#MoreUnboxed with Christina: Mr Wood on the art of combat

Why dancing and fighting have more in common than you might think: 

“There are lots of parallels. The number one parallel is the hard work it takes to develop the skill. There are no shortcuts to developing high-level skills in either discipline. It takes what the Chinese martial artists call ‘eating bitter’ — to really put in the work and suffer through it until you develop the skill. There are also a lot of parallels even within, say, partnering in dance and fighting in martial arts. As a partner in dance, you have to be sensitive to what your partner is doing. You have to be open to what your partner does, so that you can do the right thing at the right time and help your partner out. In a combat situation, of course, you don't want to help your partner out, but you have to be open and sensitive to what the person across from you is doing so that you can respond in an effective way.”

On facing your fears:

“They say in your first five fights, you're fighting against yourself, and that's really true. You only learn through practice to control your emotions, to control your fear, to control yourself enough mentally so that you have access to all the techniques that you've developed…. At first, you're too scared, you're too stressed and nothing works. So, with experience, being in that situation, then finally you can relax and have the mental calmness and toughness to go through with it.”

On self-cultivation:

“The discipline to practice regularly, the openness, the sensitivity, the empathy, to allow yourself to notice what's going on and to react in the right way are very important. That's the heart of martial arts practice. It’s that cultivation of not only skill but of mental and moral characteristics. In English, it would be the laws of chivalry that we had in the time of the knights to develop the self in terms of having the discipline and the openness, the sensitivity to live a good life well.”