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

You can find similarities to animals in boxing, and wrestling I think.

Pull counter, and slipping punches reminds me of a cobra. Boxers wait for that precise, powerful strike.

Stand up clinch fighting which can be seen in wrestling reminds me of bears going at it.

I just don't think the way people fight in the west is as philosophical as it is in the east. Also, more industrialization, and factories being around could limit exposure to watching, and studying animals.
 
Also I guess I should point out that it's just the Chinese Shaolin Monks who started doing this, but it's not the rest of the East that does this (unless it was a spread style descended from or connected Chinese Shaolin). Not every kung fu style in China even is an animal style, not by a long shot. Most of their fighting styles are not animal related.

And to Spacetime, none of the animal styles are dominant in the East/Asia either, so your comment makes no sense. The reason I pointed out that there is an animal-named/inspired style in the West is because it pertains to the conversation-- the title (and question) of the thread. It has context. Your comment adds nothing to consider.
 
Someone please tell me, that Australian Aboriginals had Kangaroo Fist fighting style.
 
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?
 
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!
Click to expand...
Probably a bunch of old dudes baked out of their minds on opium when they saw some animals banging and decided thats how we should fight

On a related note, why is there drunken kung fu, but not different styles when it comes to other... "fun" stuff? We should have cocaine style, meth style, etc?

inb4
hobo shelter
 
I like to clinch, I must fight kangaroo style than.

Legend has it, this is how aussies developed muay thai.



serious question, given that kangaroos like to fight so much, I am wondering if aussies fight and gamble on them.
 
shincheckin said:
I like to clinch, I must fight kangaroo style than.

Legend has it, this is how aussies developed muay thai.



serious question, given that kangaroos like to fight so much, I am wondering if aussies fight and gamble on them.
Click to expand...


You must first master the high jumps before fighting the kangaroo style. Then you must master the drop kick to become the kangaroo, then you must meditate for 3 days straight focusing on your kangaroo spirit and then you will achieve the kangaroo style.
 
shincheckin said:
I like to clinch, I must fight kangaroo style than.

Legend has it, this is how aussies developed muay thai.



serious question, given that kangaroos like to fight so much, I am wondering if aussies fight and gamble on them.
Click to expand...


Also as you get further into it, with in 10 years of hard kangaroo training you will achieve ultra instinct kangaroo.
 
shincheckin said:
I like to clinch, I must fight kangaroo style than.

Legend has it, this is how aussies developed muay thai.



serious question, given that kangaroos like to fight so much, I am wondering if aussies fight and gamble on them.
Click to expand...

The bleeding hearts would have a fit. Kangaroos kick shit through pig dogs pretty regularly though. The old law was don't let your dog anywhere near a roo in the water, the roo encourages them in and drowns 'em. The cassowary is the undisputed king of the kickers though.
 
shincheckin said:
I like to clinch, I must fight kangaroo style than.

Legend has it, this is how aussies developed muay thai.



serious question, given that kangaroos like to fight so much, I am wondering if aussies fight and gamble on them.
Click to expand...

They are wallabies. real Roos are a lot bigger
 
My bosnian friend when we was mids had a nice Ostrich kick as we called it. Basicly the kick everyone uses nowadays with kick to lower shin. As i recall an albanian i knew also had the same kick lmao. European balkan style.

In norway we had the "hero style" very similar to drunken fist but your guard was different. Held your arm out and the right arm was like you was shooting up. Very flowy and explosive.
 
Animal styles evolved alongside none animal styles too like Bagua, Xingyi, Ving Tsun, Hung Gar, Tai chi. I want to know why did both happen at same time.
 
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...

Probably the best post by a whitebelt that I've ever read on Sherdog.

applause-gif.gif
 
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