Despite the demise of his hit TV series, the superstar has big plans for the future.

	Chuck Norris (shown subduing Howard Jackson with a rear naked choke) recently bowed out of Walker, Texas Ranger after a phenomenal eight-year run.
	At the height of his competitive career, Chuck Norris was renouwned for his ability to combine Japanese-tyle hand techniquest with Korean-style foot techniques.
	Although it’s good to be able to handle oneself in any type of confrontation, Chuck Norris says, the primary benefit of martial arts training is character building.
	Chuck Norris believes his Kick Drugs Out of America is the key to reducing many of the ills in modern society.
	The techniques ofBrazilian jujutsu play an important role in the rank progression of members of Chuck Norris’ United Fighting Arts Federation.

It’s been a long time since Chuck Norris has visited the offices of Black Belt magazine. In fact, I started working here in 1993, and already several years had passed since his last appearance. Back in 1994 I ran into the film star at the Machado Jiu-Jitsu School in Tarzana, California, but that was way too brief an encounter to extract an interview. Despite our best efforts to lasso him, the production schedule for Walker, Texas Ranger was just too hectic. All that changed in October 2001, when longtime Norris friend Howard Jackson called to say the legend now has more free time in his life and was interested in dropping by. The result of that reunion follows. —Editor

Black Belt: First, the question everyone wants to ask: Why did you end Walker, Texas Ranger?

Chuck Norris: Well, it’d been eight years. I felt that was a long enough time for a show. It’s my philosophy to always finish something when you are winning. When I was a competitor, I decided to quit while I was still winning. I felt the same way with the series.

BB: What have you been doing since Walker ended?

Norris: Well, it hasn’t been off the air that long—just since April [2001]. My wife, Gena, and I have had twins—a little boy and a little girl. And I had hip surgery, so I’ve just been recuperating and helping raise our twins.

BB: Do you have any film projects or TV series in the works?

Norris: My agents are negotiating things, but nothing has been solidified yet. I can say that we’re negotiating a deal with the USA network and I’m working on a movie project.

BB: I heard that you’re doing The President’s Man 2?

Norris: That’s done. We shot it five months ago. It’s a story— listen to this, it’s going to blow your mind—about a man like Osama bin Laden. The character, who is called “Rashid,” threatens the president of the United States to get the three terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 released.

Otherwise, he says he’ll escalate his terrorist acts. Of course, the president won’t give in to his demands, so Rashid sneaks a nuclear weapon into the United States and plants it in Chicago. He tells the president that if he doesn’t release the terrorists, he will detonate this bomb. And that’s when I come into the picture. I go to Afghanistan, kidnap Rashid and bring him back to the States for a trial.

The movie makes an important point. I play a professor, and in the classroom scene there is a picture of Rashid on the front page of the paper, talking about what he’s going to do. One of my students says, “Why don’t we just nuke them all?” I say to him and the class: “Well, let’s analyze this.

There are over 1 billion Muslims spread out in 50 countries. One-tenth of 1 percent of them are extremists. Are we going to punish all of them for the infractions of a few?” I went on: “In America, we believe that all religions can co-exist. But Rashid believes there’s only one religion, only one way to believe. And if you don’t believe that, you’re an enemy. They call it the jihad, the ‘holy war.’ ” BB: That is bizarre.

Norris: So I capture him, and there’s a debate between him and the attorney general, who’s also an Arab, regarding the interpretation of the Koran. Of course, Rashid feels that the Koran states that you should exterminate all religions and all infidels. The attorney general says, “No, that’s not what the Koran says. The Koran says ‘Peace and tolerance of all religions.’ ” Amazingly, in the story Rashid broadcasts a message which contains an underlying code to move the bomb from Chicago to Dallas to detonate it there. It’s so right-on with what’s going on now that the network doesn’t know what to do with it. They’re nervous about releasing it, so now it’s shelved like all the other movies that deal with terrorists.

BB: A recent news report said more people seem to be renting your movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies because they want to see the heroes defeat the terrorists.

Norris: That’s my philosophy. The President’s Man 2 is a positive story. Even though it deals with the reality of what’s going on now, we prevail. People want to see the good guys prevail. I think this is a good time to show it, but the networks are walking on eggshells. But I believe we need movies like that now. In World War II, a lot of war movies were filmed, and heroes were developed because of that.

BB: What do you think the role of the martial arts should be after the September 11 attacks—especially after we learned that the passengers on Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers and prevented them from crashing into the Capitol or the White House?

Norris: Of course there’s the possibility that if someone on board had been trained efficiently, it could have been different. However, no one can really know. But the thing is, a martial arts expert would probably be able to analyze a situation more logically and then deal with it better than an untrained person. Maybe that fact will help the airlines figure out a solution to that problem.

BB:If more of the general public possessed a martial arts mind-set, would it help?

Norris: I think it would help a lot. It makes you much more aware and prepared. But obviously that won’t save you from someone who sends anthrax in the mail. But being on a plane and dealing with hijackers, it’s good to know you can handle something if it happens.

BB: Are people more interested in practicing the martial arts now because of the attacks?

Norris: Well, I know a lot more guns are being sold! The martial arts have always been something everyone should learn because they make you more aware and psychologically ready for anything. They teach kids to be prepared for all aspects of life—not only for fighting.

BB: Speaking of kids, what’s been going on with Kick Drugs Out of America?

Norris: We now have 6,000 kids in the program, and more than 25,000 have graduated. Some of them started as sixth graders and are now teaching for us. Some are graduating from college and becoming instructors with the program. We have one kid who’s on a scholarship to the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology]—he was a gang member when he started, but he wound up straightening out his life, and now he’s a sophomore at MIT.

BB: Is Kick Drugs Out of America operating in every state?

Norris: Right now, it’s just in Texas because that’s where our grass roots are. We’re going to start moving into California since we’re here now. I met with [Los Angeles County] Sheriff Lee Baca last night, and he’s going to jump on board. Once California gets going, we can start slowly expanding into other states. But it’s difficult.

We tried Pennsylvania and had two schools there, but we couldn’t get the support. And we tried Chicago for two years, but we can’t just go there and do the same thing we did in Texas. People in Texas embrace it because we have a lot of relationships there.

BB: What is the primary goal of the Kick Drugs program?

Norris: The primary goal of the martial arts is to build character. It’s not fighting because if you can avoid a fight, you will. Of course, it’s important to be able to handle yourself in a situation, but most of the time when you have that ability, nothing happens because you’ve got this aura [that] all proficient martial artists have. The martial arts are really about developing your self-image. They turned my whole life around, from being a very insecure kid to being someone who could communicate.

And that’s what our goal is with Kick Drugs: to use the martial arts as a tool to raise self-esteem and instill the discipline and respect that are lacking in a lot of at-risk children. And it’s been phenomenally successful. The martial arts do something that no other sport does, and that is instill self-esteem and respect, and that’s what kids need today.

BB: Will self-esteem and respect always be part of martial arts training, or will they have disappeared in 10 or 20 years?

Norris: Well, they should always be part of it. They should never be taken out. They are a great asset to youngsters because they are what’s going to make them productive citizens later on.

BB: Is there any way the discipline of martial arts training can help prevent school shootings?

Norris: Yeah, because the kids who [commit crimes like] the Columbine shooting have no self-esteem. They feel that they can’t accomplish anything, that the world is a total negative, and because of that they fight back. Things build up, and they think [shooting someone] is going to give them self-esteem. Of course, it doesn’t. They end up going to prison for the rest of their lives.

The martial arts can give them a sense of self-worth. If you can keep having these positive affirmations every day in school and keep saying that kids can be what they want to be, that they can be a winner in life, they start believing it, and they start going in that direction. I hope we never get away from that because it can turn our whole country around. I firmly believe that if every youngster was martial arts trained, there would be very little violence in our society.

BB: What are your plans for expanding Kick Drugs?

Norris: Now we have 6,000 kids, but we’d like to have 600,000. Our long-range goal is to have it in every middle school in America. Because we’ve proved it works, schools love us. The teachers love us because our kids are respectful in class; everything is “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and so forth. It changes the kids’ attitude about life.

It would be great if we could do that on a national level.

BB: Have there been any recent developments in your United Fighting Arts Federation?

Norris: We’re going to start expanding that program, too. And now that I’m not tied down to a TV series, I have the time. We’ve kept it pretty tight-knit for a long time, but we’re going to start inviting other systems to come in with us and become part of the family.

BB: Did you make it to the last UFAF convention?

Norris: No, I couldn’t because I’d just finished my hip surgery. But I had a meeting with my board of directors, and we’re going to start making UFAF a major organization.

BB: Are you doing any teaching?

Norris: No. Because I’ve been working for nine years, I haven’t had the chance. But I was able to go to some conventions and give seminars. I still meet with all my black belts and all that, but now I’ll be much more actively involved.

For the past three years, I have said, “This is going to be my last year of Walker,” and then I wound up doing another year and another year. But this year, I knew it was going to be it—especially because we were starting a family, and that totally dominates your life. If you work six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day, very little time is left for your family. So Gena and I talked about it and said: “Enough already! It’s time to start having a normal life.”

BB: What is your opinion of the current state of the martial arts—no-holds-barred fighting, for example?

Norris: When Rorion Gracie was going to put on the first Ultimate Fighting Championship in Denver, Colorado, he called me and asked if I wanted to be part of it. He said it was going to be no-holds-barred—anything goes. I said, “Gee, Rorion, someone’s going to get killed in there. I don’t want to be part of something where someone can wind up dead.”

So I declined. Now look at it. It’s become extremely popular, between Pride and the UFC, now that they’ve tightened up their rules. I think it’s exciting. I watch it. We just went to the UFC in Las Vegas.

BB: How about kickboxing?

Norris: I still enjoy it a lot. It’s sad that it never really got started here, and I think that’s mainly because the people that headed the different organizations would not work together. They all had their own little domain—like mom-and-pop organizations. If they could have gotten together and formed a major entity, it could have become a major sport in America.

BB: Do you think the success of K-1 will help promote the sport of kickboxing?

Norris: I don’t know. K-1’s very popular, and they probably have professionals who know how to promote and market it—which is what we never had in kickboxing. They were too concerned about making money for their particular event and not thinking about the long term. But in my heart, I always felt that if they had the right people directing it, kickboxing could have been a big sport.

BB: How could kickboxing become successful?

Norris: I would like to see a team kickboxing event like we started in 1974. We created five-man professional teams in New York, Detroit, Dallas and so forth. And we would go around to different cities and compete. In Detroit we drew 8,000 people. Because it was team fighting, the city could get behind a particular team. The fighters would go full bore for three rounds, rather than pacing themselves for 10—it was exciting. But then I got into the movie business and bowed out of it, and it kind of deteriorated.

BB: What do you think of popular movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Jet Li’s The One?

Norris: I’ve watched those movies since the ’60s when I would go to Chinatown to see them. It’s amazing that they caught on. The Matrix kind of started it, and the wire stuff took off from there.

BB: Even Steven Seagal used wires in Exit Wounds. Is it hard not to do wire work in a movie these days?

Norris: Nowadays you almost have to do it. I don’t know if it’s going to stay that way or if it will get back to reality. I mean, how much more can you do? People are walking on leaves and all that—where can you go from there? But it’s entertaining.

Jet Li is incredible. And so is Jackie Chan. It’s amazing because years ago when Jackie did The Big Brawl, he wanted to be the Burt Reynolds of the Chinese movies. Of course, he didn’t make it, but then he came back and did Rush Hour, and it’s working now. I think they’ll do Rush Hour 3, 4 and 5 because Jackie [and Chris Tucker] are a good team. I went down to the set when they were filming and talked to them for a while, and I think they’ve got a good formula going.

BB: Who do you think the next martial arts superstar will be?

Norris: Right now, Jet Li and Jackie Chan are the men of the hour, but it’s hard to tell who will be in the next batch because the public is very fickle. Look at how many guys have tried to make it. You never know who people will gravitate to and say, “Yeah, I want to see more of him.”

BB: People certainly seem to have gravitated to you.

Norris: Well, I have been in [the movie business] for the past 25 years, and it has been exciting. And I haven’t stopped yet. We’re talking about doing another series, and I’m working on a movie. If they become a reality, I’ll let you know.