Rayna Vallandingham picked up her first bo staff at 6 years old, the same year she earned her black belt, and she has never really put it down. That detail matters beyond the headline, because the Street Fighter cast member’s preparation for the role of Uli was not a Hollywood training montage built from scratch. It was a lifetime of competition, refinement, and hard-won muscle memory arriving precisely when it was needed.
From 13 world titles to a movie set in Australia
Vallandingham began martial arts at 2 years old and describes earning her black belt at 6 as her first real conscious memory. Her master saw potential immediately and steered her toward competition. Between the ages of 8 and roughly 15, she accumulated 13 world titles. When the Street Fighter role came through, second unit director John Valer called her personally. ‘I want to see your style. I want to work with you on this,’ he told her. She was FaceTiming him the same day, showing combinations and ideas. She describes the whole experience as ‘such a collaborative effort,’ adding that it felt like she morphed into Uli rather than performed her.
The bo staff she brought to Australia for training is the same one she walks through in detail here. She told airport security it was a walking cane.
What the actual training looks like, start to finish
Every session opens with a bow, which she calls ceremonial, a deliberate signal that work is beginning. Stretching follows for 5 to 10 minutes. She is candid about a detail that surprises people: she is not naturally flexible. Her early coaches had to teach her how to fake a high kick without full splits, a technical workaround she still uses. From there the bag work begins, including a Muay Thai leg-check combo, 30-rep sets of jab-cross combinations, body shots aimed straight at the liver, hooks, and pyramid kicks, a burnout structure that climbs from one rep up to five and then descends back to one. She describes this entire bag sequence as her warm-up.
Stunt punching, she explains, is fundamentally different from competition striking. In competition the body closes inward for protection. On set, everything opens and exaggerates. ‘The hooks have to be so over-pronounced,’ she says, describing the concept as projecting, giving a stunt partner a clear physical cue about what is coming next. She drills this with hand weights held at the forearm, keeping every movement large.
Weightlifting is woven throughout. Her father was a bodybuilder and introduced her to the gym early. She credits him directly for her current balance of martial arts, yoga, Pilates, and lifting. She holds to one firm rule regardless of how she feels on a given day: you do something every session, for an hour to two hours, without exception.
The bo staff she carried through customs
Vallandingham saves the weapons work for the later part of the session. She layers wrist weights onto bo staff drills, repeating basic strikes until they are automatic. Her favored striking combination moves from one position to the shoulder, under the armpit, and over the head. ‘Technique is the most important,’ she says. ‘Remember that.’ The butterfly spin, which she demonstrates at reduced speed after the earlier boxing rounds, is presented as a natural extension once the basics are locked in.
Her fourth-degree black belt rides in her gym bag alongside nunchaku, a myofascial peanut roller, Street Fighter-branded hand wraps she won by hitting a bag hard enough to earn them, and a hypochlorous acid spray she uses after workouts when press obligations mean there is no time to redo makeup. ‘This actually kills bacteria and you can spray this on anything,’ she notes. ‘It’s a hack. Take it from me.’
The black belt that is almost completely gray
The training fourth-degree black belt she uses every day is described as ‘completely gray and ripped.’ The competition belt, by contrast, is in good shape because it rarely leaves the bag.
Vallandingham pulled out both during the gym-bag breakdown, handling the worn one carefully before setting it down. For someone whose first memory is the moment she earned a black belt, that frayed fabric holds more than two decades of daily work in its threads.
The worn belt and the airport-cleared bo staff are the same kind of object: tools that outlasted the competition circuit, traveled across hemispheres, and ended up on a film set. Vallandingham’s rule is consistency, an hour every day, no exceptions, and the evidence is right there in the gray.
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