Jeremy Bradley- We've got the whole gang here. We've got Matt, Chris, Craig, and Jackson. You're not all in the same room, or where are you all?

Matt Mullins- We're in four different places. We're across the world right now.

JB- Do you have iPhones?

Matt- Yes.

JB- What do you think of them? Are you addicted to them?

Sideswipe- They're phenomenal.

JB- What's the best feature on them?

Sideswipe- That we get to add in four calls and call you.

JB- See that's what makes it best is because you can get me on the phone, right?

Sideswipe- Right.

JB- There we go.

Sideswipe- Absolutely.

JB- So if we're ready, Matt, then we'll start with you. Tell me how the gang all met. Was it just a fluke that you all got together? What happened?

Matt- The whole Sideswipe team . . . I think we just met over a series of events. We're all competitors . . . The martial arts circuit and some of us met through camps and through training. That's how we got together.

JB- You mention that you all have extensive martial arts experience. Chris, why did you get into it?

Chris Brewster- Well, I actually probably got started the youngest. I had a babysitter that was doing martial arts and he was coming over and showing me all the cool new moves. I just got hooked on TV shows like (Teenage Mutant) Ninja Turtles and that just got me motivated to learn martial arts.

JB- Are you saying . . . Did you want to be a Ninja Turtle?

Chris- Absolutely.

JB- Which one would you be if you could choose any Ninja Turtle?

Chris- I never really thought about that, but I guess I'd be Raphael because I like the colour red. That's all.

(laughter)

Matt Mullins

Chris Brewster

Craig Henningsen

Jackson Spidell

JB- Now, Jackson, you were also quite young when you started this sort of thing. What was the appeal?

Jackson Spidell- When I started martial arts I was kind of like what Chris was saying with the Ninja Turtles. I also had the Power Rangers on my side. I used to run around pretending that I had a huge dragon machine in the background. Basically I'd be running around and spinning yardsticks and hitting myself in the head, and my parents thought it'd be time for me to get some actual training before I killed myself. At this age I was around 10, and I'd played a lot of different sports as a kid. I played soccer, baseball and basketball. …for the next sport let's let him try it and what they thought would be a couple of weeks turned into, well, I'm 22 now so it's been about 12 years. I think they were a little surprised.

JB- You bring up a good point, though. So the battle between Power Rangers and the Turtles, who would win?

Chris- Not even close. The Turtles would destroy.

JB- You think so?

JB- Craig, explain to me what XMA is and what your hopes are for it.

Craig Henningsen- XMA stands for extreme martial arts, and all four of us have done this for pretty much our whole martial arts career, like, the acrobatic side of martial arts. You see the traditional side with, like, The Karate Kid. But then as you go down the next generation, extreme martial arts has sort of taken over the whole media and the Hollywood side of martial arts.

As far as XMA and the future - as far as one of my personal goals - is to get an extreme martial arts vibe into the Olympics. There's wushu and there are other types of martial arts in the Olympics, but nothing like what we do. And take it to the next level. It would be great to see it on a worldwide basis, to see it in the Olympics or something like that.

JB- So is XMA, I guess that's either singular or with a group of people. Are you sort of the first act to do a group of four people performing like this and doing demonstrations, or where did this idea come from?

Craig- Well, when we started working and competing, there were team competitions and things like that, so we all just grew up doing demonstrations and grew up doing team competitions. When we first started doing it for other martial arts crowds it just became more…we got much better responses out of the general public than from the martial art crowd. Extreme martial art is just …it can be for whatever. It can be individual, it can be teams, and it can be groups. Just whatever you do.