It was there that he unintentionally hit upon the concept for Tae Bo in 1975. Having moved to Boston as an adult, Blanks opened his own karate studio and began teaching classes. Not confining his skills to the dojo, Billy Blanks also became the 1984 Massachusetts Golden Gloves Champion (light-heavyweight class) and the Tri-State Golden Gloves Champion of Champions. karate team, won 36 gold medals in international competition and earned admission to the Karate Hall of Fame in 1982. He became a seven-time world karate champion, captained the U.S. He ascended to become a seventh-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, the leading Korean form of karate, and gained black belts in five other forms of martial arts. In 1975 he became the first Amateur Athletic Union Champion, a title he would earn five times in all. He won more and more matches and, eventually, scores of local, state and national competitions.
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He also suffered a problem in his hip joints which impaired his movement, resulting in a clumsiness that brought the taunts of his siblings and caused his coaches to think he would never amount to much.īilly took his first martial arts class at age eleven and, discovering how to correct for his physical problems, soon began to gain a mastery of the sport and himself.
Complicating his young life, he was afflicted with undiagnosed dyslexia and placed in special education classes. Billy Blanks (born September 1, 1955) is a fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the inventor of Tae Bo.īorn the fourth of fifteen children to a hard-working but poor African-American couple, Isaac and Mabeline Blanks, Billy had few opportunities on the mean streets of Erie, Pennsylvania.