STUNTS. You know, all the amazing action you see in television and movies that leave a lot of us feeling one of two ways: “How can a person actually do that?” Or, “Wow that would be so fun to do!”

This summer, through what is only an act of God, I entered the stunt world. I went to a stunt “meet and greet” for the television show “Outsiders” (on WGN America) with no prior experience under my belt other than a black belt in American Aikido I received 9 years ago. My purpose of going to the call was actually to find out how to train to audition for the Indiana Jones live action show in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This so-called “meet and greet” ended up being a blind audition, and me and fifteen other locals got selected to spend the entire summer (4 hours a day, 5 days a week…totaling 250 training hours) training to enter the stunt world with a gig on the tv show. In this blog post, I am going to outline the biggest and craziest things I learned from being in the stunt realm this summer. Buckle up. This could get a little wild.

I had no idea what I was about to walk into. The very first day of training, we threw 1500 punches. I legitimately could not move my arms the next day. It was unbelievable. But that was just the beginning. Pretty soon, we were throwing 2000 punches — day after day, with just the weekends to recover — shredding our bodies to prepare for the show. As a female stunt performer, the three things we had to focus on becoming proficient at were: hand to hand combat (that is why we were punching so much), taking reactions (not only getting punched, but also gunshot reactions), and falling. Which entails a lot more than meets the eye.

This whole concept of “falling”... it’s not normal. In fact, you have to retrain your brain that it is okay to not feel comfortable when your body lands on the ground — one of the most difficult mental barriers to overcome. “Falling” in the stunt sense can literally entail taking a gunshot reaction to the head, with concrete beneath you, and using only a back pad, you have to throw your head back, jump off the ground with both feet, and go horizontal so that your body comes crashing down on your back — tucking your chin as tight as possible to prevent maximum whiplash — and hoping for the best. Or “falling” could mean you have to fall down a staircase. When asking others for their advice as to how to best prepare for that they said, “Don’t prepare.” When we sense danger, our natural body response is to try and stop it, and that is where you get hurt. Apparently when doing a stair fall stunt, if you just let your body fall, it's much safer. But getting to that “let your body fall” part is hard.

Sidenote: the irony in all of this is that I name my years, and 2016 I named my “Year of fearlessness” — having no idea what that would involve or what things God would bring my way. HAHA. Okay, continuing.

When you are a stunt double, you have to be wearing identical clothing to the actor, and for women that’s dangerous. In the Avengers movies, for example, all of the male stunt doubles have awesome protective suits, which means the stunt doubles can hide a lot of pads underneath the costumes. But for the females…not so much luck. Very thin material in the costumes provides very little room, if any, to hide protective pads. For this reason, stuntwomen notoriously have the more dangerous job, and have to take extra caution when performing any stunts. Of course, not all stunt performers are stunt doubles. Many stunt professionals are background stunt performers. Becoming a stunt double is one of the biggest achievements in the stunt community (aside from being a stunt coordinator, who is responsible for creating the entire blueprint of action for each scene: creating the choreography, camera angles, all casting, equipment and safety rigging needed, and making sure everything is safe enough to be performed.)

I learned pretty quickly that the stunt community is very unique. It is full of a lot of eclectic personalities. You become a family as you train together (which often involves literally blood and sweat!), get gigs together, encourage each other and push each other. But it is one of the hardest careers to get into, because it never starts as a career.

Stunt performers don’t have agents like many other talents do. In fact, it is the expectation and standard that when you enter the stunt world, you train 8 hours a day to hone your craft. You are your own agent who has to market yourself to other stunt coordinators. You don’t get paid to train, so a lot of sacrifice is involved in pursuing this career because you may go months at a time, or even a year without getting a gig (because so many people are trying to pursue it just like you). It takes years before one is able to be working full-time in stunts. This makes it an incredibly taxing pursuit, not only on your pockets, but on your body as well, because you are basically living like a starving artist at the beginning. Full-time stunt performers are like machines. They have to have muscles that can protect them from falls, but also be able to have the lean build necessary for the role they are doubling. They are regimented performers, but extremely dedicated and passionate about always learning and improving their craft.

Another thing many people don’t realize is the amount of acting involved in stunts. When a stunt sequence is filmed, it is filmed at about 70% speed, making it safe for the actors and all parties involved (and then it is sped up in post-production). The next time you watch a fist fight on TV, pay attention to the sounds, facial and body reactions coming out of stunt performers. Every reaction and noise has to be timed perfectly in order to “sell” the shot. It’s a true art and science. A camera can’t see depth, so surprisingly, very few people are ever actually getting hit (especially across the face) in these scenes. They could be standing 3 feet away from one another, but depending on where the camera is, it looks like they just took one right to the jaw!

Here’s where faith comes into play. Our bodies are a temple. And we have to protect them. God taught me so much about the power of our mind. Everything starts there: what we believe we are capable of. What we believe we aren’t capable of. When we count ourselves out. And what we choose to believe. I believe God is our Protector and our Rock. And the job of any art is to communicate a message and ultimately point to something else. I was probably one of the least qualified people to get into stunts, to be completely honest. I had no gymnastics background. I didn’t have recent martial arts training. I didn’t have any weapons training. I had never actually been in a fight to know what it felt like to get hit (I did find out what it feels, like by the way). But you know what I did have? I had Jesus, my biggest Advocate. And He provided everything. He provided a way for me to make it through every single training day, when my body was so weak. It gave whole new meaning to “When I am weak, He is strong,” because my body would feel like it was ever so broken — but that proved what God does when you completely rely on Him. He gave me opportunities to share His love to the entertainment industry in a very unique way, whether it be encouraging those who I am technically supposed to be competing against, praying with them when they were discouraged, or just being there, consistently. It was a huge blessing and honor to be a part of that world.

No matter what form of art you are involved in or the industry you are pursuing, know that God calls all of us to be on the forefront. We are created in His image, which is why we have the ability to create. Don’t ever let fear stop you from what doors God may be opening to you — or wherever and whatever you feel called to pursue that aligns with God’s word. He is always there and He is always faithful. No matter what territory you enter into, you can with absolute assurance, always trust in Him.

Do you have any reactions to the post or questions about the stunt world? Leave a comment below and let's talk!