Courtesy of Steve Ray and F.I.T. Martial Arts
Master Steve Ray
When Steve Ray was 3 years old, he watched his stepfather hurt his mother and felt helpless.
“I was laying on my bunk bed wishing I was old enough to do something about it,” Ray remembers. “I was just crying watching her get abused. That impacted me.” At 7, he started watching martial arts movies—ones starring David Carradine and Bruce Lee. “I started my own little ninja group in my neighborhood. I invited other kids to come along, and we’d make obstacle courses, and I would teach them how to hide in bushes or trees and jump over fences.”
Now 46, Ray owns his own martial arts studio in Florissant, F.I.T. Martial Arts, and recently acted as a producer in a martial arts movie, Money Fight (he also plays a security guard in the film), available for streaming on Amazon Prime. In the works since 2007, the movie was filmed in parts of California and Nevada and stars Ving Rhames, Ernie Reyes Jr., and George Takei. It’s the story of a young MMA fighter who gets in trouble when a job goes south. Ray talked with SLM about how he got involved in making martial arts movies, his studio, and more.
How did you become an associate producer for Money Fight?
I’ve met different UFC fighters and movie stars, making many connections over the years. A good friend of mine, Adam Boster, is one of the executive producers for the film, and he asked me to be a part of it. It’s a really good story about a young guy who was a fighter, and he got himself in trouble. Through time and training with his instructors, he finally got his attitude straight. The really cool thing about it is we actually got funding for this film, several million dollars, through networking with martial arts schools across the nation. Many of the students came in and were extras in the film.
You did fight choreography, too?
I helped a little bit. Ernie Reyes Sr. was the main fight choreographer, and I assisted him. Ernie Reyes Jr., his son, is the main star of the film. He has been in films like The Rundown, with The Rock, Surf Ninjas, and Ninja Turtles. He also owns a martial arts school.
What’s the hardest part about creating fight choreography?
You have to have the right lighting, and you have to have the right camera angles. It's not like a real fight because if you go too fast, the camera is not going to catch it. If you go too slow, it's not going to look real. So you have to know what you're doing when it comes to speed, angles, lighting, and distancing. When you watch some fight scenes, you'll notice that sometimes you can't even see what they're doing because it's so close. You just see all these close-up shots where it's like a big jumble. Just things jumping around. If you do a shot from a far distance, then it's not going to look as good. It's not going to look as action-packed. You have to have those close-up shots as well.
It’s probably changed a lot from the old martial arts movies you grew up with.
I look back at the kung fu movies that I used to watch as a kid, and I think, Boy, those guys weren't good at martial arts at all. Now, things have changed so much with the real-life fighting venues like UFC. People know what real fights look like now. You can't get away with the old cheesy films that look fake. If it's a martial arts film, it's different than an action movie. They have a bar fight, and it's not really martial arts. If you have a martial arts film, your martial arts better look real if it's going to be a popular film.
How long have you worked in martial arts?
I've been teaching since 1999. That was when I had my first school. We grew so fast. Within nine months, I had to open up a second location. I put a friend of mine in charge of the first location, and we grew really fast then, too. I left around 2003. In 2004, I opened up, from scratch, St. Louis Martial Arts Center. We had no students and no money. Within the first year, we outgrew that space. In 2014, I opened F.I.T. Martial Arts in Florissant, a 7,000-square-foot facility, the largest in North County.
Why is martial arts your passion?
The discipline, the focus, the confidence, the perseverance, the respect, the life skills, the leadership, the goal-setting. It's the the education that people need to help them be successful with their scholastic education. There are a lot of people who go to college and 80 percent or 90 percent of them are never successful with what they went to school for. The reason, a lot of times, is because they don't have these life skills of leadership, goal setting, perseverance, and the confidence to believe in themselves. They give up too easy, lose their focus and go in different directions. I've met so many martial artists who haven't even graduated high school, but became successful because of the life skills learned in martial arts. That's what motivates me. I have tons of testimonies from people telling me how much our martial arts program has helped change their life for the better. That encourages me to keep going.
