Stunt Coordinator and Actor
Fight choreography, stunt performance and on-set safety for feature film and television, from previs to the final take.
On Screen
Osondu Thambo is an actor, filmmaker, master martial artist, and stunt coordinator who has spent more than three decades studying, teaching, and evolving reality-based martial arts. Brooklyn born, of Caribbean heritage, now based in South Africa, he works at the point where authentic combative skill meets the demands of a camera, a schedule, and a crew that has to go home safe.
Real technique. Clean choreography. Nobody gets hurt proving it.
Two Ways to Work Together
One discipline, two doors. Thirty years of reality-based combatives, built for camera, and workshops that train the performers coming up behind him. Productions come for action that reads on screen and holds up on a risk assessment. Performers come to build a body of work that books.
For Productions
Stunt coordination, fight design, and safety oversight for features, series, shorts, and commercials. Brought in early, the action gets better and the risk register gets shorter.
For Performers
Hands-on training for actors, martial artists, dancers, and aspiring stunt performers who want to work on set. Built on reality-based combatives, then translated into the language of camera, angles, and repeatable takes.
Stunt Performer Workshops
Small groups. Real contact discipline. Every session ends with something you can put on tape. Run as intensives, multi-week blocks, or private coaching, on location or at a host studio.
The core workshop. Learn to build, rehearse, and repeat a fight that reads on screen: distance, eyelines, reaction timing, and how choreography changes the moment the lens moves.
52 Blocks, Zujitsu, and Jujitsu principles adapted for performance. Authentic mechanics, controlled output. For performers who want their action to look trained rather than choreographed.
Taking the hit and selling it. Safe landings, breakfalls, stair and height work progressions, and the reaction vocabulary that makes a clean miss look like a connection.
Everything around the action: set etiquette, the coordinator's chain of command, safety calls, self-taping your reel, and how to build a package that gets you hired again.
Format
IntensiveOne-off intensives, multi-week blocks, or private one-to-one coaching.
Group Size
Kept SmallContact work needs eyes on every pair. Numbers are capped per session.
Where
SA & TravelSouth Africa based, available internationally for booked engagements.
Who It's For
On-ScreenActors, martial artists, dancers, athletes, and aspiring stunt performers.
On Set
The other half is the rehearsal that catches the problem, the call that stops the take, and the plan that meant nobody had to be brave. Action should be the most controlled thing on the schedule.
Action Film Safety Consulting
Most action problems are not performance problems. They are planning problems: a beat written without a stunt in mind, a location locked before the fall was measured, a fight rehearsed for the first time on the day.
Bring the coordinator in at the script, not at the call sheet.
Engagements run from a single consultation on a difficult sequence through to full coordination across a shoot: designing the action, training the performers, and holding the safety line on the day.
Script, schedule, locations, and budget reality. What the action is asking for versus what it can have.
Beats, blocking, and equipment. Previs or stunt-vis where a sequence needs to be sold before it is shot.
Train the performers to the exact choreography, at full speed, before anyone is on the clock.
On-set coordination and safety authority for every take with contact, height, fire, vehicles, or weapons.
The Background Behind the Work
The action is convincing because the underlying skill is not a performance. It is a lifetime of reality-based combatives, formally graded and taught.
5th
Degree Black Belt Master Coach, holding advanced credentials across multiple reality-based systems.30+
Years Training Three decades studying, teaching, and evolving combative arts from Brooklyn to South Africa.4
Graded Systems 52 Blocks, Aikizujitsu, Zujitsu, and Fannul Harb Jujitsu.1
Academy Founded Founder and CEO of the 52 Blocks Self-Defense Academy.
Lineage
Graded within the 52 Blocks Federation, a combative tradition carried out of Brooklyn and now taught in South Africa. That lineage is what separates choreography that mimics fighting from choreography built by someone who has done it.
Rooms He Has Been In
Collaborations and shared work across martial arts, film, and combat sports. Not an endorsement by any individual listed.
Behind the Camera
Alongside the stunt work, Thambo is developing a feature-length documentary chronicling the growth of 52 Blocks in South Africa and its response to gender-based violence, with companion films built from the same production.
The project sits where martial arts, trauma recovery, leadership, and community resilience meet, told through observational filmmaking and carefully crafted dramatic reenactments.
Preserve the tradition. Compete globally.
As producer, creative director, and on-screen subject, he has overseen every stage: concept, story architecture, production planning, interview development, stunt design, legal preparation, and post-production strategy.
Osondu Thambo · Brooklyn → South Africa
About
An American-born actor, filmmaker, entrepreneur, master martial artist, and founder of the 52 Blocks Self-Defense Academy. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and of Caribbean heritage, he has spent more than thirty years studying, teaching, and evolving reality-based martial arts.
After relocating to South Africa, he committed to using martial arts not only as personal protection but as a vehicle for social impact, leadership development, and community transformation.
True power begins with self-mastery.
Today that work lives on set and on screen: stunt coordination, fight choreography, stunt performance, acting roles, and the filmmaking that surrounds it. Whether behind the camera as a filmmaker, in front of it as an actor, on set as a coordinator, or on the mats training performers, the commitment is the same. Make the action honest, and make sure the people performing it are protected while they do it.
Before You Book
Enquiries
Tell us which door you are coming through, and what you are working on. Workshop enquiries get dates and formats. Production enquiries get a conversation about scope before any numbers.
Free checklist
The Action Safety Checklist is what Osondu runs on his own sets, written down: eight sections covering physical force, weapons, water, height, fire and vehicles, the Pre-Production Eight to ask before anyone commits, and a pre-take card built to live on a phone.
