Chloe Bruce - Martial Edge

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Chloe Bruce

By Lesley Jackson, on 01-09-2008 22:13

Lesley Jackson is in conversation with one of Britain’s most familiar female faces in the martial arts world. Multiple world champion in both traditional and musical forms in Tang Soo Do, of which she is a fourth Dan, she has appeared on screen on several occasions and is currently appearing in the Top Gear live show. Chloe also manages and performs in the group ‘Team Fusion’ as well as running her own martial arts school in Essex.

Nobody has a right leg quite like Chloe Bruce. There she is, performing a musical form and up it pops; the pneumatic right leg that has won her countless world titles, numerous television appearances and a place in the Top Gear live show. This young woman’s kicking ability really has to be seen to believed as she can not only raise her leg to a vertical level, she can take it beyond 180 degrees as she pulls it past her ear and further than any of our human capabilities can envisage.

“Well, originally it was just a hobby and then I really became addicted to training. I was training and training and improving my general skills when I got picked to represent Great Britain for the World Championships in 1996 in Prague; then that justified my martial arts to myself onto a whole other level. - Chloe Bruce

It is with this degree of superhuman flexibility Chloe conceived the Scorpion kick; whereby her back leg reaches over her head to deliver a ball of foot at an angle most women would be styling their hair. However, although she can bend herself into impossible shapes, Chloe is human but one who stretches her dynamic flexibility to the edges her body can reach. With this in mind, Martial Edge was interested as to how she trained and built up this incredible skill, finding out of course that with a few moment’s elaborate demonstration comes hours and years of gruelling training.


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“I originally started training for about four to five hours every day up until I was about 17. I was on the British team and I would finish school at four o’clock and then go straight to training until nine o’clock every day. Within those four or five hours we would always do at least an hour and half of stretching. The instructors were really strict as well; Chloe Bruce2.jpg they were really intense on the stretching side of things and it was just through training and extreme stretching that I can do the kicks at the angle I am able.

The extreme stretching involved a combination of both dynamic and static and as well as the stretching we did a lot of leg conditioning drills such as leg raises, leg balancing and holding our legs in a front, side and round kick. We practised all of the different kicks; I would hold them up as high as I could for two minutes, building that up to five minutes. We also practised a lot of horse stance where you go into a stance and your legs are horizontal as if you are riding a horse. We did a lot of that to help strengthen the muscles as well.”

From this intense training, Chloe has given herself the tools to create some original and innovative martial arts forms that have pushed the concept of patterns to a new edge. She describes what goes into creating a musical form, “A bit of everything! Most of all, you want the choreography to music and normally we pick the music first and then choreograph to the music. Then you want an equal amount of kicks, hand and jumping techniques and a bit of showmanship as well. You need a lot of showmanship when you are performing.” From there, Chloe has developed a new kick, described as the ‘Scorpion kick.’ This was borne from her training as she was, “holding onto a bar facing the wall and flinging my leg up behind me. Then my dad suggested that I turn it into a kick, so I did. I had to then decide where the knee chamber went and the extension point and I unveiled it at the world championships in 1999, where it really took off.”

From Childhood Hobby to Professional Career

With all of the national and international titles Chloe holds, her performance career and now the advent of her martial arts school, this 24 year old has fitted an awful lot of martial arts in her life, which has seen her able to pursue her childhood pastime into a professional career. She started Tang Soo Do when she was seven years old when her brother started classes and from then on, this Korean martial art has become a pivotal part in her life. She describes her martial arts progress:

“Well, originally it was just a hobby and then I really became addicted to training. I was training and training and improving my general skills when I got picked to represent Great Britain for the World Championships in 1996 in Prague; then that justified my martial arts to myself onto a whole other level. I won the world championships and ever since I’ve just been training to get bigger and better. Now I’m doing more teaching as well, getting the kids involved by giving them something to focus on in life and not just hanging around the streets.

Becoming a professional martial artist all came by chance really. I was doing a competition and someone spotted me from the audience and asked to do a demonstration at a big full contact fight match. So I went along to do the fight night and from there I was spotted to do a music video called ‘Rewind’ by Cylob in 1998 and it went from there. Word of mouth got around, every show I did I got more contacts and more opportunity to go on and do something else and then I decided that my martial arts were not just a hobby anymore and that it was a career as well.”

Current Projects

Chloe’s performance career is becoming increasingly recognised as she travels the world and is now involved with the television programme Top Gear’s live show. As well as working with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, Chloe has her own dance and martial arts troupe, ‘Team Fusion’ which are gaining increasing acclaim. Chloe tells us about working with these different groups:

“The Top Gear guys think my martial arts are all crazy! They’re great guys; they are absolutely amazing to work with. I actually went to a casting audition to do something completely different and the director said that he wanted to include me for the next Top Gear on stage show. Again, it just kind of happened by chance. I got picked to go on tour with the Top Gear live shows and I’ve been doing that ever since. They employed a choreographer to create the routine and then they thought that if I stand in the middle of the stage with my leg up the cars can spin around me.

Team Fusion is a team of young martial artists and dancers and what we try to achieve is to combine the martial arts with the hip hop and break dance dance side of things as well as gymnastics. It originally started off as a performance team doing demonstrations and now we have gone more into the competition side of things. I want the team to do well, I’m pushing them to do more world championships and get a name for themselves. I also want to push the kids into the industry that I have become a part of as well as television performances. We’ve got a lot of different avenues to explore and we are doing our own training camps which we will be held in the autumn of 2008. They will give people the opportunity to take part in dance classes, martial arts classes, tricking and learn a bit about Team Fusion. It will be called the Fusion Experience.”

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The Future

Chloe has a lot more to do yet in her martial arts career and this includes setting up and running her own martial arts school in Essex. One of her goals is to, “get kids interested as well as well as encouraging them to perform and compete. I want a really successful school running to go along with the sponsorship they are currently giving to our sport. Getting recognition for the kids and Team Fusion is where I what I would like to see progress. I’m also thinking about training for the stunt register as well next year and then I could become more involved with films as well.

As one of Britain’s most well known female faces in the martial arts world, by placing herself into the limelight she can help further the image of women’s martial arts by, “performing, teaching and just getting out there. I have been running more women only martial arts classes because I think a lot of women prefer to have a female instructor to a male. I’m also in the process of picking out the female gifted and talented martial artists in the schools around Essex. I’m teaching the girls that they can dominate in what can traditionally be perceived as a man’s world.”