Years after performing backflips and swinging nunchaku in a popular 1990s film, a stunt actor is trying to grow a Filipino martial art as a competitive sport in Canada.
Shishir Inocalla, who was seen in the Michaelangelo costume in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, recently visited Wallaceburg at the request of Wallaceburg Martial Arts. Along with signing pictures from the 1993 film, he gave students training in Arnis, a martial art that incorporates stick fighting.
Inocalla said he is trying to find 1,000 members in Ontario, and more across Canada, so Arnis can be approved as a sport. Arnis is the national sport of the Philippines, but not many people in Canada know about it, he said.
“Arnis is, I would say, a mind, body, heart training system that is functional for us to use today,” he said. “We have to be fit. We have to learn self-defense and confidence and self-discipline for our mind and for our body.”
The 67-year-old worked with different age groups at the Jeanne Gordon Hall at the Wallaceburg & District Museum, giving them an introductory session to Arnis.
While his history as Michaelangelo – plus his roles in the ’90s TV series Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation – gives him a way to connect with children, Inocalla said it’s a lot of adults now who remember the movie.
He said it was a “miracle” he got the job. He started out as a stunt double on TV shows like 21 Jump Street and MacGyver and he said he thought he would make it “big time” in the movie industry.
“I went to Los Angeles to try my luck and I failed,” he said with a laugh. After he went back to his home in Vancouver “they called me for an audition for the Ninja Turtles and I did not believe it.”
Inocalla said he failed the first audition, likely because Michaelangelo has to jump around and do backflips, while Inocalla practices “straight martial arts.”
“Even today, I still have a hard time doing that,” he said. “You can just imagine doing the show, that suit is about 15 pounds. I had to do a backflip in that, with a shell. You can’t see and you have three fingers.”
Michaelangelo’s weapon in the film was the dual nunchaku. While these have two sticks connected by a chain or rope, the sticks Inocalla uses in Arnis are not connected.
“It’s just a straight stick,” he said. “I showed the producer how to use it, just like you use nunchucks but with no string, and they were fascinated.”
Inocalla is working on a film called The Man Behind the Shell, which will be about his life story from the Philippines to Hollywood.
He also works with children in the Philippines to keep them away from child labour.
Claudine Bordeau, one of the owners of Wallaceburg Martial Arts, met Inocalla while she was working security at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto this summer. The local studio includes Arnis in his program as a member of Kempo International, and once Bordeau found out about Inocalla’s background, she invited him to Wallaceburg.
Bordeau said she hopes the children notice the devotion Inocalla has for martial arts.
“I think for the kids, it’s an opportunity for them to see that if they believe in themselves, they can be anything they want to be in this world,” she said.
“That’s what pretty much Master Shishir has done. Now he’s working and he’s trying to get things with Arnis into Canada, so I think it’s a great opportunity.”
The studio had 212 members signed up for the event, which Bordeau said represents about 90 per cent of her students. Inocalla also visited Toy Wars & Collectibles in Wallaceburg earlier in the day to sign autographs.
