Let's talk about pain and fear.

I had an accident during my rehearsals. As you have seen in my recent vlog post, I am currently working as a stuntman for a kungfu themed commercial. Here's the thing about wire work and allow me to explain this to those of you unfamiliar with it. You see in those kungfu movies where all these actors jump from roof tops to roof tops and have superhuman abilities to run up walls? That's all done with wire work (aka wire-fu, wire kungfu): you are relying on either a motor or a team of people to lift you up in the air with those wires and then the wires are removed in post-production to create that illusion on screen. I was rehearsing a sequence where I had to leap from one wall to a roof top assisted by the wires (which lift me up onto that roof). During a practice jump, I mistimed the jump and I failed to get enough height. I slammed into the wall at high speed and for a moment, I thought I had broken my right leg.

I lay there, paralyzed with pain and fear. My leg was bleeding, the medic was there within seconds and I was in so much pain I went into shock. I could barely remember what happened next - I remember being carried up by some of my colleagues onto a mat and hyperventilating. Someone said, "we need a stretcher, what can we use as a stretcher?" and another said, "he's bleeding" and remembered thinking, oh so that is what the dampness is - my blood. My mind raced - what if my leg was badly broken, what then? What next? What will happen to me for the next few years given how important this is to me, to be able to do gymnastics and do this kind of work with my body? As it turned out, my leg was not broken but I was in a lot of pain - there is a lot of nasty bruising along the side of my right leg where I slammed into the wall but miraculously, no bone was broken. I then also experienced flashes of anger, blaming myself mostly.

I received medical attention and resumed rehearsals later that day. Despite being in some pain, I chose to continue filming and performed far more complicated wire work sequences for this shoot - including a more difficult version of the stunt that went badly wrong. I must stress: no one forced me to continue rehearsing/filming, it was entirely my decision. I had fought so hard to get to where I was today - I auditioned for the part and have managed to get myself picked for a stunt team of just three professionals, led by a stunt choreographers who has worked on two Bond films. It was my big chance to prove myself to one of the top stunt choreographers in the UK and I was not about to let pain get in the way. I fought past the pain today and did whatever needed to be done. My right knee hurts, my right hip doesn't feel right and don't get me started on the bruising and scars. But hey, I am on the mend.

As I climbed up the roof to perform the more difficult version of the stunt that went badly wrong, I was scared. Damn I was scared. But there was a part of me that didn't want to be defeated by fear or pain. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and backing out was never an option in my head. And I thought, well if I could survive yesterday's pain, I can fight past anything. And I am so glad I faced my fears and triumphed - there was simply no alternative.

I faced my fears and triumphed.

There was also a different sequence that I had to perform: all three stunt guys had to climb up a brick wall which was set at 35 degrees to make it look as if we had super human abilities to simply scale vertical walls - the camera would be set at 35 degrees as well with a green screen behind. When it came to shoot this scene, the director took a look at what we did on screen and comment that it looked too easy - we need to look as if we're struggling a bit to get up that wall to make it look real. So they cranked that wall up to about 50 degrees and suddenly it looked incredibly steep - it also became a lot higher. My two other stunt colleagues scrambled up that wall with some difficulty, but they managed to get to the top. It was the desired effect they wanted for this shot.

When it came to my turn, I jumped onto the bottom of the wall and froze - I thought, that's a long way up and it is steep, what if I fall down? We're doing this without wires. As the camera rolled, I took one step and balked. And I said, "Sorry, can I start again?" There was fear holding me back. I had not yet fallen off that wall or anything like that - it was just the fear of falling that was stopping me from scaling that brick wall. It was mind over matter - I got so angry with myself for getting scared that on the third attempt, I went up that wall at a furious pace. It was anger that got me over that wall, it motivated me. I turned the fear of pain into anger and it motivated me to succeed. Again, I wonder how many people would have looked at that steep wall and said "no way", gave in to fear and simply walked away?

A much gentler version of the wall I had to climb!

You know, I had talked a lot about corporal punishment lately in light on the case in Sweden where a Malaysian couple were jailed for beating their children. I was beaten by my parents throughout my childhood - it made me unafraid of pain. I became extremely familiar with it from a young age and it did serve me rather well in the sport of gymnastics where I would often ignore pain  in order to continue training. More importantly, I never gave myself the option to give in to fear - it is always the fear of getting hurt, the fear of pain which holds many gymnasts back when they have to learn a new skill and somehow, my childhood experiences had eradicated the fear of pain. After all, you will always face some kind of pain in life: it may be physical pain or it may be emotional stress or heartache or something else that causes you physical or emotional suffering - some people would run away from the pain, others would face their worse fears and triumph over them. What kind of person is more likely to succeed in life, I ask you?

I know many will think that I am mad to continue with my stunt work after my accident, but I simply refuse to be defeated by the fear of pain. I hate to use cliches, but the term 'no pain no gain' comes to mind - if stunt work was that very simple and totally safe, if anyone can do it with very little effort, then there simply will not be any job satisfaction from it. I do wonder if what I did in the last few weeks is unusual - how many people would run away from a challenge the moment they experience great pain?  I am terribly cynical about the way the next generation is being brought up and that cynicism applies equally to children in the West as well as in Asia. I see so many children who will cry and run away from anything that may cause pain or scare them - will these children be conditioned to always run away in fear?

Of course, there is a sensible balance. I don't think people should endure pain at all costs, there needs to be a cost-benefit analysis. If something means a lot to you, then it then becomes worth the pain because you want the reward at the end of the day. By that same token, if it is not something that you really care for, then you shouldn't really be forced to put up with unnecessary pain. However, I fear that some young people have unrealistic expectations about being able to get what they want without having to pay the price for it, they want to be able to achieve great things without having to suffer any pain in the process and I blame that on modern parenting. If you molly coddle your kids too much, then they will never be prepared to work hard to achieve what they want.

Am I being too harsh on the younger generation or modern parenting? Are young people today really held back by their fear of pain? Are you afraid of pain? Do you run away from physical pain or things that scare you? Where is the balance that is to be struck on this issue? Please leave a comment below, thank you very much for reading.