Billy Blanks was born the fourth of fifteen children to a hard working but poor African-American couple in Erie PA, Isaac and Mabeline Blanks. Despite dyslexia and a problem with his joints, Billy became one of the greatest athlete of fighting sports of all time, star of fighting sport and feature films, and the most sought after trainer and fitness consultant to world-class athletes and Hollywood stars. Billy is married to his high school sweetheart, Gayle, and they have two children, Shellie and Billy Jr. After winning scores of local, state and national competitions, in 1975 he became the first Amateur Athletic Union Champion, a title he would win five times in all. A seven time world fighting sport  champion, he captained an U.S. fighting sport team and won 36 gold medals in international  competition. He was Nationally ranked by a fighting sport magazine from 1982 through 1989 and has been in the Hall of Fame since 1982. Billy won the 1984 Massachusetts Golden Gloves champion in the light-heavy weight class and Tri-State Golden Gloves Champion of Champions. He was an actor movies and tv-series.

In 1976 Gayle gave Billy a soundtrack to the boxing movie Rocky. Billy took the record downstairs to his basement. He listened to the Rocky soundtrack as he practiced his fighting sport and his boxing. Soon he was kicking, punching, and dancing in time to the music. Before long, Gayle and his two children and his brother and sister were joining in the fun. Billy started to offer some classes to the public, first in Erie, then in Boston. Billy moved his family to California where he found work in movies. He opened a studio where he taught classes in the exercise that he now called Tae-Bo. His video series has spread this exercise to millions of people around the world. In June 2000, Billy was appointed to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. He believes that Tae-Bo is what God means him to do in this life. He believes that he is "changing lives - one life at a time."

First he started off with fighting sport and boxing, and combined dance and a lot of exercises together and make it exercise from the inside out. When you take the letters. The T stands for totally commit yourself. To be the best you can be totally commit yourself. The letter A stands for awareness. And the letter E stands for excellent at your own level. Not anybody else's level. The letter B stands for body. You need a body to perform those three things in. And letter O stands for obedient, be true to God's word and be true to your body and you'll get everything you need.

Billy wanted to be one of the best trainers in the world. That was one thing that always stayed with him. He watched his mother. His mother was a Christian, she never turned her back on God. Billy looked at her and said 'I want to do what she's doing,' and he took it and applied it to his life. His father was a also Christian. Billy had always been in church all his life. And he truly believes by watching his father and his mom go through trials and tribulation and still staying faithful to God and still staying faithful to themselves to reach their goals. It gave him an opportunity also to look at them and say, you know what, this is what he wants to do with my life.

When you win one title, it makes you feel you made it, you know? But he knew he was still searching for a way to fulfill his fulfillment. He went out and won another title and it still didn't do it. He went out and did something else, and it still didn't do it. He didn't understand it at the time. He was always unsatisfied. He was never happy. At home with his wife and kids, he was never happy. He thought he was missing something. As he started to grow up in life and saw different pastors speak on God's word, he saw this Pastor Dr. Frederick Casey Price. When he got to be older -at the age of 39 years old- he saw Pastor Price on television. When he saw him on television he heard him speak on faith, and he heard them speak on some of the things that happened in his life. Billy was listening to what Pastor Price was saying about faith: "You don't have to give up anything to serve God; you've got to make sure everything that you do lines up with what God wants you to do." So Billy went down to his church and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that day because he wants to represent Jesus Christ. And his life changed. ... His heart became peaceful. He knew my life had changed. God stepped in and took over. His family saw a change in him. They saw what God did in his life, what Jesus did in his life. Now, his whole family goes to church.

Billy: "I believe God comes first. I put God before anything. I put Jesus Christ first before I do anything. I believe everything that I do has to exalt His name. Tae Bo's for everybody. Anybody can do it. It's going to be work. It's going to take effort. And it'll take your will, your endurance. If you can take both of those and hold on, you can conquer anything that you want to conquer. I do seminars all over the country. I say, "First, I want to thank God for giving me the opportunity to come out to talk to you people." And then we get into the workout and then I sit them down at the end of the workout and I talk about how to take the Bible and line up everything that you do with the Bible. I say to people, too, that "God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son." "How much does that mean to you? He gave His only Son away so that I could be the best that I could be to serve Him." My God, my Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ. I look upon him for everything that I need; I call upon him."

"Christians have the power, Especially if you know the Testament. You know the Spirit of Life,  And you know God gave you one important thing to carry on in life: He gave you a will. A will is to make a decision how you should take care of yourself. I'm a Christian. I believe in God's word. I know the power of God's word. Take God's word and apply it to their life in a physical manner, they'll be all right. The body only profits a little from exercising but the spirit profits a lot. God will hold you accountable for your temple. Your temple carries your spirit. I know I'm in good shape.  But when the people see the inside of me the spirit of God that's even better."

"Walk by faith not by sight." That's a good scripture for physical fitness. To be in good shape, you can't exercise by sight because otherwise your sight will make you quit. You need to exercise by faith - working towards a goal. It's unseen. When you go into a gym you work to gain some success over your body. But, most people don't understand why they quit. What makes you quit? If what you see doesn't coincide, when you look at the scale and what you see on if scale doesn't coincide what you think it makes you give up. Exercise makes you people good as a person and gives you strength. It doesn't matter if it's in my class or around the world, anywhere, the first thing I say is "First of all guys, I want to give my Heavenly Father credit for all I do and the Lord Jesus Christ to give me the opportunity to go out and reach and save lives."  When people ask me a question, "Billy, how do you keep going?" A lady came in my studio: "How do you, why are you on fire like that?" That gives me an opportunity. I eat Jesus Christ for breakfast. I eat God for breakfast. That's in me to say. If you ask me why. This is what he's done for me. He's given me the opportunity to be the best for Him. My thing in life is to show love. What I'm teaching as an exercise instructor, my goal is to be able to take all the love off my myself to help someone else."

Blanks was working with U.S. Navy personnel in Spain, Italy and Greece. He also taught a civilian group in Germany. But no matter where Tae-Bo takes him, Blanks boldly takes Jesus along. So excited was a woman during an earlier trip to Germany that she ran up to Blanks after the class and thanked him for bringing God back into her life. One of Blanks' latest trips was to Sarajevo and Bosnia to teach physical fitness to Army troops. A woman later told him that she had been trying for years to get her brother to receive Jesus and that he had accepted Him in one of Blank's Bosnia classes. The world thinks Blanks is about Tae-Bo, or physical fitness, but blanks is about something much bigger. A major part of his mission is spreading the Word of God. His studio walls are signs that carry such scriptural messages as "Walk by Faith, Not by Sight;" (as you can see an the picuture; this word is from 2 Corinthians 5:7), "Let Brotherly Love Continue;" and "God is good."

"God has given me a vehicle to go out and reach people, and there are millions of people into physical fitness," Billy says. "I'm one of the first physical fitness instructors to talk about faith and Jesus Christ. I ask, 'What does God say about physical fitness?' I tell people to base their training on what God says about them, and it will become a lifestyle, more than just a fad." Blanks sees Tae-Bo as his mission in life, his way of reaching out and helping others. He says it increases people's aerobic and muscle endurance, balance, flexibility and body control. And as they master the program, he says, it builds their self-image. "If you do something you never thought you could do, it gives you confidence." But what's special about Billy is his passionate relationship with Jesus. "With Tae-Bo you can learn how to defend yourself. That kind of knowledge is empowering and you end up feeling much better about yourself. Not only have people's lives changed physically through Tae-Bo, but also spiritually. Sure, people lose weight, but many of them are also starting to the read the Bible and go back to church. That's a blessing. I want to be a person who reaches out and touches people's lives and changes people. That's my dream. That's always been a dream of mine, is to reach out and touch lives. Be like Jesus Christ."

There are some videos and music-cd´s from tae bo. A video and a cd include christian gospel music.

Here you can find his homepage.

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