Understanding the definition of the direct sum of subspaces of a vector space

The definition is saying that any vector $v \in V$ can be written as $v = w_1 + w_2$ where $w_1 \in W_1$ and $w_2 \in W_2$ (this is the condition $W_1 + W_2 = V$), and this decomposition is unique (this follows from the condition $W_1\cap W_2 = \{0\}$). You don't need to take linear combinations.