Why have "animal styles" developed in the East but not in the West?

Cos we are top of the food chain for a reason :p why imitate what we eat lol
 
In the west, we would have....

Black Bear Style
Moose Style
Caribou Style
Squirrel Style
Pigeon Style

Who needs that shit? However the natives did imitate sounds of animals when they fought.
 
Dr. Jones, Master of Gun Fu (said in Short Round's voice). on a separate note, i heard that Harrison Ford improvised that part because he was tired and didn't want to do another fight scene

 
DatCutman said:
I would rephrase OP's title to "why did animal styles develop in China and countries it influenced by not in the rest of the world?" After all, Karate, Mongolian Wrestling, and other fighting styles of Asian countries don't involve animal imitation (except for techniques specifically adopted from Chinese martial arts, i.e., crane beak fists, etc.). The short answer? Indigenous religious beliefs. The longer answer?

Actual "animal style" kung fu (and in fact, most kung fu styles) cannot reliably be traced back earlier than the late 1600/early 1700's period. Manuals and other books before then speak of weapon work, shaolin staff, sword work, and the like, but it was all weapon work (and at that, usually focused on martial practicality). The only empty handed indigenous martial art that predated weapons in China, as with most cultures, is a form of proto-wrestling (though it weirdly involved horned helmets). Later it would be called Shuai Jiao, though what we know of Shuai Jiao today is a weird !Not-Judo/!Not-Mongolian Wrestling. Pretty much every culture in the history of time has wrestled or grappled in addition to weapon work, but that's neither here nor there.

As with most cultures, as life became more peaceful and weapons became less common, empty handed forms of self-defense beyond grappling became more prevalent. Where China differs from the rest of the world is when it comes to its indigenous religious beliefs. Taoism (and the notion of immortality in general) can be attributed to the difference in fighting mindset between China and the rest of the world. The "Purple Coagulation Man of the Way" popularized the concept in writing, but it had probably been a regular occurrence for at least a few decades; internal alchemy, or movements that magically or supernaturally improved you in some form or manner, became a core concept in Chinese culture. It started as a fundamentally Taoist concept, but was stolen and adapted (almost word for word, to boot) for the Shaolin temple, and retroactively applied it 1300 years previously to Bodhidharma teaching it to the Shaolin Monks (which likely never happened). Chinese history is a tough slog because there is so much outright plagiarism, lying, backdating, and writing things under the name of another, you have to delicately tread.

So to summarize, the concept that certain specific movements, because of some magical nature, had inherent power in either making you live longer or healthier not only became normal but expected. If you set up a martial arts stall next to another guy, who not only said he could teach you to fight but ALSO TO BECOME IMMORTAL, in a time when the education of the average individual was non-existent, in a culture that valued immortality, what do you think would happen? It became a metaphorical and literal arms race, where martial arts had to go beyond simple physical fighting, and into the spiritual or supernatural realm to attract any practitioners. The Chinese religions not only praised deities such as the Taoist Immortals or Bodhidharma, but also had associated animals (dragons, tigers, etc.). You'll see these appear in folk religious practices such as Feng Shui and early Taoist tales (ingesting ground up Tiger penis was an accepted way to cultivate vitality until it was banned in 2014), but that a martial art could not only teach you to fight, make you healthy, AND imbue you with the spirit of a tiger would not be a stretch for those times. Hell, is it even a stretch for these times? Think about it. Even with all the access to modern technology and knowledge, people still buy Ashida Kim ninjutsu books.

What did the actual fighting look like? Well, it certainly didn't look like kung fu movies; it ended up looking like this:


A lot of challenge matches were "closed doors" for these purposes I'm sure. But for public fights they would tell you that these were just the basics, and that their true power was hidden, and that you could also become immortal, and as strong and fierce as a tiger or a crane or whatever. Then the cultural revolution happened, and most of these practices were stomped out by burning the books or killing the people; the ideas and concepts though remained and appeared in movies. Movie choreographers are by and large to blame for most of the Kung fu moveset marvels. If you look at the remaining manuals or books, most "styles" had very few techniques outside of cultivation; but once they had the idea of animal styles, their extremely creative minds went to work bringing them to life on movie sets. Jackie Chan talks about how he invented his Drunken Style for Drunken Master, or how he thought to not only mimic a snake head with his hand, but to fork his fingers like a Y to mimic the tongue, etc., but people don't pay attention to that. They think the Tiger Style in the movies is the same Tiger Style practiced pre-cultural revolution (which it wasn't), which was the same Tiger Style practiced in the forged books that claim to be from the dawn of time (which didn't exist).

In today's information age it's still hard to stamp out the concept. We all know what real fighting looks like, and yet some want to believe in movie magic. While the overall public in China is caring less and less about martial arts, there was an MMA fighter who was going around challenging "Masters" and beating the shit out of them, but then he had to withdraw from social media because of the backlash for trying to destroy "Chinese heritage." The same reason why Japanese MMA fighters beating up Aikido masters who claim to be stronk is bad taste.

All that said, I think the Kung fu craze is incredibly low here in the west (the more John Wick movies come out, the better), and is only going to go lower thanks to the UFC and availability of modern information. That and extinction of the types of movies that made Kung Fu so incredibly alluring. Hell, there's going to be a whole generation of children who won't have a clue who Bruce Lee was. Who knows what kind of zany fads they'll have, and whether they'll be as cool as saturday morning kung fu movies?
Click to expand...


Great post, very informative. The Boxers and the Boxer Rebellion are a good example of some of the supernatural claims and ideology, ie they can stop bullets with kung fu etc.

A lot of what we conceive of as "traditional" martial arts are relatively recent cultural phenomena that are backdated. I was surprised to learn recently that very very few Samurai ever used Katanas in battle. The weapons of choice were the yari spear and the naginata polearm, and bows on horseback. The "cult of the katana" developed in peace time after the wars, when close quarters fighting against unarmored opponents became more common (similarly to how rapiers developed in the west). The samurai, who were civil servants by this point, were allowed to carry katanas and it became a status symbol and then a mistaken icon of a lost time. Seems like a common thread in military/martial arts history.
 
Hotora86 said:
Gun Fu
/eot :p
Click to expand...
51K2WVH130L._SY445_.jpg
 
BobbyHillComedian said:
Great post, very informative. The Boxers and the Boxer Rebellion are a good example of some of the supernatural claims and ideology, ie they can stop bullets with kung fu etc.

A lot of what we conceive of as "traditional" martial arts are relatively recent cultural phenomena that are backdated. I was surprised to learn recently that very very few Samurai ever used Katanas in battle. The weapons of choice were the yari spear and the naginata polearm, and bows on horseback. The "cult of the katana" developed in peace time after the wars, when close quarters fighting against unarmored opponents became more common (similarly to how rapiers developed in the west). The samurai, who were civil servants by this point, were allowed to carry katanas and it became a status symbol and then a mistaken icon of a lost time. Seems like a common thread in military/martial arts history.
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That's sooo true. Shotokan Karate, which is often referred to as "traditional karate" (esp in ITKF) is a very modern twist on the real old-school Okinawan karate. Its long stances, lunge punches and one-touch kumite rules were introduced after WW2!
 
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BobbyHillComedian said:
The Boxers and the Boxer Rebellion are a good example of some of the supernatural claims and ideology, ie they can stop bullets with kung fu etc.
Click to expand...
I had no idea about this. Far out!

Btw, Legendary Weapons of China in one of my favourite martial arts movies easily and I vaguely remember Boxer Rebellion from school, but I’ve never realized that LWoC is a backdrop story to BR until now.
 
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The UK has many "Animal Styles"........

There are a whole branch of Chavy Northern Monkey styles......

Scally Scouser style
Dirty Manc style

List goes on.......
 
Magomedsharipov attempted a scorpion kick last night at the end of R1. He also tried it once of twice in his debut I think.

Btw, I bet Alexey Ignashov had a nasty scorpion kick after 500 grams of vodka or so.
 
Hotora86 said:
Could not find any obvious answers on the web. Perhaps my "Spider Style" is weak. :p

But seriously, why did the Chinese start imitating animals in a fight? And why did nobody else (in Europe, Americas) do the same?

Discuss!
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Why, they imitated the highest animal of all of course: Man.
 
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Bjj has spider guard and turtle guard, butterfly guard etc

Also funny technique names like cheap meth
 
cottagecheesefan said:
Because boxing has been around since forever. Once you learn to throw a punch properly, it is kind of pointless to look towards a bird or a cat for pointers on how to fight.

I mean, that's what I don't get about chop sticks. Didn't they realize how useful a pitch fork is, while they are farming? They aren't farming the land and digging holes with pool cues.
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I can't argue with you about boxing, but you just aren't good enough with chopsticks.
 
Normot said:
I can't argue with you about boxing, but you just aren't good enough with chopsticks.
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dude, even the most traditional Chinese and Koreans hold the bowl to their mouth and shovel it in with the chop sticks. Some food just doesnt have the bulk/consistency to be eaten with chop sticks, or like the last 10% of a rice bowl, etc. My fiance is Chinese and more than readily admits this.

The pool cue bit is actually a really old Jerry Seinfeld bit lol.
 
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