‘Make it big. Make it huge’: Mark ‘King Naja’ Kernell hits the mat for theatrical combat class in Vancouver

Whatever you do, do it big. So big, even the folks up in the nosebleed seats can’t miss it.

“It’s exhausting. It’s physical. It’s as over-the-top as you want to be,” said Mark Kernell of Vancouver, who’s better known in local professional wrestling rings as implacable assassin King Naja.

Kernell led an introductory session on theatrical combat that appears bigger, badder and scarier-than-life — but actually stays as safe and predictable as ballroom dancing — on a recent Saturday at Metropolitan Performing Arts in Vancouver.

“You don’t want to hurt your friend,” Kernell said. “He might just hurt you back.”

To throw a safe but impressive pro-wrestling punch, he demonstrated, rear back and gather your fist in dramatic slow-mo. Come in with a huge swing and follow all the way through as your opponent’s head snaps painfully back. You might even stalk away with a triumphal grin, revving up the crowd even more.

Best of all, single out one adoring face to share your glory.

“Focus on one individual. Make a moment for that fan,” Kernell said. “In pro wrestling, if fans don’t react, what’s the point of doing it?”

Here’s what those fans didn’t catch: Your intentionally loose fist never touched your opponent’s face. The loud, startling smack that punctuated the punch was just you slyly slapping your own chest with your other hand — the hand nobody was watching.

Play that game of exaggeration and misdirection right, Kernell said, and your audience will be hooked.

“What the heck just happened? What’s going to happen now? You’re going to take the audience on a journey,” he said.

TV family

Semi-friendly family combat was a feature of Kernell’s upbringing in Pasadena, Calif., where he and his many brothers caught the rise of professional wrestling on television.

“My oldest brother is 18 years older than me,” Kernell said. “He’d beat me up and toss me around. When I had the opportunity to do the same to my younger brother, of course I did that. We beat the stuffing out of each other.”

When he was in middle school, Kernell said, celebrities from Muhammad Ali to Cyndi Lauper to Liberace all loaned their glamour to TV’s “Wrestlemania.”

“It became insanely popular with families like mine in the mid-1980s,” he said. “We were a TV family.”

In addition to the drama of wrestling, Kernell recalled, TV melodramas like “Dynasty” and “Dallas” also made a formative impression on him. Their intense passions and good-versus-evil story lines fired his imagination and his taste for theater.

“I didn’t have any specific theater training,” he said. “I think it just came naturally, based on those old shows.”

Kernell tried college but quickly gave up. Twenty years later, as a married father of three, he gave it another go.

Making a mask

Fitting in can be a challenge for a Black man in the Portland area, which exists in its own bubble of self-regard, Kernell said.

Portland is proud of being progressive and tolerant, he noted. It’s also very white. Working as a Black sales representative for Perdue Foods and its Draper Valley Chicken line “has been an adventure,” he said.

“I learned to improvise,” he said. “I learned to do what’s affectionately known as ‘code switching’ — which means putting on the mask to achieve your desired result, and taking off the mask again. You learn to adapt without losing your sense of core identity.”

Back in high school, Kernell excelled more in athletics than in academics. Now, as a working adult and resident of east Vancouver, he put his athletic prowess to work at East-West Martial Arts, where he teaches Krav Maga, a self-defense system that blends techniques of boxing, judo, wrestling and more.

When Kernell was a kid, his favorite wrestler was Jake “The Snake” Roberts, because, unlike many others, Roberts wasn’t ridiculously over-the-top.

“He was quiet. He commanded attention without demanding it,” Kernell said. “He was cerebral. That was the psychology piece, and it really appealed to me.”

In tribute, Kernell cooked up the persona of professional hit man King Naja — “Naja” being the scientific species name for cobra.

“‘King Cobra,’ I thought that was pretty dope,” he said.

King Naja always enters the wrestling ring looking understated and classy, wearing a black leather jacket and vest, black gloves and withering sneer. The leather and gloves get peeled off as part of preparation for combat. The angry sneer stays fixed, Kernell said.

Kernell never lets himself forget that Perro Aguayo Jr., a Mexican professional wrestler, severed his spine and died in the ring in 2015.

“We carry each others’ lives in our hands,” he said. “Picking someone up and dropping him — in all honestly that can be life-changing for the guy who hits the floor. Being a good dance partner means you can execute every move without hurting somebody.”

There’s no special health insurance plan for professional wrestlers, he said.

“We are all independent contractors,” he said. “Promoters don’t provide health insurance. They provide water and a chair. They provide a stage for us to present our craft, which we love to do.”

To introduce his craft to students at Metropolitan Performing Arts, Kernell borrowed a simple Acting 101 exercise: Stride across the floor in character. Whoever you are, project that all the way out to those nosebleed seats.

“Make it big. Make it huge,” he said.

Quinn Vogt, 16, stalked around the room with fists clenched and a grim expression, like he was looking for trouble.

“You better pay attention to this guy,” Kernell read Vogt’s body language. “This guy is dangerous. What’s he going to do next?”

Vogt isn’t an actor, he said — he’s a wrestler at Camas High School. But he loves watching WWE on TV, he said, and he’s intrigued by the idea of developing a persona and a backstory.

Other students couldn’t restrain different attitudes. Giggling their way through an exchange of pretend knee jabs were student Connor Esteb and Metropolitan Performing Arts Board President Brett Allred.

Kernell advised them to use the laughter. What’s more disturbing, he said, than fighters who love pain and keep going back for more?

“Show us that it hurts,” he said. “Whatever you’re doing, commit to it.”