By Gene Ching

Philip Sahagun has had one of the most extraordinary martial careers. After a successful competitive run that earned him seven national and three international championships, he competed in America’s Got Talent, and two of China’s top martial arts reality competitions, Kung Fu Star (a.k.a. K-Star) and Jackie Chan’s Disciples. He toured as a ‘ninja’ with Tina Turner for her 50^th Anniversary World Tour (see ‘Tina Turner's Ninjas’ by Sue Woo Kung Fu Tai Chi, July+August 2009) and performed with Cirque Du Soleil (See ‘Join the Circus! Philip Sahagun’s Unique Journey from Champion to Cirque Du Soleil Artist Coach’ by Gene Ching, Kung Fu Tai Chi, May+June 2018) which he parlayed into becoming an Artist Coach and Choreographer for Cirque. Today, he runs the K-STAR Training Academy in Las Vegas, a school for martial arts and contortion. And he leads camps with some of the world’s greatest stunt teams.

K-STAR Camps is Philip’s latest pursuit, bringing aspiring martial artists from all around the globe to train with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and the Japan Action Guild. He’s also led tours to Shaolin Temple. We caught up with Philip as he was preparing for his 2026 K-STAR camps.

GC: How did this all get started, these camps?

PS: So we have camps in China and Japan. The first, the way it got started is because I saw… Alright, actually let me story-tell the real like logic and then you can break it down as you want.

GC: Sure.

PS: Now the real logic is like this. You kind of know I had a strange martial arts development in professional career, right?

GC: One of the most unique martial journeys I’ve ever seen…

PS: Growing up in martial arts, I didn't get my first inspiration from movies and TV. It was just family stuff. And I thought that if I was to make a go at it, the only options I had were to try to fight professionally and teach. And that was basically it. In my young mind, that's all I saw.

When something like the Kung Fu Star reality show popped up, I had no barometer for what that was. And I knew there were people on TV and in movies I did watch do martial arts, but somehow, I didn't put two and two together. So I thought later in 2007, I did Jackie Chan's Disciple reality show, and I made some connections there that long ago that led to doing the camp today.

Basically, just before pandemic, I think in the year 2012, I went to Tianjin to train at Jackie's compound. And I met a stunt team member named He Jun. He Jun and I were talking about developing martial art camps so that they can find new talent around the world for production and create like a talent database but also seek to provide genuine instruction and pass on the legacy of an action style that was developed by Jackie. It's kind of its own unique style of doing action.

They had that interest and I had an interest of trying to find reputable teachers for martial artists who hit that age bracket of maybe 18 and they don't know what to do or they're in their 20s and 30s and they're seeking furthering education. Maybe they're instructors or passionate hobbyists or professionals who just want to learn how to level up.

Prior to that, we were doing Shaolin Temple training camps for three years. And it’s same thing, like furthering your education. Everyone has this idea of what Shaolin is, but we wanted to take people who are martial artists and athletes and get them into a deep dive of the boot camp training, but also the culture. So there's always cultural components and classes to the camps.

Anyways, JC team was on board with the idea, and we were planning the camp, but then the pandemic happened. And so we delayed it for, well, a few years - 2023 was the first time we actually ran the camp. And it was pretty successful.

I believe we had about 200 applicants and we created 2 camps, 45 people in total. In that time, we started like just testing out how to run the format. The first one had 30 and the second one had 15. We developed like a more intimate version and then just the standard version of 30. Ultimately we're sticking with the 30 person version.

And yeah, the start was just to try to have access to some of the best teachers in the world versus like random stunt camps from who knows who? It's the JC stunt team, you know?

GC: Yeah, I mean, you can't get better than that really.

PS: Right.

How many people that just misused martial art titles are kind of misleading? And I'm like ‘Yo, if you do martial arts, let's find reputable source whether that's Shaolin Temple or JC stunt team’ and that's my logic with running the camp.

GC: How many of these have you done now?

PS: Five. We did two the first year then we did a kids’ camp and an adult camp. This year is the sixth.

GC: I looked at your site and saw the kids’ camp. I didn't realize you were doing that. How is that going?

PS: So far, so good. They have a similar application process. The kids are encouraged to make demo reels, create a resume, and then using those materials, we basically cast them, or we give them a little feedback email that says, ‘Better luck next time. Here's some things to improve on.’  And then if not, we just accept them through to the camp.

And the same logic applies that if these are kids who are in the high school age or junior high school age, and they're looking into martial arts as a career path. It's an exploratory camp where they can learn about industry path – martial arts on film or in television – and they get a sense of what that means.

GC: You've added a Japan film camp now?

PS: Right. Last year was our first one, and we did it with a fellow named Kenji Tanagaki, who's the director of The Furious, that’s about to come out. And notably, he's the action director for the Rurouni Kenshin live-action series.

GC: Very, very reputable.

PS: Kenji's a lot of work with Donnie Yen. And he, again, represents one of the best. I remember seeing the Rurouni Kenshin, you know, live action series, watching it and just going whoever's behind this action is who we need to do in Japan.

GC: The Rurouni Kenshin series are amazing films. And The Furious is getting so much good buzz. I'm very excited about that.

PS: They showed me some fights during the Japan camp, and it looks nuts. It's absolutely nuts.

GC: Yeah. Even the trailers look nuts.

PS: He was still editing it during the camp in Japan.

GC: How did you connect with him?

PS: Well, same idea. I actually just cold reached out and then a friend of mine, Brian Le, wrote a good letter of intro for me. So we actually met in Japan. I flew all the way down there to meet him in Japan and just kind of approach him about the camp. Last year, we just agreed to give it a shot.

This year in 2026, he's filming 3 movies, so we partnered with Japan Action Guild, which is a guild of notable action directors in Japan. And they'll be helming this camp. Kenji, most likely, won't attend but he is in full support.

GC: Sure. A nd that's kind of the same situation with Jackie, right? He’s an extremely busy man so maybe you'll get him but maybe not.

PS: This past year, 2025, we had Jackie at the camp which was incredible. Normally he doesn't because, of course, his schedule is nuts. But that year, he happened to be there and surprised all the campers.

GC: Oh, that's so awesome. What a treat. What you're doing with all this is unprecedented, and it's really awesome. It's a steppingstone for the next generation.

PS: I wanted to really support martial artists. Almost every show you watch now has some element of martial arts, whether you see it or not. You have your Hulu, your Netflix, your YouTube, whatever. And you'll see a performer or an actor just all of a sudden break out into this fight and maybe they're actually throwing kicks, right? A lot of viewers don't realize that is a martial skill.

And then often we have a conversion of different talent into stunts. For instance, a gymnastic or dancer learning martial arts and taking the kind of stunt job. My goal is to try to introduce this as a career path for future people who maybe grow up on the Wushu or Kung Fu circuit and can transfer into live entertainment or film. You know, you actually learn the art, you just have to modify it a little bit for that possible career path.

Notably, I just helped cast a new kid into a show here at the Wynn [in Las Vegas]. And he was a passionate Wushu athlete for quite a long time. Now he's in his early 20s and he was ecstatic to take the job. But straight up, he didn't know that those kinds of jobs exist. So he relocated from Colorado now and is living here and performing at the Wynn.

You can see there's some history. Chinese opera always had that martial element. But now it's kind of expanded on a different level, especially with like what you'll see hip hop dancers are doing. A male hip hop dancer or commercial dancer is almost expected to be able to do a 540 or a B-twist, which of course is straight up Wushu type stuff. But the lines have blurred, and the disciplines have merged together to some degree.

I'm interested in preserving some integrity of traditional martial art because we will always have the sports combat. Some of the beauty of traditional martial arts can still be applied in cinema. For instance, growing up, I learned like Kempo Karate. A first technique is you step and punch. I sidestep and I kick your kneecap and then, you know, do whatever I do. And you realize, actually sidestepping a roundhouse kick is probably more logical for today's street because if I successfully break a knee, there's some liability there.

But also, if I'm teaching a class of seven-year-olds, it might not be conducive to do that kind of thing. Learn how to find balance first, right? Learn how to execute everything safely and smoothly first.

Those arts can still exist as like extracurricular training. Or in the case of something like cinema, you can still portray and preserve that art in that kind of action legacy.

Author:

For more information on the K-Star Camps and how you can join, visit K-STAR Camps.

Gene Ching is the Publisher of KungFuMagazine.com and the author of Shaolin Trips.

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