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Title [Martial Arts Globe] [Interview] Daniel Wu on Preventing Violence through Martial Arts
Interview with Daniel Wu on Preventing Violence through Martial Arts By Gene Ching Daniel Wu is a renowned movie and television star with over 80 credits to his name (IMDb, 2024). He is one of Hong Kong cinema’s top leading men, and the first Asian male to have a lead role in a non-comedic American TV show (Ching, 2016, p.52). Although he’s only done a few martial arts films, Wu’s roots lie in the martial arts (Ching, 2014, p.82). Nevertheless, he credits the discipline and determination he gleaned from martial arts as a key factor in his success (Ching, 2024, p.85). Wu generously took the time to address the notion of preventing violence through martial arts, exclusively for UNESCO ICM. This interview had been edited for conciseness and clarity (Wu, D 2024, personal interview, 14 October). Getting Started in the Martial Arts “I wanted to learn obviously from movies but also from self-defense perspective. I saw Jet Li do his thing in Shaolin Temple and that was really attractive to me. But I don't think any of it was for violence per se. It was because growing up Asian American, I related to it right away like this is something from my culture and it's something cool I want to learn. There's so many things about martial arts. It's not about violence. The ‘art’ part of it is you're learning culture; you're learning discipline; you're learning dedication. You're learning how to deal with adversity. You train for those [combat] situations to happen, but you don't want it to happen when it really comes down to it. And when you're trained and you know you can hurt people, the last thing you want to do is to hurt someone. When you train in it and you're a professional in it, you don't want to engage with someone who's not trained because you know that they don't know what they're doing. And you could easily hurt them. And it's interesting because my parents didn't want me to learn it because they thought I would be getting to fights and stuff at school because of it. I was like a hyperactive kid. But then once I started learning, it was the opposite. Once you start learning, the last thing you want to do is get in a fight. You want to do everything you can to not have that happen. When you're training in that space, you realize the stupidity of fighting.” Kids and the Martial Arts “For any parent that is reluctant to put their kid in martial arts I go ‘it's not about that.’ Most masters are not going to teach your kid to be a wild fighter. They're going to teach your kid discipline - when to use that martial art and to only use it in tournaments or sparring or self-defense, but not to go bullying kids around. I mean, there are like the Cobra Kai schools around which maybe have that kind of attitude, but I would say 90% of the schools are teaching kids not to be that way. My daughter is doing jujitsu now. The kids in my daughter’s jujitsu class are the sweetest kids. And some of them, when they're ring, they’re killers, but they would never attack somebody or bully somebody because they understand. I think martial arts is extremely rewarding and extremely character building for a young child, and that's why I put my daughter in it. She just had a tournament this weekend. And she's learned so much through that process that I didn't teach her, which is about going for something. Her goal was to try and win. And the preparation she did for that, all that was kind of on her own, I didn't really push her to do that. I would remind her every once in a while like, ‘Hey, your tournament coming up,’ that's about it. But she was dedicated and disciplined to know that if she went into that ill prepared, she's going to lose. So she learned that. She can put me in her rear naked choke and choke me out, but she doesn't do that to her friends. She understands that this is something you do in class with classmates or you do it in tournament against competitors, but it's not something you just throw on to somebody who has not trained. There's no satisfaction in doing that.” The Martial Metaphor “What's also great about jujitsu is you're constantly losing. You’re getting smashed by somebody who's better than you all the time. And so you learn to be humble. You learn that violence is not something emotional. And when you're learning a martial art, it's not violence. You're in control. It's a controlled art. You're learning to control someone without trying to hurt them. And I think with her, what was so great about it is that she's learned to achieve things on her own. She's learned to lose and then come back from it and analyze why she lost and then keep going and getting up. Because that's life. Life is a bunch of adversity. Life is never really easy. What gives people most anxiety and depression? All that kind of stuff is like when you get knocked down and you just can't get back up. With the martial arts, you're constantly getting knocked down and you're constantly having to get back up, and then keep going, right? Because you love it; you love doing it. And so that key drives you to keep going. It's a really good metaphor for life.” Controlling Anger “Martial arts is the perfect thing to learn to control your anger and to vent because there is something physical that you can vent on, whether it's a punching bag or forms or whatever. You can get that crazy energy out of you and learn to master it and to funnel it into something constructive. Whereas if you don't have that outlet, then you're walking around carrying that emotion and carrying that anger with you and anything can set you off. Someone cuts you off on the freeway or someone bumps into you on the sidewalk - It'll make you turn into something crazy. But if you're coming from a place of centeredness which you learn martial arts, it's harder a rise out of you. I worked as a bouncer in a bar in college. That was the biggest test all the time because you're dealing with intoxicated individuals who didn't know how to fight. It's easy to overpower someone in that situation because they're vulnerable, especially when they are making provocative statements. However, my goal was always to de-escalate the situation. It's much more rewarding to walk away knowing you've defused a situation rather than getting involved in a confrontation. Greatest Martial Moment “My greatest moment as a martial artist was one time I was in Europe. I was taking a train from Paris with my girlfriend at the time and I see this guy coming through into the cabin. He's got a mohawk, an older punk rock looking guy, maybe an alcoholic. He looks pretty thrashed and he’s staring at everybody in the aisles, trying to start something. My girlfriend just hides into the seat, and I just turned to protect her. And he comes at me and I just smile a big smile and I go, ‘Hey, what's up, man?’ And he's in my face. Eventually I led to the conversation like, ‘What's going on? Why are you so angry?’ And I remember seeing on his back that he had two little stuffed animals hanging off the side of his bag. He tells me this whole story. He's from Ireland, on the run, because he killed somebody like in a fight or something. And that he wants to send these two little stuffed animals back to his kid. And I'm like, ‘I can do that for you. Give them to me and I'll mail them to your kid for you. Give me your address.’ And then the whole thing ended up being a very peaceful thing. We ended up hugging it out. And then he walked off. To me, that was my proudest moment as a martial artist because it could have ended violently. He was much smaller than me. I could have easily taken him. I could have easily fought fire with fire, but instead I use the complete opposite which is stay complete calm and figure out what is wrong. He's drunk and angry and he wants to vent it out on something, right? But once you got it out of him, allowed him to talk, he was crying by the end of it. Then I sent [the stuffed animals] off, and his wife wrote back a letter to me thanking me so much for doing that and saying this guy has had a troubled life, and it's sad. And I framed it and I still it's in Hong Kong now. It's really important part of my life for a lesson for me to learn. Anytime earlier in my life, I probably would have wanted to defend myself or fight or whatever, but in that situation, I used something completely different. The martial arts gave me the confidence, knowing that if it went off like I could defend myself. But I didn't need to in that situation. And that confidence gives you more emotional stability. And so then I come from a really calm place instead of a point of fear or a point of anger returning anger. To him, it was just a calmness and going, hey, I'm going to find out why this guy is doing this. And so, I learned a huge lesson in that moment.” Finding Peace “I think training martial arts leads you want a path to finding peace. Because I think it's about balance. It's about finding emotional stability. Finding strength within your inner strength, not just physical strength and all those things together combined. It gives you a kind of confidence and makes you one of your away from violence. I mean, of course, if it comes to you right in your face, you're going to be able to face it. But in most cases, you're going to want to just pass it off, push it off to the side and not allow it to come straight to you, not be a target.” Ching, G. (2014) ‘Chollywood Rising: Interview with Daniel Wu’, Kung Fu Tai Chi, November+December 2014, pp. 82-85. Ching, G. (2016) ‘Into the Badlands with Daniel Wu’, Kung fu Tai Chi, January+February 2016, pp. 48-54. IMDb: (2024) Daniel Wu [Online] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0943079/ (Accessed: 18 October 2024) Wu, D (2024). Interviewed by Gene Ching, UNESCO ICM Lead photo: AMC (2016) Kung Fu Tai Chi [Cover photo] Fremont: TC Media, Intl. ※ Views in this article are the author's own |
