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The purpose of this interview was primarily to ask several members of the
original Beijing Wushu Team for their recollections of filming the 1983 series
of Wushu Instructional Videos.
As it turned out though, Lu Yan, Zhang Xianming, Lu Jinming and Dong Honglin
also spoke frankly about the differences between Modern and Retro Wushu, and how
they see Wushu developing as an Olympic Sport.
The interview has been left more or less exactly as transcribed so in places may
be a little rough around the edges. Due to its size, it has been split into four
parts:
- Part 1: Introductions, filming the Beijing Wushu
Team Instructional VCDs
- Part 2: Competitive and Traditional Wushu
- Part 3: The Rise of International Wushu, and
strains on Modern Athletes
- Part 4: Memories of the Beijing Team years
Thanks go to Andrea Falk from The
Wushu Centre for providing the interview transcript and the photographs used
on these pages.
[Before the interview officially starts]
Zhang Xianming: Speak clearly, don’t murmur, so it is
clear, right? If we’re eating then we won’t speak clearly so it can be recorded.
Lets eat first, then talk. Let’s eat up, then talk.
Interviewer: Sure, but we can eat and talk.
Lu Jinming: Is it recording now?
Interviewer: It is running now.
Lu Jinming: It’s recording already? Ok, you go, you
start, faster.
Zhang Xianming: I’m chewing now, you start.
Interviewer: Ok, Dong Honglin, you start then.
Dong Honglin: Me? Do I face the camera?
Interviewer: Face the camera.
Lu Jinming: Yeah, its recording.
Interviewer: You can do your bit then eat as the
others do theirs.
Lu Jinming: Yeah, go ahead get going so you get to
eat.
Dong Honglin: My name is Dong Honglin. I was born
September 12th, 1959. I started training wushu at Beijing’s Shishahai sports
school in 1971, joining the specialist team in October 1974. The events I like
are… there’s a lot of them. I guess my best are three section staff, steel whip,
rope dart, spear, tongbeiquan, but I did everything when I was on the team. As
for my competition results?
Lu Yan: Your best results were in the sparring
routine.
Dong Honglin: Well, I won the national championships
with the sparring routines. I also won with the three section staff and
tongbeiquan. What else did you ask?
Interviewer: Why did you choose to do wushu?
Dong Honglin: Why did I choose to learn wushu? Can I
speak freely? [Everyone laughs]
Dong Honglin: As for myself, learning wushu was a
completely accidental opportunity. When I was in second year at school I was
training gymnastics at the Beijing gymnasium. One day while I was training
gymnastics, a coach came to visit. It was Li Junfeng, wasn’t it? Yes, Li
Junfeng. He came to our school to look for talent. Our sports teacher picked out
a few who were better, ran a bit faster, were good at gymnastics and called us
over. ‘Run!’ So we ran. ‘Do the splits!’ We couldn’t do a good split, the front
knees bent, the back foot sticking up. Then ‘do some movements’ so we did some
things like punching, then a flash palm, just these simple movements. After, he
said ‘ok, come with me to Shishahai to train wushu’. It was as simple as that.
Interviewer: As simple as that!
Dong Honglin: After we got to Shishahai, well, we
didn’t have any idea what wushu was.
Lu Jinming: We were really young.
Dong Honglin: How old were we then? About nine. Then
they taught us the straight kick, bow stance, the stances, all the wushu basics.
Well, we studied for over a year, eh? Well, then we were sent to the first
national competition, in Shandong, wasn’t it?
Lu Yan: In Jinan [Capital of Shandong province].
Dong Honglin: Yes, in Jinan, the national wushu
competition. Well, after we went to the competition, our responsibility was to
learn from the others on the team. We learned from the others, we learned a lot
of things. Like sabre, sword, spear, staff, sparring routines, stuff like that.
Is that ok?
Interviewer: Yes, that’s fine.
Lu Jinming: Very good!
Everyone: Wonderful!
Lu Jinming: Now it’s your turn to eat. Let’s all first
eat a bit more, then carry on.
[Camera got knocked by a waitress and turned itself off for the other three
biographies. They all recounted similar experiences in being selected for the
wushu training without previous experience or even knowledge of wushu. Lu Yan
was selected younger than the others. She learned three section staff from Dong
Honglin, and always called him elder brother. Zhang Xianming and Lu Jinming said
their three man routine with Li Zhizhou was their best event, probably the best
sparring routine ever done, then or now. They all started around the same time,
1971-1972.
Camera got turned on again. My question isn’t heard, but I found it interesting
that they knew nothing of wushu before they were selected to the team, so had
asked something about this.]
Lu Yan: It’s a bit different now. Now coaches still
need to select good athletes for the team, but just because they select them
doesn’t mean they will come, because now the good athletes have more choice, and
they also want a good education. It is not like when we were chosen. We didn’t
care about studying then. At that time we didn’t know anything and our families
didn’t get involved.
Lu Jinming: Now its different, the athletes who study
wushu have more demands. Now the education around the country is developing very
quickly, like Shandong, Henan, Guangdong it's not like before…
Dong Honglin: Wushu is much more popular now. At our
time, we basically didn’t know anything at all about wushu. Right? [others
agree]. Now it is different. Everyone knows what wushu is, all the kids
know, what with movies and all, it is very popular.
Lu Yan: Like the Shaolin Temple.
Interviewer: That’s good news.
Dong Honglin: Now wushu is more well known.
Lu Jinming: Especially with 2008 coming up, if it gets
into the Olympics, wushu will develop really fast. Not only in China, but all
over the world. Now lots of countries are studying, it will be huge.
Lu Yan: Before, people had different ideas about
wushu.
Interviewer: Now lets talk about the filming, about
1983, was it filmed in 1983?
Dong Honglin: Which?
Interviewer: Could you talk about the filming of the
Beijing Wushu Team Training Series? The one you were involved in?
Dong Honglin: Oh, Anthony Chan’s?
Interviewer: Yes, do you remember anything about it?
When, and who thought of doing it?
Zhang Xianming: Let’s think about it and talk. I’ll
say what I remember, and if I get it wrong, just interrupt me, ok? I remember it
was the leaders of the team. I think it was Anthony Chan’s idea. Anthony Chan
was from San Francisco, eh? He was the one who started spreading wushu. He was
the first contact with our wushu, or one of the earliest at least. He had his
own particular way of doing things, and he worked hard at developing it in the
U.S.. He not only developed it in the U.S., but he came himself to Beijing. He
came here to train.
Lu Yan: We went to perform in the U.S. in 1981.
Zhang Xianming: We went to visit the U.S..
Lu Yan: Then he came in 1981.
Zhang Xianming: He came for a year, and at that time
he thought that it should be better developed in the U.S.. At that time no one
knew what our wushu was in the U.S., even we hardly knew about it ourselves.
With this situation, Anthony Chan (he was a pretty advanced thinking guy) once
he got here, thought he should film something on wushu with the athletes here.
He thought of doing a video to introduce wushu and develop it. He also thought
of the economics, the popularization and the economics. If he made videos he
could sell them.
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Dong Honglin: After he filmed in 1983, he invited us
to the U.S. in 1984. I went, and Zhou Jinping, Li Xia, and Li Shaowen. We went
in 1984 to coach.
Interviewer: So it was Anthony Chan’s own idea?
Dong Honglin: Yes, it was probably his.
Interviewer: After the film series was made, did you
see any changes at the team? Did you have any differences in your ideas, or did
you just do the filming and not really feel any changes?
Dong Honglin: At that time we didn’t really think
about it. We just did it amongst our regular life, we didn’t ask any questions.
I’ll explain a little the situation at the time. We would just be called over to
do something, like three section staff. I’d go over and do some stuff. Ok. I
remember it as being like that.
Lu Yan: Yes, we didn’t think about it at all.
Dong Honglin: We just filmed what we were asked to do.
That is what I feel. We didn’t have much to do with it. We never saw the video
after doing the filming.
Zhang Xianming: We never saw it.
Dong Honglin: Probably most of us were like that.
Zhang Xianming: They gave us some photos. We’ve got
some photos, photos of some poses.
Interviewer: Just like Guangzhou Beauty Ltd.
Zhang Xianming: There was nothing like that at the
time. I think Anthony Chan went through the Beijing Sports Office. He probably
also gave the Beijing Wushu team some money, to get permission to film. It was
like that, wasn’t it?
Dong Honglin: I don’t know.
Zhang Xianming: I think it was like that. He must have
paid to get permission.
Dong Honglin: He did it with Gang Huiquan
[Can’t hear it clearly, don’t know who they are talking about]
Zhang Xianming: Gang Huiquan [?] was involved,
but I’m pretty sure it was Anthony Chan who paid, not Gang Huiquan [?]
Interviewer: It seems you don’t know much about the
organization. Do you know how the decision was made over who did what in the
series?
Lu Jinming, Zhang Xianming: That, well, the coaches
decided.
Interviewer: How long did it take to do the filming?
Zhang Xianming: It took about a week, didn’t it? Over
a week?
Lu Jinming: That, filming? No. It was on and off. It
wasn’t done all at once.
Lu Yan: I remember it took quite a while.
Zhang Xianming: I think it took a while. He would call
over someone to film, and you’d go, or you two would go. The others wouldn’t be
involved.
Interviewer: He just did it there at the training
hall, at Shishahai?
Lu Yan, Zhang Xianming: Yes, just at Shishahai.
Lu Yan: While the others were filming we were all
training. Of course we couldn’t stand around waiting.
Interviewer: Were there any problems involved in the
filming? From getting permission to filming, did it go smoothly?
Zhang Xianming: It went smoothly, I guess. At that
time Anthony didn’t have to fuss with anything too high tech. There wasn’t all
the fancy equipment that there is now, just one camera. He just needed to go
close or far. If we did something wrong we just did it again.
Lu Jinming: There weren’t any problems.
Zhang Xianming: We just did it.
Lu Jinming: It just went along smoothly, we
co-operated well together.
Interviewer: Do you feel the videos showed your true
abilities?
Zhang Xianming: You mean, while we did the filming?
Dong Honglin: Our skill level?
Interviewer: Yes, your skill level.
Dong Honglin: At the time I didn’t really pay that
much attention. It was just like training, I didn’t really think about it.
Lu Yan: It wasn’t like we would prepare and then do
our very best. We just went and did our bit and that was it.
Zhang Xianming: Yes, we just did it and didn’t really
think about it. We didn’t see it anyway, so don’t know.
Interviewer: You never saw the videos?
All: We never saw it, don’t know what it looked like.
Dong Honglin: At the time we would look at the takes
to see that we had to do it again. He’d show us a mistake or angle to know how
to change it. But at the time, I don’t really know how well I performed.
Interviewer: So now you will be able to see
yourselves.
Dong Honglin: Now, when I get to see it, I’ll probably
see a lot of awful things, things I will regret.
Zhang Xianming: Lets toast that! Toast our regrets!
Lu Yan: After I saw mine, I felt, wow, that was slow.
[I gave a set of 6 core VCDs plus VCDs in which the athlete performed to all
the members of the team. I had given Lu Yan hers a week earlier, so she had time
to watch it]
Zhang Xianming: If you see video of athletes in the
last couple of years, you can’t compare. You can’t compare now with then, can
you? It’s not the same, right? They train for speed now.
Lu Yan: The athletes train for that.
Zhang Xianming: I feel we were a lot slower. We were
really slow. If you filmed the athletes now, they would be a lot faster.
[Some chatting that I can’t catch]
Interviewer: So the video series was never available
in China?
Dong Honglin: In China, I don’t really know.
Lu Jinming: No, it was never distributed in China.
Zhang Xianming: No, Anthony’s video wasn’t
distributed, but within China there was a film made, called "Chinese wushu". Do
you remember? Filmed in Yunnan. It was filmed around that time. When we came
back, it was known that a foreigner had made this wushu video, and people were
starting to really love wushu abroad, and that it could be more advertised.
After Shaolin Temple was so successful, and wushu was really popular, they
organized to make a film, called ‘Chinese wushu’ A lot of people were involved,
but, of course, it was based on the Beijing team, as the best in the country.
They got in special people for certain events, the traditional events, from
other places. That took two or three months to film, in Yunnan, didn’t it? This
video was the one that was officially made within China to spread wushu abroad.
Interviewer: I sell this one on my website. (“this is
kung fu”) It is really popular.
Lu Yan: It used really beautiful backdrops.
Zhang Xianming: Yes, it was filmed in Yunnan.
Dong Honglin: About half of it was the Beijing team.
Interviewer: If there were a way to distribute your
BJT video series within China, would you be willing to see this happen? I mean
the digital version, the new version, if I could think of a way to do that?
Lu Jinming, Zhang Xianming: You mean those VCDs that
you just gave us, the Beijing wushu team videos?
Lu Jinming: I don’t think that would be possible.
Interviewer: If I made them here, maybe. Of course,
making them abroad is too expensive to see here.
Zhang Xianming: They would be too expensive.
Lu Jinming: Of course we would be willing and happy to
see them available in China, but the reality is that it would be difficult to
distribute in China. I don’t think many people would want to see them. I don’t
think you would have much of a market. I think the market is much stronger
abroad than in China.
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Want to learn more about Lu Yan's Wushu Career? Visit the
Wushu Career pages
Want to learn more about training with Lu Yan? Visit the
Train with Lu Yan pages
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