This extreme sports enthusiast/restauranteur can go without food for days

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This extreme sports enthusiast/restauranteur tin can go without food for days

Malcolm Wood, founder of luxe Chinese restaurant Mott 32 in Marina Bay Sands, says in that location are lots of similarities betwixt farthermost sports and running a business.

Malcolm Wood wears many hats: Restauranteur, extreme sports enthusiast, conservationist, filmmaker, brand ambassador, and UN Surroundings campaigner, among others. (Photograph: Mott 32)

10 Feb 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 21 May 2022 12:40PM)

You'd expect a speed-riding, paragliding, mount-climbing eco-warrior to be some kind of skinny, scruffy misanthrope, and a successful restaurateur to be a flashy and… er… fleshy social butterfly.

But gamble athlete and F&B entrepreneur Malcolm Woods conforms to neither stereotype.

Tall, tanned and athletically slim, the one-half-British, half-Chinese 38-year-onetime is clad in a simple black tee, dark denim jeans, and a pair of classic leather brogues for our interview, and could easily pass off as an off-duty male runway model half his age.

"I recollect it's my interesting childhood that'south shaped who and what I am today," he said, in his elegantly plummy British emphasis.

Woods's parents got divorced when he was still a kid, so he lived mostly with his baron mother and his stepfather, who worked in an airline – the chore which saw the family relocating every two years on overseas postings.

Betwixt the ages of 7 to nine, and 13 to sixteen, Woods lived with his father in London. "He's the reason I love being out in nature. He put me in skis when I was two, and nosotros had winter holidays in Utah. He introduced me to golf when I was six. We often went hiking, and he'd also take me on weeks-long sailing trips, which saw us weathering some really bad storms out on a tiny sailboat," Wood recalled.

A MULTICULTURAL LIFESTYLE

By the time he was 25, Woods had already lived in 12 different locales, including Taipei, Rome, London, Bombay, Shanghai, Hong Kong, parts of Canada, and Los Angeles.

"I was a multicultural child with a very multicultural lifestyle," he said. "That's why I dear skillful food – I used to spend a lot of fourth dimension with my maternal grandma in Taipei, helping her brand jiaozi (dumplings) and bao (buns with fillings); my paternal granddaddy in the UK loved cooking as well – traditional Brit fare such as roasts. All the different cities I lived in taught me to appreciate different cultures and their cuisines. You lot go so used to seeing and learning new things all the time. That'south why I'm e'er up for more travel, more adventure."

Over the years, he added rock climbing, and so mountain climbing to his repertoire.

In 2011, his passion for design and food led him to co-institute multi-award winning Maximal Concepts, a hospitality group that has created and managed over xx private brands.

An avid conservationist, Wood got involved in moving picture-making, co-producing the award-winning 2022 documentary A Plastic Ocean, which shone a light on the plastic pollution crunch, and which Sir David Attenborough hailed as "the most important film of our fourth dimension".

READ> Wildlife heroes: Why these National Geographic explorers risk all for love of nature

BRUSHES WITH DEATH

Six years ago, he took upwards paragliding.

"My mum says she doesn't want to know what I'm up to, or she'd go crazy from worrying. Every so frequently, she sends me newspaper articles of mountaineers falling off mountains, to remind me to be careful. My wife understands and supports my outdoor pursuits – she's Swiss and an even better climber than me! But since we accept a 16-yr-old daughter and a five-year-quondam son, it's better nosotros have divide adventure trips, in case anything happens," he said, thing-of-factly.

Surely, he must take had several close brushes with expiry?

"Oh yes. When I was pretty new to paragliding, my mentor was giving me instructions via my headset as I was mid-flight, about how to handle some tricky thermal currents. The wind was roaring in my ears, there was lots of static and interference; I thought I heard him say 'plow left', when he had actually said 'DON'T turn left'. A gust of wind caught my glider and slammed it against the side of the mountain, causing 1 of its wings to collapse shut. I gratis-fell well-nigh 300m and would accept died if the wing hadn't popped back open, merely before I striking the ground," he recounted.

In that location was also the fourth dimension when he was in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range with the film crew for the documentary The Last Glaciers (scheduled for release in 2020), which highlights how climate change might pose the greatest threat to our extinction.

"It was the last day of our expedition. We were at an elevation of 6,000m and had run out of food and supplies, and a huge hailstorm had started upward. We managed to return to base army camp and were incredibly lucky to have survived. But the manager nevertheless felt he needed a tandem shot with me to capture more aerial shots, and then the adjacent morning, we hiked back up to half-dozen,000m without supplies to jump off a cliff together, and landed at iv,500m."

"[In one case,] a gust of current of air caught my glider and slammed it against the side of the mountain, causing i of its wings to collapse shut. I free-fell about 300m and would accept died if the wing hadn't popped dorsum open, just before I hit the ground." – Malcolm Wood

HOW Extreme SPORTS IS A LOT Like Concern

Wood recently decided to combine all his extreme sports into a grand adventure termed "para-alpinism", which saw him and Dave Turner, one of the world'due south most accomplished climbers and paragliders, climbing several prominent peaks across different continents, before paragliding off them.

"In that location are only nigh l people in the earth involved in such an extreme cross-disciplinary sport. I'thousand not a crazy daredevil adrenaline junkie," he clarified.

"My wife understands and supports my outdoor pursuits – she'due south Swiss and an fifty-fifty ameliorate climber than me!" – Malcolm Wood

"I like the physical and mental challenge, how it forces you to exist really calm and focused. It's not about taking risks, just managing risk. It'south a lot similar business – you need to be a chief of your craft, accept proficient knowledge of what you're dealing with, to make a conscientious study of the situation, to calculate gamble, know what y'all can and can't control, how to stay prophylactic, know when to proceed, and when to walk away from danger. If you do information technology without protecting yourself properly, you're just crazy. Yous might make some mistakes, just don't make them twice," he said.

The brand ambassador for outdoor apparel brand Arc'teryx is also one of the poster boys of United nations Surround'south campaign Mountain Heroes, alongside other famous athletes such equally Canadian iceclimber Volition Gadd, Austrian cyclist Michael Strasser, Kenyan skier Sabrina Simader and adventurer Ben Fogle, helping to draw attention to emerging environmental bug in mountains including climate change, waste and biodiversity loss.

In add-on, Forest sits on the Board of Advisors for several organisations, such as the Skeena Wild Conservation Trust, which helps protect the habitats of British Columbia's wild salmon stock, and the Hong Kong Shark Foundation, which aims to get Asians to finish eating sharks fin. His eatery group is also the first in Hong Kong that advocates ethical sourcing, environmentally friendly practices, while aiming to exist 99 per cent plastic complimentary in its operations.

"Some people may think my passions for farthermost sports and conservation, are completely at odds with my being in the eating house business organisation, but I think it'southward perfectly logical for a nature- and nutrient-lover like myself to incorporate all these elements in my life. If you love food, you'll intendance about where information technology comes from. Why, say, a sure tomato tastes then different from another type of lycopersicon esculentum. And y'all'd want to spread the bulletin about promoting sustainable living and protecting Female parent World. Everything is linked; you tin can't take without giving back," he said.

"[Extreme sports is] a lot like business – you need to exist a master of your craft, take good knowledge of what you're dealing with, to make a careful study of the state of affairs, to calculate risk, know what yous can and tin't control, how to stay safe, know when to proceed, and when to walk abroad from danger." – Malcolm Wood

THE NEXT CHAPTER

"Funny thing is, I never went to film school, business school or culinary school, but hither I am, doing what I'm doing," Forest, who graduated with degrees in finance and financial police, mused.

"And since everything is linked, I believe in doing everything I want and need to practise, all at once. This morn, the other two company directors and I held a meeting while working out together in the gym," he shared.

"When I travel for work, I try to have my kids forth likewise, and attempt to arrange hiking trips before or afterwards my work. I wake up at 5am every morning to tackle my work emails, so by mid-morning, I can piece of work out for 2 hours. Because I have to practise so many food tastings, I eat i big meal a twenty-four hour period with lots of skilful food; merely when I'grand on expeditions, I'grand okay making exercise with really simple nutrient, or even no nutrient at all for days, after our supplies have run out," he said, with a shrug.

"When you're used to taking calculated risks in farthermost sports as well equally business, nothing really fazes or shocks you."

"Considering I accept to do so many food tastings, I eat one large meal a twenty-four hour period with lots of good food; simply when I'yard on expeditions, I'm okay making do with actually simple food, or fifty-fifty no nutrient at all for days, after our supplies have run out." – Malcolm Woods

And what are Woods's plans for 2022 and beyond?

"My next big outdoor take a chance would be to arise 8,000m without oxygen, sometime inside the next 18 months. High german mountaineer and North Face up athlete David Goettler is my mentor for this trip. I'm also planning to set a new world tape – but I can't say what for because it'due south however a clandestine!"

Besides in the pipeline is a documentary about the extent and impact of air pollution in Asia.

"It makes me uncomfortable that in Hong Kong, I have to check the air pollution index earlier I decide whether to let my son go outdoors to play. The air pollution is also pretty bad in India, and now, Australia, considering of the bushfires.

"We were recently interviewing a group of children anile four to 18, and were shocked to realise that lots of kids suffer from climate anxiety – they're worried about how they are going to survive in an uncertain world where there may not be clean water to potable, clean air to exhale, safe food to swallow.

"This documentary volition arm kids with solutions and teach them to exist agents of change. Parents want to exist heroes to their kids. If a child approached his parents to ask where in that location was so much plastic existence used in the household, or pointed out that the family could still eat well while consuming less meat, these can help in a push towards more sustainable lifestyles," he said.

"Some people may call back my passions for farthermost sports and conservation, are completely at odds with my being in the eating house business, but I remember it'south perfectly logical for a nature- and nutrient-lover like myself to incorporate all these elements in my life." – Malcolm Wood

READ> Looking back at the 2010s: How the luxury industry embraced sustainability

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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/people/malcolm-wood-mott-32-mbs-singapore-177201

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