Marco Sies, a seven-time world kickboxing champion, got his start when he was 8.
Not his kickboxing start — that was actually several years earlier. No, Sies started his study of philosophy at age 8, when the precocious youngster from Santiago, Chile, devoured “Cosmos” by the astronomer Carl Sagan.
“I was a very curious kid,” said Sies, 36, who now lives in Bethesda. “I wanted to know where everything came from.”
Sies grew up with the Andes as a backdrop, spending much of his time fishing and playing in the mountains with his brothers.
He said he has always seen nature “as something so great and powerful. We’re part of it.
“Nature has this perfection about it,” he added.
Indeed, in talking with Sies, one gets more of a sense of conversing with Deepak Chopra than Chuck Norris. But he says that the spiritual aspect of martial arts dates to its origins.
Martial arts originally was intended for the purpose of self-defense, but also to achieve enlightenment as a human being, he explained.
To be successful, one has to “achieve harmony between your mind, your body and your spirit,” Sies said.
It couldn’t have been easy. He acknowledged that when he moved to the United States at age 21, he fell in with the wrong crowd and eventually became homeless. He couldn’t even speak English. But his resolution never waned.
“The one thing I never lost is my vision,” Sies said.
To train, he would wear plastic bags on his feet because he couldn’t afford shoes, and would tie a cushion to a tree to use as a punching bag.
He eventually rose from that humble start to win his first world championship in kickboxing in 2000, before repeating the feat six more times. He retired from competition in 2008, saying there was nothing left for him to accomplish professionally.
Now, he’s a manager, owner and master instructor at Kicks Karate, which has seven locations inMaryland, including Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville and Gaithersburg. But he teaches his students more than how to punch and kick.
His students will ask him, “What’s the secret?” “How do you be happy?” and “Why are bad things happening to me?”
“You’re putting your attention in the wrong place,” he says. “It’s not a big secret. I teach people how to maintain — to have that vision.”
About the master
» Born in Santiago, Chile
» Seven-time professional kickboxing world champion
» Became the Chilean national champion at age 18
» Seventh-degree black belt martial arts grandmaster
» Two-time Hall of Fame inductee
» Author of “The Master Method: 4 Steps to Success, Prosperity and Inner Peace”
One of his tenets — found in his recently published “The Master Method: 4 Steps to Success, Prosperity and Inner Peace” — is couched in the axiom that life is defined not by what happens to you, but how you react. “That’s called life,” he said. “That’s called everyone’s life.”
Everyone has a choice, he said, to react either positively or negatively to what surrounds them.
The book — an eclectic compilation of philosophies from figures ranging from Jesus to Buddha to Albert Einstein to Tony Robbins — helps explain that.
“[The book] is not a presentation of new concepts, but a new presentation of ancient and modern concepts,” Sies said.
Sies credits the “DCPC method” — based on the concepts of “Design, Condition, Plan and Create” — for his success.
“It’s not because I’m so great,” he insists. “No, no, no, no, no. This method really, really, really works.”
Sies, who has two daughters, will get married soon and add three more children to his family. They’re all martial artists.
“I would never think I could be this happy,” he said.
