fitness
Breakthroughs
Sun Tzu once said in his philosophical literature The Art of War that the commander should always stand for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence,
courage and strictness. Warriors should have tactical dispositions. Tzu said
that the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of
defeat and then waited for an opportunity of defeating an enemy. Thus the
good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain
of defeating the enemy. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer
without being able to do it. But for Nick Bateman, he knows it already.
For a warrior himself who beat the odds, he
is no stranger in martial arts and discipline. He is an
actor and a four-time world champion martial artist
who landed his first major acting role in Hobo with a
Shotgun. Nick Bateman was born in Burlington, Ontario. Nick desired to be a Ninja Turtle back then and
at the age of four his mother enrolled him in Goju Ryu
Karate.
In 1998, Nick became a regional champion for
karate and during his time he began acting and doing
numerous television commercials. In 1999, his focus
turned primarily to martial arts and he began to compete at the world level. His talents as a martial artist
led him to his first world championship in 2003. He
went on to win three more world titles. In 2003, at the
age of seventeen, he was induced into the WKU Hall
of Fame as competitor of the year. He has also won
Sport Martial Arts Viewer’s Choice Awards.
He also began performing in televised martial
arts events using weapons and doing choreographed
fight scenes with a team called Sideswipe. He competed at the 2004 ESPN International Best of the Best
Martial Arts competition where he placed second
against ten world champions. While competing at this
event in Miami, a Model Universe competition was
going on in the same venue. A friend jokingly signed
him up to compete and he place fifth out of one hundred models.
It was at this Model Universe event he met
Calvin Klein and began a career as a model. During
his modeling career he lived in Milan, as well as New
York and Miami. In 2006, he moved to Vancouver, BC
and enrolled in a business program at Capilano College. Upon graduation in 2008, he decided to move
home to Burlington, where he opened his own karate
school called Bateman Martial Arts Academy. While
running the business, he continued to model and in
2009 he worked with top photographer Bruce Webert
for the Abercrombie & Fitch campaign. Nick maintains his passion for acting and stunt work, infusing
karate and stunts in a number of acting roles.
“Warriors should have
tactical dispositions.”