Jean-Claude Van Damme was a person that nobody could have ever expected to see on the big screen before he became an action movie legend. He was ill in the 1960s in Brussels as a small, shy, weak glasses-wearing boy.
He did not look like a martial arts superhero of the future. The outer calm had a surprise: an interest in classical ballet.
Other children went to play outside but Jean-Claude was attracted to the beauty and training of dance. He studied ballet astoundingly attentively during five years and at last got an opportunity to appear in Paris Opera.
The things he absorbed in front of an audience: the feeling of balance, accuracy and restraint, would form the basis of what would become his trademark fighting style.
Since he was especially weak, his father signed him up in karate. Such a choice altered the world.
Martial arts caused inner flame in him, and the combination of grace in the ballet and strength in fighting resulted in such an unusual image. Soon he would be a national karate champion in Belgium.
Beethoven in particular, music, was close to his heart. It made him a multi-dimensional person and ultimately led to how he played characters in films, creating feeling behind the deed.
He immigrated to the United States with nothing but determination. Film parts in Bloodsport and Kickboxer were to follow and the quiet kid in Brussels was on the road to becoming an international star.
His tale teaches us to realize that being strong does not necessarily have the appearance we think it should. It begins where no one would ever dream that it might begin, oftentimes, in the most unimpressive of places, with meek persistence, with artistic prowess, and daring to dream.
