The workout chronicle of Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel is not your typical movie idol. He is not really good-looking, but he has that bad boy charm. He is dubbed the screen hero with perfect timing because the triumvirate of popular action heroes – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis – are a lot older for the title. Diesel, who just turned 37 last July 18, is indeed fast and furiously grabbing a following of his own. Never mind if his last movie did not really make a killing at the tills.

Mark Vincent in real life, the former New York club bouncer has gone a long way with a reported pay of $12.5 million per movie. Industry analysts say he appeals not only to male but also female movie fans age 18 to 35. Diesel is acknowledged as one of today’s most searched male actors on the Web.

Armed with attributes that make a lot of women swoon, he is what you call beefcake, a stud. He exudes coolness and brute strength. It is said that his days as a bouncer in New York’s most prestigious clubs refined his tastes and style, making him one of Hollywood’s best dressed.

Growing up in Greenwich, he dreamt of acting at a very young age. He got noticed when he completed a film on a $3,000 budget, Multi-Facial, that screened at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. After seeing that movie, Steven Spielberg offered him immediately a role alongside Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.

A critic zeroed in on his magic, "Vin Diesel has taken the best of traditional action heroism – the watermelon muscles, the lumpen voice, the stoic ambivalence to pain of all kinds – and given it a contemporary dose of irony. In a way, he’s the perfect 21st century hero: A bad guy who’s really a good guy, who isn’t necessarily Wittgenstein but is certainly smarter than he looks. Not pretty, but not too beefy either: Just a dose of testosterone with a heart of gold (once you dig down) and biceps of steel, with enough self-consciousness about the campiness of the whole endeavor to make cheesy action flicks entertaining again. He makes it possible to find him absurd and irresistible at the same time."

Made distinct by his trademark voice, he has an uncanny ability to play a multitude of races. He could pass for an Irish, Italian, German, Dominican, Mexican and a lot of other ethnicities. With his intimidating, overbearing frame, film critic Roger Ebert predicted that Vin Diesel is the action star to watch for in the next few years.

In an interview, Vin Diesel talked about how he physically prepared for his role in Chronicles of Riddick.

As a bouncer for nine years, he had to work out regularly and look formidable. Taking all his roles seriously, he takes up various training depending on the role. Vin Diesel expounds, "I try to cater the workout design specifically for the character. (My) character in A Man Apart is a grappler so I trained with Jujitsu grapplers for this role. But it depends honestly on what character I’m playing. When I played Riddick in Pitch Black, I was doing yoga and Pilates to kind of create a more panther-like look."

For Chronicles of Riddick, Diesel explains, "The Riddick workout started before I went up there. I was training with a UFC guy, Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter. I got up there two months early and started training in a fighting style called kali, which originated in Spain and was then brought to the Philippines by Spanish traders. It’s a fighting style that’s just now beginning to catch wind. It’s a fighting style that calls for ambidextrous, two-handed fighting. And that’s what we studied. I went up two months early to learn this fighting style."

Ricco Rodriguez, 25, is the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion who trained Diesel for the movie. He is currently writing a book on how to win street fights.

And the Filipino trainer of Diesel was Guro Jun de Leon, the chief instructor at Kali De Leon in Toronto, Canada. Incidentally, Matt Damon also used the kali technique to prepare himself for his role in Bourne Identity.

In his website, Guro De Leon is said to have devoted his passion for teaching kali, arnis and eskrima to the promotion of martial arts through numerous seminars and clinics across North America for the World Kobudo Federation.

There is even a video clip of Guro De Leon with Vin Diesel in the website (www.kalideleon.com). It was truly a pleasant surprise for me to discover that Hollywood action stars are turning to Filipino martial arts for their heroic moves on screen.

Described as an all-encompassing combat training, from weaponry to empty hand techniques, Filipino martial arts integrates all principles of positioning and zoning, Guro De Leon’s website explains. "Students learn to use weaponry first, before learning unarmed defensive techniques. Whereas other systems of martial arts teach weaponry to senior students after (they) have reached a higher level."

Here’s more: "The main benefit of learning weaponry first is that it trains the practitioner in the various ranges of fighting, as well as increasing coordination, timing and rhythm. Since the principles of weaponry and unarmed combat are the same, the techniques are interchangeable. Practitioners learn to relate to any situation using the same concepts of body angling, positioning, zoning and flowing with the opponent. Timing, footwork and skill are employed rather than pure strength. The Filipino martial arts is a fluid, adaptable and practical method of self-defense, and is considered to be one of the most comprehensive martial arts systems known.

"The true test of any FMA practitioner is being able to deal with an array of multiple attacks. Some people are more natural than others when it comes to flow. But the flow drills and exercises are there to increase the practitioner’s action/reaction potential. The flow drills are not set. The trainer should be able to break out of one drill and enter into another. Meanwhile, the trainee should be able to adapt and flow into whatever drill the trainer has chosen to do."

Diesel was asked on MTV’s Movie House how it felt to be the sexiest man in Hollywood and he answered, "I’ve never been a pretty boy, so it’s new to me. I still don’t half believe it."

He better. In the US TV guides where they rated the summer movie hunks, he ranked 6th after Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana.

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You can post me a note at mylene@goldsgym.ph.