It was a tension-filled day when over 300 young Pencak Silat practitioners from around the globe converged at the Bedok center in Singapore. Although Pencak Silat is native to South-East Asia, teams from well outside of the region assembled for their chance to win at the 2nd World Junior Pencak Silat tournament. The last World Junior tournament (ages 14 to 17 years old) was held seven years back in the year 2000, where the team from Vietnam won the most gold medals and was given the championship title.
One young athlete, Marie Mouroum, then only 14, joined the team hailing from Germany. Marie began studying martial arts at the early age of nine. After several negative experiences by racist individuals in her neighborhood, her mother enrolled her and her brother Marvin in a martial arts program that included Pencak Silat and Karate training. Her coaches immediately noticed her talent and athleticism and accepted her to the competition team.
On March 12, 2007, Marie fought her way to becoming a Junior World Pencak Silat Champion.
After her solid win in Singapore, she continued competing in sport Silat in Europe. The Netherlands have a long history with Pencak Silat due to the fact that Indonesia was once a Dutch colony. They regularly hold tournaments and many of Dutch athletes hold world titles in Pencak Silat. Marie also competed in the 2012 Pencak Silat Dutch Open tournament in Leeuwarden, Netherlands and supported her Pencak Silat national team.
When Ninja Assassin was being filmed in Germany in 2008, the directors were looking for youth to be extras for background scenes. On this set, Marie was able to make connections with stunt people for the first time. During this time she also studied other martial arts such as Capoeira and tricking. At 18, she received her first request as a stunt woman in the role of a witch for the film Hansel and Gretel: Witches Hunters. Filming took place in 2011, but the film was not released until 2013. Immediately afterwards she became a double for Halle Berry in Cloud Atlasbooked, which was partly shot in Berlin.
Her big breakthrough, however, was securing the role as one of the Dora Milaje warriors in the movie Black Panther (2018). After the global success of Black Panther, she played significant roles in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Maleficent: Forces of Darkness (2019), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), 2019 Dark Jedi: A Star Wars Story, and more recently James Bond 007: No Time to Die (2020), where she worked as a stunt double for actress Lashana Lynch. Mouroum spent eight months on the set during the filming in 2019, according to her, this was the longest filming time she has ever experienced as a stunt woman.
She credits much of her success as a stunt woman to her introduction to martial arts at a young age, including Pencak Silat. In an interview with the martial arts podcast Ruf der Hyäne, she discussed her connection with Pencak Silat: “It gave me the self-confidence, I knew I was strong and I can defend myself and I am ready to fight, it’s all about your mentality …people will think twice whether they want to mess with that person or not. Pencak Silat has some dance-like, beautiful movements, but it’s very effective. [Pencak Silat] has a specialty of take-downs, with sweeps and scissor techniques to the body. In competition they give the most points for those movements. It is very useful to know how to take someone to the ground. I would not be standing on the street today if it wasn’t for Pencak Silat.”
More information about Marie Mouroum:
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