Billy Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of eleven and practices Karate and Taekwondo. He was born with an anomaly in his hip joints that impaired his movement, and a clumsiness that earned him the taunts of his siblings and caused his coaches to believe he’d never accomplish much. Billy found the answer to these challenges in Karate. When he saw Bruce Lee on TV, he decided he wanted to be a world martial-arts champion. The discipline of the program began to transform his body.

Blanks began his acting career in the 1980s where he starred in several action-adventure feature films. He was hired to act as a bodyguard for lead actress Catherine Bach. He  impressed the producers so much, they wrote him into the script.

In the late 1980s, Blanks invented the Tae Bo workout, while running a karate studio in Quincy, MA. He used components of his martial arts and boxing training. Blanks opened a fitness center in Los Angeles, CA to teach his new workout. He later attracted some celebrity clients such as Paula Abdul and the popularity of the workout quickly grew, becoming a pop culture phenomenon after Blanks began releasing mass-marketed videos. To this day Billy Blanks still attracts many celebrity clients and  his videos and DVDs have continued to sell well.