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Jet Li was his idol: how Jaden He Jingde became wushu champion and Cirque du Soleil actor
- Former national wushu champion Jaden He Jingde talks about childhood idols, training 100 hours a week, and a life-changing trip to Hollywood
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For Jaden He Jingde, a former national wushu champion and stuntman, Chinese martial arts are a lifelong passion, one that led him to meet his childhood idol Jet Li.
His path to acquiring martial arts skills has not been an easy one, however.
He was born in Shandong province in 1978, where the living conditions for his family – as for many others in China at that time – were tough.
“We were a family of five and we only had one bike and one watch, so when I decided to follow in the footsteps of my older brother and train in wushu, we all had to rely on my dad’s watch and a flashlight to read the time to wake us up at 4.30am,” recalls He.
His older brother was a wushu state champion for his age group. When He was four, he watched Shaolin Temple (1982), starring Jet Li in his debut role, a film that set the young He on the path of learning martial arts.
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