Re: You missed my point... -- Martial Arts Discussion Board

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Date Posted: 04:12:59 12/19/02 Thu
Author: OneDragons
Subject: Re: You missed my point...
In reply to: Goktimus Prime 's message, "You missed my point..." on 16:46:34 11/22/02 Fri

Hello to you all, this is my first message here so Im not sure how active everyone here is but I suppose I will find out in the comming times.

You describe the Chinese people as very poetic, you are probably right. Ahhhhh wait a minute you actually described them as describing things poetically

>I know that. The point I was making is that Chinese
>often name things after relatively arbitrary notions
>and are very poetic in the way they name things --
>hence why it is not always a wise idea to take
>traditional Chinese texts in a literal sense.

If an artist (doesnt matter of what) describes things in a poetic way, does it not hold that his/her thought process itself may also work in a poetic way? Would it not therefore hold that they may reason, criticise and create in an equally poetic way if that is "their way or personality". You come across as a very scientific person who reasons things by what you can see and prove in a rational manner- which is your way/personality. I would expect your kind of mentality to come up with the four sroke engine or the telescope for instance; whereas the previous personality would come up with the works of Divinchy, tapestry or 'cough' Kung Fu.

>I'm personally a skeptic about the stories of martial
>artists having mimiced animals to develop a fighting
>style. Why would anyone do that? We are,
>physiologically, unlike other animals. We are primates
>-- and the only primates to walk with a fully upright
>gait. For example, it is not physically possible for a
>human to ever fully fight like a Praying Mantis,
>because we don't walk on four limbs and our upper
>appendages do not hyperextend, nor do they contain
>multiple hooks that stab into the back of our prey.

You reason on a scientific and rationale basis, therefore cannot see why a person might want to learn to claw like a tiger or move like a snake or fly like a bird. But the naturall world has shaped us since the dawn of creation. If people did not dream of flying like birds then the dream of flight would never have been realised. No planes dont flap their wings but their wing shape and layout are very like a bird (for good reason).
So now cast your mind back before the age of reason, you have a problem with no idea how to solve it, their are no high rise buildings or cars. You look for inspiration in what is around you in ways you can understand, when you see a tiger take down a huge animal with a single stroke! Can you mimic this? Can you adapt it to work for a human? This kind of thought process is what led to the animal styles. The creastors did not want to fight "like a tiger" they simply took inspiration from that animal and gave them credit for it.

>Nor do most Mantis styles involve dragging the
>opponent towards ourselves and ripping them apart with
>our teeth (although I've heard that there is one
>obscure style of Mantis which does drag the opponent
>in and uses biting attacks at very close range).

I often use snake like movements to achieve armlocks on a resisting opponent, does this mean I wriggle on my belly and hiss - NO. You mimic and adapt what you learn (at least I hope you do), P.M. Kung Fu dont tend to chew on peoples heads as the heman mouth doesnt really allow for it too well, but the same principle works very well if the chew is replaced with a punch. Also humans dont have hooks on their arms but they do have fingers on their hands.

You are probably correct in some of the influences of Praying Mantis Kung Fu

>Contrary to popular myth, Praying Mantis was not
>developed by some dude staring at a mantid. Praying
>Mantis clearly contains moves from styles such as
>Changquan (Long Fist) and Bagua (Eight Trigrams) etc.
>- which is evidence suggesting that the Mantis style
>would have been derived from these forerunning styles;
>and by historical reckoning, some four hundred years
>ago in the Shandong Province. It was more likely then,
>that observers later took notes on the Praying Mantis
>Fist and poetically described the fighting style as
>resembling the way that a mantid fights with its uses
>of hopping and grappling.

The Monk who came up with Praying Mantis was already a highly trained martial artist, their were better but supposedly he wasnt bad. So his influences would have been from styles which were already in use hence their inclusion in the praying mantis style (PM was the last animal style developed in Shaolin). The point was that grabbing movements had not been used, so it is plausable that a monk who spends a lot of time in reflective moods could have been inspired by the grabbing movements of a mantid, which due to its revolutionary direction would have been a very excited discovery. There are different versions of the story which I have not gone in to but all generally agree with what I wrote above, are they literally true? Well maybe they are and maybe they arent, but it is perfectly concievable as so much of Chinese life and religion was linked so closely to their surrounding nature. You have to try to understand the mentality of those who developed something to understand their creation.

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Replies:

poetic comparisons -- Goktimus Prime, 15:26:47 12/20/02 Fri
- Re: poetic comparisons -- OneDragons, 18:31:30 12/20/02 Fri