually
signed with them; it never amounted to anything but another agency found me and
signed me and started sending me out. It
was a lot more fun than I expected and As I started to explore modeling, I
discovered that taking it to a higher level required a lot more skill and
understanding than I had expected. On the advice of a friend, I started taking
acting lessons to enhance my performance as a model. I was fortunate enough to
have an acting teacher from Carnegie Mellon who helped me develop a love for
acting as well as modeling. During all this expansion of martial arts, modeling
and acting, I found the tech industry was not a good fit for me, whereas martial
arts was a much better fit. I continued to increase my martial arts skills and
established a school and eventually became a master. Serious martial arts, in
addition to skill development, requires and benefits from solid physical
conditioning in almost the same way as modeling. I was already attracted and
fascinated with movies involving plenty of action so physical conditioning was
essential for those types of roles as an actor. Additionally acting requires
good physical coordination with one’s body, as obviously does martial arts. So
they all have overlapping components. I
really love all three of the crafts and skills. When I was a kid I watched Kung
Fu movies with my grandfather and loved them but I also remember seeing models
in magazines thinking “man, that’s pretty cool”. I never seriously considered the
possibility I could do it … But…. here I am where life has lead me.
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JF: If you could choose any collaboration at all …
what or who would it be and why?
CY: Man this is tough. I think for modeling I’d love to shoot a
campaign including video and print with an athletic bent, maybe some martial
arts even, with Rick Day for an underwear brand like Jack Adams or CN-2, maybe
GNC or a sport brand if he was into that. That guy produces some of the coolest
video campaigns I can remember… I think I recall some for CN-2…. And of course
his still photography is amazing.
For a movie, my
ideal is to bring together really good writing, acting and martial arts worked
into a single movie directed by Ang Lee. I actually have a story idea but I’m
still working on it so I don’t want to give it away right now, but I think Ang
Lee would be the ideal director to pull together a project like this.
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JF: If there is any part of your history that you
would “rewrite”… what would it be and why?
CY: There are some specific things I would do differently… for
instance, I had a chance to go to China with my grandfather and see where he
grew up but I didn’t because of a new job, and never got another chance… but
overall, I don’t think I would really rewrite any part of my history. I have
made plenty of mistakes and have lived through some quite difficult and
miserable periods, but I feel I am in a pretty good place in my life right now
and headed in a good direction. I think
lessons learned from the difficulties as well as the fortunate, happy times all
helped to bring me to this place.
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JF: Where would you like to see Chris Young in 5 years
... what’s the end game for you ?
CY: I would like to be booking regular work in film, print and
television and also seeing my martial arts students advance in their skills. In
addition hope that I will be continuously honing in my own skills as an actor,
model and martial artist.
Photographers:
Rey Romero, Alahn Brezan, John Falocco, Rodney Logan, Jason Paluck,
Alejandro Jesus and Thiek Smith.
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