We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Steven Tugman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Steven below.
Steven , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I was taught through multiple schools, workshops, and studios. I got my Bachelor’s in Performance and Production at Texas State as well as my 2nd degree black belt in karate. I learned general utility stunts at the International stunt school. I trained as a stilt-walker and costumed character at Sea World San Antonio. Lastly stage combat and stunt workshops that I’ve taken in between. Honestly knowing what I know now, I would have taken some of these classes earlier. For essential skills, i say knowing how to physically act, knowing how to fall and knowing how throw a punch. Honestly not knowing where to look in terms up breaking into stunts was my biggest obstacle. My stage combat professor pointed me towards stunt school, which opened a whole slew of knowledge and opportunities after I attended.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’ll start off by saying that I’ve been practicing martial arts since I was four. My primary style is shotokan and kyokoshin karate followed by tae kwon do, mma, and historical african martial arts. I remember when I was a little kid and I would watch a bunch of old kung fu movies, like “Enter the Dragon” and anime, like “Dragon Ball Z”. One day my parents asked “Hey, you like watching these, right?” and I answered yes, which they replied “Do you want to do that in real life?”, which got me super excited so I said yes immediately. I got into performance arts on my second year of college over at Northwest Vista community college. I failed my first year in Texas Tech pursuing computer engineering. During this time, I was walking on campus when I saw a woman dressed as a pirate giving out flyers for Howl-O-Scream auditions at Sea World San Antonio. I decided to attend the audition and landed my very first job as a stilt-walking clown. After I continued to work there as various costume characters in the park. This influenced me to change my major to theatre and started my career in the performance arts. The combination of my practice in martial arts and the performance arts, I wanted to take the next step being in a “kung fu” movie by pursuing stunts. This lead me to stunt school and a good number of stunt coordinators who gave me the skills I needed to set my foot in the door. Currently I’m am a trained stilt-walker, actor, mascot, and stuntman, offering my skills to entertainment companies, acting and doing stunts for small budget films. I would say that the thing that I’m most proud of is my progress in my pursuit as a stuntman.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
To be honest, I just want to be in cool larger than life worlds or be cool characters. Like the elves in “the Lord of the Rings”, aliens in “Star Wars”, or minions that fought Jackie Chan. To bring these worlds and characters to life. Almost every character role I’ve played, I have enjoyed. From a tall evil clown, to Grover from sesame street and everything in between. These roles let me portray things that I wouldn’t normally be able to in reality.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
This is a story of how I bounced back from my first and only failed belt test in karate. My Kyoshi, Sandra Larwood, made it a requirement to have a journal of all of our techniques in order to test. I would be testing for my high purple belt.This would have been my very first testing at her dojo as I was a transfer student. I hadn’t practiced martial arts in a couple of years at the time due to moving as my dad was in active duty in the US Air Force. Thankfully, Kyoshi let me start from my last highest belt, which was a high blue belt from Tae Kwon Do. Catching up on the techniques was fairly easy and I adapted pretty well to my new dojo. I would’ve passed the test fairly easily had I brought a completed journal. I unfortunately didn’t have it on the day of the test, so my Kyoshi barred me from participating. Due to this, I had to wait until the next testing date which was about a few months away. It was a hard lesson to learn but I became better because of it. I could’ve quit right there due to how harsh that was, but I corrected myself to be more prepared for my re-test. I was able to pass this time around but not without difficulties. While performing one of my katas, I stepped on a nail. It was embedded pretty deep in my heel, but I managed to adjust my foot and complete the kata before i took it out. I also had to spar for about 12 minutes straight with more opponents added as it went on. By the end I was fight 4 people at once. I’ve never felt so tired in my life, but I managed to pull through. I didn’t give up.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamaltugman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamal.tugman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenjamaltugman/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtwdTYq6I0deDPzQBDvYUg