Showing posts with label kung fu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kung fu. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Bookmark This Page; How fight culture became fighting game history
One of the first series I created for this blog was a look at the martial arts legends that inspired many of our favorite characters, and games. If you want to learn the ancient history of modern games then Bookmark This Page.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Revenge of the wooden men! (Originally posted on my Capcom-Unity blog)
You ever wonder where there weird fighting game characters come from? I don't mean the occasional pro wrestler or pop idol either, I mean the really weird, way out of left-field characters. Somebody like Mokujin from the Tekken series for example. The character first appeared in Tekken 3 back in 1997. Many thought that it was a wooden man post, a training tool used by kung-fu practitioners, that had sprung to life. It couldn't really talk and seemed to be a sort of comedic character that mimicked the moves of the entire Tekken cast.
The figure was actually based on the training dummies from the Shaolin Wooden Men. A movie from 1976 starring Jackie Chan. The wooden men were fictional sparring partners controlled by a series levers and pulleys in the Shaolin temple. In order for a person to be deemed a master they had to survive a gauntlet made up of these wooden men. When I was a little kid my brothers and I saw the film on kung-fu theater. It was a local show that would marathon different kung-fu movies. There was no doubt that my exposure to those movies was part of why I became attracted to fighting games in the first place. Anyhow I remembered that film for the special effects and rows of various wooden men.
Something that I always appreciated about the films was that no matter how cheesy they were it was easy to get carried away by the story. The special effects were all practical. They built sets for the films, used costumes and props to make things seem period-correct. When you're a kid you just accept the fact that somewhere in China there's a temple with wooden men like Mokujin training the kung-fu masters. You also accept that the best fighters could do all the impossible things you would see on tv.
There was something about the film that freaked me out though. In one scene Jackie grabbed the forearm of a wooden man and broke it open. There was nothing inside. I was sure that there would have been a Shaolin master in each costume doing the fighting. As I little kid I actually believed that the movie producers had actually rigged a few wooden men and were controlling them with chains and levers. Even better I believed that this technology was something that the Chinese had been sitting on for centuries. Sure it's an absurd thought but anything is possible if you are a kid. When I saw Mokujin many years later I wondered how many of the same films the Tekken developers had grown up with.
Of every martial arts fable I believed in growing up the only thing that was scarier than a wooden man run amok was a blind master of the Flying Guillotine. Again, that movie was probably the reason why I ended up loving Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. It was what prepared me for the ultimate battle between the various fighting arts. Anyhow in that movie a blind assassin was pretending to be a Shaolin monk while he was tracking down the one-armed boxer. He had amazing hearing for a blind man and could throw his flying guillotine with pinpoint accuracy. Near the end of the film he is trapped in a coffin shop. The hero throws rocks at the walls to confuse the assassin. The blind monk stands perfectly still and rotates his head 360 degrees while trying to figure out where his opponent is. Of every kung-fu film I had ever seen that was the scene that freaked me out the most. Producer / director / star Jimmy Wang Yu used the effect sparingly and right at the end of the movie for the biggest shock value. Even today I get creeped out by the thought of a free spinning head.
Were there any fantastic characters or impossible fighting techniques that you had seen as a kid that you genuinely thought were true? I'd like to hear about it. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
The figure was actually based on the training dummies from the Shaolin Wooden Men. A movie from 1976 starring Jackie Chan. The wooden men were fictional sparring partners controlled by a series levers and pulleys in the Shaolin temple. In order for a person to be deemed a master they had to survive a gauntlet made up of these wooden men. When I was a little kid my brothers and I saw the film on kung-fu theater. It was a local show that would marathon different kung-fu movies. There was no doubt that my exposure to those movies was part of why I became attracted to fighting games in the first place. Anyhow I remembered that film for the special effects and rows of various wooden men.
Something that I always appreciated about the films was that no matter how cheesy they were it was easy to get carried away by the story. The special effects were all practical. They built sets for the films, used costumes and props to make things seem period-correct. When you're a kid you just accept the fact that somewhere in China there's a temple with wooden men like Mokujin training the kung-fu masters. You also accept that the best fighters could do all the impossible things you would see on tv.
There was something about the film that freaked me out though. In one scene Jackie grabbed the forearm of a wooden man and broke it open. There was nothing inside. I was sure that there would have been a Shaolin master in each costume doing the fighting. As I little kid I actually believed that the movie producers had actually rigged a few wooden men and were controlling them with chains and levers. Even better I believed that this technology was something that the Chinese had been sitting on for centuries. Sure it's an absurd thought but anything is possible if you are a kid. When I saw Mokujin many years later I wondered how many of the same films the Tekken developers had grown up with.
Of every martial arts fable I believed in growing up the only thing that was scarier than a wooden man run amok was a blind master of the Flying Guillotine. Again, that movie was probably the reason why I ended up loving Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. It was what prepared me for the ultimate battle between the various fighting arts. Anyhow in that movie a blind assassin was pretending to be a Shaolin monk while he was tracking down the one-armed boxer. He had amazing hearing for a blind man and could throw his flying guillotine with pinpoint accuracy. Near the end of the film he is trapped in a coffin shop. The hero throws rocks at the walls to confuse the assassin. The blind monk stands perfectly still and rotates his head 360 degrees while trying to figure out where his opponent is. Of every kung-fu film I had ever seen that was the scene that freaked me out the most. Producer / director / star Jimmy Wang Yu used the effect sparingly and right at the end of the movie for the biggest shock value. Even today I get creeped out by the thought of a free spinning head.
Were there any fantastic characters or impossible fighting techniques that you had seen as a kid that you genuinely thought were true? I'd like to hear about it. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
How fight culture became fighting game history, part 31
The old Soviet Union had long and proud tradition of fighters, war heroes and genuine, old fashioned, tough guys. After the collapse of the Union and the rise of the independent Soviet States the Ukrainian Fedor Emelianenko carved his own legacy. Fedor studied under the formidable school of SAMBO. It was a fighting system that began in the '20s by the army to improve soldier hand-to-hand combat. SAMBO was an acronym for SAMooborona Bez Oruzhiya, or "self-defense without weapons" It was not the only commonly used word to denote a system with a unique meaning. Judo meant "the gentle way" and Aikido meant "the Way of Harmonious Spirit." The word Karate evolved from "Tang Hand" (as in Tang Dynasty 618 - 907 A.D.) or "Chinese Hand." Chinese traders and immigrants had been settling in Okinawa and the surrounding islands for centuries, they brought with them their fighting styles. The Japanese Ryukyu Kingdom began incorporating their lessons in the 14th century after they began their conquests of the islands and its inhabitants. Karate became to mean "Empty Hand" as in fighting without weapons.
The military application of Sambo made practitioners very dangerous. Crippling holds, bone breaking strikes and peak conditioning were the things that soldiers relied on to keep them alive when facing down an opponent without the aid of a weapon. Even in sparring the judo-like throws and constantly shifting wrestling positions could severely injure a person that did not focus on training. The more dangerous combat elements, things like neck locks and certain strikes, were taken away to develop Sport Sambo. By 1940 the Russian states had developed more or less a foundation for professional MMA competition, they had even tried to get it to be considered as an Olympic event. All of this happened more than a decade before Oyama began on his world tour, and well before Labell fought Savage in the USA's first MMA competition.
Fedor had established a natural acclimation for the system which mixed elements of grappling, striking and wrestling. He had a relentless dedication to training, working out in seclusion and surrounding himself only with trusted friends and family. Like Oyama before him, it was his focus and drive that allowed him to develop the iron will to reach the top. Fedor had already won several regional and national championships in Sambo before he began competing on the international stage of MMA competitions in Japan and the US. He, along with his brother Aleksander AKA the Grim Reaper seemed to come out of nowhere and dominate opponents through the new millennia, just like the Gracies had in the '90s. Of course there were no flukes in MMA. Kazushi Sakuraba made the most of his wrestling and catch abilities so too did Fedor exploit everything he had picked up in Sambo. He could adapt seamlessly between grapplers and strikers and try to finish off opponents with maximum efficiency. Long time fans of shoot-fighting, vale tudo and other global fighting competitions had known of the system for some time and were waiting for the Europeans to begin exporting their best fighters. Casual fans were intrigued by the techniques and began investigating its history.
By 2008 the legend of Fedor had been established. When Capcom was developing Street Fighter IV they wanted to include a fighter that represented the next generation of combatants. Instead of bringing back Alex they introduced a new character named Abel. His costume was very much like a traditional Sambo uniform of shorts and a Gi-like top. Although the character was French most fans saw the influence from the Ukranian master. Despite his size Abel was fast and agile, able to duck under many attacks and close the distance against his opponents in the blink of an eye. He was also tough and had a great diversity of strikes and grappling moves. Essentially the first Sambo fighter in the Street Fighter series. Many players in the US were eager to try out the character in early play tests. This surprised Producer Yoshinori Ono who had created the spy vixen Crimson Viper with the US audience in mind. He had underestimated the global appeal that fighter like Fedor commanded.
Sambo had been used to train thousands of soldiers in Russia by the time Helio Gracie was teaching his new form of Ju-jitsu to the people of Brazil. Almost twenty years later, when Helio fought Kimura, the sport version of Sambo had been exposed to million of Russians on television and arena battles. Fedor had not appeared out of thin air. He had inherited a culture that had been scientifically identifying the most effective moves from multiple arts and refining them for practical use in battle and on the street. Making interesting game characters and incorporating the Sambo style had been the challenge to the Japanese. Ad Abel demonstrated they were ready for the challenge.
Namco had introduced Sergei Dragunov into their Tekken series and Tecmo had put Bayman into Dead or Alive. By presenting them in military uniforms they wanted audiences to know that these fighters used Combat Sambo and not Sport Sambo as their fighting method. Of course Abel was also written as a soldier in SF canon and one of his alternate costumes had him in camouflage, but I digress. Not since the character Guile in Street Fighter II had another military character demanded as much respect from game players. The Eastern Block MMA fighters had finally arrived on the arcade scene. They would remain relevant so long as Sambo practitioners continued to show and prove on the global stage.
With Fedor achieving an Ali-like status the style would never fall out of favor. For those interested the cable television show the Human Weapon had a great feature on Sambo, its history and applications as both a military and fighting art. Even with the documented success of Fedor why was it that when people thought about what a martial arts master they almost immediately conjured up images of an elderly Asian with a long beards?
The undefeated streak reported by some masters of the martial arts was always subject to criticism. Some claimed to have hundreds of victories over their lifetime. Their criteria for a "fight" was always questionable. Did the masters include sparring or training sessions as an actual fight? What about street fights? Or did only sanctioned battles with witnesses and a judge count? If sparring matches counted then the best would have been able to claim thousands of victories without a single loss. The self-professed champion Rei Zulu said he had a record of almost 200 victories without a defeat before he was beaten by Rickson Gracie. Of course Rickson also claimed that the had won over 400 fights without a loss. Helio Gracie said that the number was inflated based on his opponents and "fight" qualifications. If Helio had counted his battles in the same way then he would have won a million encounters.
The introduction of film and video allowed new legends to be created, verified and ranked almost overnight. Fighters that had merit could be documented. Opponents could also now study techniques of their rivals, making the fights more interesting. Analysts could dissect every fight with slow motion replays and explain why the fighter deserved a championship. Film and video also allowed a number of so-called fighting masters to be debunked. Inflated numbers aside, there were masters that allegedly had super techniques that no previous mortal could ever possess. In ancient times these characters relied on word of mouth to spread the myth of their fighting prowess. Undoubtedly many a martial artist set out trying to track down these masters hopeful that they could learn their secrets. Thanks to video the absurdity of these "masters" could finally be exposed.
Take for example Yanagiryuken the Kiai Master. Allegedly he had compiled a record of 200 battles with 0 defeats. He was such a powerful fighter that he didn't even have to touch his opponents to throw them or knock them down. He proved this by recording his training sessions with his students. He seemed to have the same mythical powers exploited by videogame characters. Of course his students acted as accomplices and seemed to throw themselves around at the whim of their master. He challenged fighters of any style to compete against him, offering a $5,000 reward to the person that could beat his superior style. A young MMA practitioner accepted the challenge. After signing a contract and death release form he took the kiai master to task. He grabbed him by the sleeve and punched him in the face repeatedly until he dropped. Unfortunately nobody had gotten a chance to repeat the fight against Master Sasaki, the sage of Hida-shiki Kyouken-jutsu. According to his own legend he could disable or even kill a man with the sound of his voice.
Sadly these charlatans existed and duped a large number of people. In older times the false masters would be supported by word of mouth and other willing accomplices. Most people lacked the means to travel across the planet to seek them out so the legends stood at face value. Sadly in the day and age of instant access to media anywhere in the world there are still people tricking the public into believing that they have superhuman powers. Take for example the Qigong master projecting his chi and throwing several people with ease by touch alone. According to ancient philosophies chi is made up of positive and negative energy, like positive and negative energy currents, some practitioners of qigong can harness this energy and direct it to their hands and feet for stronger punches and kicks. It can also be used to increase physical toughness and heal wounds. Western science has tried to debunk or explain the force of chi for some time. Chi was the myth that spawned the creation of "fireball" attacks in fighting games. Unfortunately these modern masters had yet to perform their chi attacks on an actual randomly selected persons let alone real fighters in competition. Proof or not there was no denying the appeal of fabled martial arts master. Comics, movies and cartoons had carried the myth into modern times. Somewhere in the world there was an elderly man that held onto ancient secrets and was waiting for the right person to come along and train. This old fighter had moves and techniques that could beat any man regardless of age or strength.
The elderly master was turned into a videogame trope at the dawn of the fighting genre. Shun-Di from Virtua Fighter and Tung Fu Rue from the Fatal Fury series were two such icons. In the games the two were able to compete against brawlers, wrestlers and martial artists that were three times larger and a third their age. The difference between a character Oro and his Street Fighter III rivals was even more profound. Where else could a 140-year-old be able to beat up on seven-foot giants? There was actually an intersection between myth and legend however. Some of the best fighters that had ever lived could be held to a stalemate. It had happened to Bruce Lee early in his career. The fight against Wong Jack Man was not as interesting as the movie Dragon made it out to be. If anything Lee attacked for almost a half hour and never managed to knock down his opponent or even hospitalize him. There were no padded gloves or soft mats to prevent injuries either! The fighting styles and methods that Lee had been taught had failed him. Although he "won" the encounter if forced him to re-evaluate the old traditions and begin rewriting the book on unarmed combat.
Something similar had happened to Oyama according to legend. After he had defeated the best fighters he had come across in his travels through the US, Japan and Thailand he went to see about a legendary fighter in China. He discovered an elderly man teaching Taiji Chuan and asked if he were the "Mr. Chen" from legend. The older man said he was but Oyama was ashamed to ask for a sparring match. The older man offered first much to Oyama's surprise. The two squared off and Oyama was amazed at the efficiency at which the older fighter was able to deflect all of his strikes using small circular motions and footwork. After a few minutes Oyama realized that he could not land more than a glancing blow to the older fighter and conceded defeat. It was the first time in over 200 battles that he had ever done so. He cried, according to legend, not because he lost but because he had much more room to grow as a fighter. The elderly man invited him to stay and learn what he could. After a few weeks of training Oyama was capable of competing against the best students at the school. Oyama said in later interviews that Taiji was good for health but not a practical fighting art, only 1 in 10,000 people could ever achieve the understanding and ability that Mr. Chen had. The lesson he learned was that no system was perfect and the fighter must constantly be willing to learn and grow. Although Oyama was credited as an icon for karate he had actually learned a lot from boxing, judo, jujitsu, wrestling and kung-fu in all his travels. The same thing helped make Bruce Lee a well rounded fighter in later years and had been incorporated into the Sambo that Fedor had learned.
Perhaps the story of Oyama versus Mr. Chen was what spawned the myth of the elderly master that could humble even the most powerful fighter. People wanted to believe that there might still exist a master of the ancient arts and not one of the charlatans that had been putting on phony exhibitions like Sasaki and Yanagiryuken. Ever since that moment the all-powerful master had been a staple in movies, comics and now video games. People had been hoping that some day a real master might reveal himself at an MMA competition and take out a competitor half their age and twice their size. But that day would probably never come. Age robbed the speed, strength and reflexes of the best fighters. It had been proven with Fedor, Ali, Royce and Sakuraba. Even if there were a master out there chances are the bright lights and gaudy excesses of MMA "superstars" would be the antithesis of everything they had learned. They would surely shy away from the cameras or fame seekers.
Many fans were left believing in these mythical characters, too good to ever come down from the mountain, instead the best fighters had to go out and track them down. The stories of the mythical masters would be mixed in with the legends that actually walked the Earth. These stories would become more embellished as word of mouth spread the myth. Even with the advent of film, video and the internet the line between fact and fiction blurred. Whatever the case was the grappling arts had forever changed the way the world perceived fighters. The wrestlers that were once mocked for coming from a carnival lineage, for being "fake" or having no practical fighting ability had flipped the martial arts world on its head. The oldest techniques from the dawn of civilization were alive and well and helping shape 21st century fighters. Hopefully comics, cartoons, movies and video games would begin to expose the next generation to the classic traditions. If you'd like to learn more about Catch and the history of the art please check out Say Uncle! Please leave a question of comment about the series so far and I will try to get back to you. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
The military application of Sambo made practitioners very dangerous. Crippling holds, bone breaking strikes and peak conditioning were the things that soldiers relied on to keep them alive when facing down an opponent without the aid of a weapon. Even in sparring the judo-like throws and constantly shifting wrestling positions could severely injure a person that did not focus on training. The more dangerous combat elements, things like neck locks and certain strikes, were taken away to develop Sport Sambo. By 1940 the Russian states had developed more or less a foundation for professional MMA competition, they had even tried to get it to be considered as an Olympic event. All of this happened more than a decade before Oyama began on his world tour, and well before Labell fought Savage in the USA's first MMA competition.
Fedor had established a natural acclimation for the system which mixed elements of grappling, striking and wrestling. He had a relentless dedication to training, working out in seclusion and surrounding himself only with trusted friends and family. Like Oyama before him, it was his focus and drive that allowed him to develop the iron will to reach the top. Fedor had already won several regional and national championships in Sambo before he began competing on the international stage of MMA competitions in Japan and the US. He, along with his brother Aleksander AKA the Grim Reaper seemed to come out of nowhere and dominate opponents through the new millennia, just like the Gracies had in the '90s. Of course there were no flukes in MMA. Kazushi Sakuraba made the most of his wrestling and catch abilities so too did Fedor exploit everything he had picked up in Sambo. He could adapt seamlessly between grapplers and strikers and try to finish off opponents with maximum efficiency. Long time fans of shoot-fighting, vale tudo and other global fighting competitions had known of the system for some time and were waiting for the Europeans to begin exporting their best fighters. Casual fans were intrigued by the techniques and began investigating its history.
By 2008 the legend of Fedor had been established. When Capcom was developing Street Fighter IV they wanted to include a fighter that represented the next generation of combatants. Instead of bringing back Alex they introduced a new character named Abel. His costume was very much like a traditional Sambo uniform of shorts and a Gi-like top. Although the character was French most fans saw the influence from the Ukranian master. Despite his size Abel was fast and agile, able to duck under many attacks and close the distance against his opponents in the blink of an eye. He was also tough and had a great diversity of strikes and grappling moves. Essentially the first Sambo fighter in the Street Fighter series. Many players in the US were eager to try out the character in early play tests. This surprised Producer Yoshinori Ono who had created the spy vixen Crimson Viper with the US audience in mind. He had underestimated the global appeal that fighter like Fedor commanded.
Sambo had been used to train thousands of soldiers in Russia by the time Helio Gracie was teaching his new form of Ju-jitsu to the people of Brazil. Almost twenty years later, when Helio fought Kimura, the sport version of Sambo had been exposed to million of Russians on television and arena battles. Fedor had not appeared out of thin air. He had inherited a culture that had been scientifically identifying the most effective moves from multiple arts and refining them for practical use in battle and on the street. Making interesting game characters and incorporating the Sambo style had been the challenge to the Japanese. Ad Abel demonstrated they were ready for the challenge.
Namco had introduced Sergei Dragunov into their Tekken series and Tecmo had put Bayman into Dead or Alive. By presenting them in military uniforms they wanted audiences to know that these fighters used Combat Sambo and not Sport Sambo as their fighting method. Of course Abel was also written as a soldier in SF canon and one of his alternate costumes had him in camouflage, but I digress. Not since the character Guile in Street Fighter II had another military character demanded as much respect from game players. The Eastern Block MMA fighters had finally arrived on the arcade scene. They would remain relevant so long as Sambo practitioners continued to show and prove on the global stage.
With Fedor achieving an Ali-like status the style would never fall out of favor. For those interested the cable television show the Human Weapon had a great feature on Sambo, its history and applications as both a military and fighting art. Even with the documented success of Fedor why was it that when people thought about what a martial arts master they almost immediately conjured up images of an elderly Asian with a long beards?
The undefeated streak reported by some masters of the martial arts was always subject to criticism. Some claimed to have hundreds of victories over their lifetime. Their criteria for a "fight" was always questionable. Did the masters include sparring or training sessions as an actual fight? What about street fights? Or did only sanctioned battles with witnesses and a judge count? If sparring matches counted then the best would have been able to claim thousands of victories without a single loss. The self-professed champion Rei Zulu said he had a record of almost 200 victories without a defeat before he was beaten by Rickson Gracie. Of course Rickson also claimed that the had won over 400 fights without a loss. Helio Gracie said that the number was inflated based on his opponents and "fight" qualifications. If Helio had counted his battles in the same way then he would have won a million encounters.
The introduction of film and video allowed new legends to be created, verified and ranked almost overnight. Fighters that had merit could be documented. Opponents could also now study techniques of their rivals, making the fights more interesting. Analysts could dissect every fight with slow motion replays and explain why the fighter deserved a championship. Film and video also allowed a number of so-called fighting masters to be debunked. Inflated numbers aside, there were masters that allegedly had super techniques that no previous mortal could ever possess. In ancient times these characters relied on word of mouth to spread the myth of their fighting prowess. Undoubtedly many a martial artist set out trying to track down these masters hopeful that they could learn their secrets. Thanks to video the absurdity of these "masters" could finally be exposed.
Take for example Yanagiryuken the Kiai Master. Allegedly he had compiled a record of 200 battles with 0 defeats. He was such a powerful fighter that he didn't even have to touch his opponents to throw them or knock them down. He proved this by recording his training sessions with his students. He seemed to have the same mythical powers exploited by videogame characters. Of course his students acted as accomplices and seemed to throw themselves around at the whim of their master. He challenged fighters of any style to compete against him, offering a $5,000 reward to the person that could beat his superior style. A young MMA practitioner accepted the challenge. After signing a contract and death release form he took the kiai master to task. He grabbed him by the sleeve and punched him in the face repeatedly until he dropped. Unfortunately nobody had gotten a chance to repeat the fight against Master Sasaki, the sage of Hida-shiki Kyouken-jutsu. According to his own legend he could disable or even kill a man with the sound of his voice.
Sadly these charlatans existed and duped a large number of people. In older times the false masters would be supported by word of mouth and other willing accomplices. Most people lacked the means to travel across the planet to seek them out so the legends stood at face value. Sadly in the day and age of instant access to media anywhere in the world there are still people tricking the public into believing that they have superhuman powers. Take for example the Qigong master projecting his chi and throwing several people with ease by touch alone. According to ancient philosophies chi is made up of positive and negative energy, like positive and negative energy currents, some practitioners of qigong can harness this energy and direct it to their hands and feet for stronger punches and kicks. It can also be used to increase physical toughness and heal wounds. Western science has tried to debunk or explain the force of chi for some time. Chi was the myth that spawned the creation of "fireball" attacks in fighting games. Unfortunately these modern masters had yet to perform their chi attacks on an actual randomly selected persons let alone real fighters in competition. Proof or not there was no denying the appeal of fabled martial arts master. Comics, movies and cartoons had carried the myth into modern times. Somewhere in the world there was an elderly man that held onto ancient secrets and was waiting for the right person to come along and train. This old fighter had moves and techniques that could beat any man regardless of age or strength.
The elderly master was turned into a videogame trope at the dawn of the fighting genre. Shun-Di from Virtua Fighter and Tung Fu Rue from the Fatal Fury series were two such icons. In the games the two were able to compete against brawlers, wrestlers and martial artists that were three times larger and a third their age. The difference between a character Oro and his Street Fighter III rivals was even more profound. Where else could a 140-year-old be able to beat up on seven-foot giants? There was actually an intersection between myth and legend however. Some of the best fighters that had ever lived could be held to a stalemate. It had happened to Bruce Lee early in his career. The fight against Wong Jack Man was not as interesting as the movie Dragon made it out to be. If anything Lee attacked for almost a half hour and never managed to knock down his opponent or even hospitalize him. There were no padded gloves or soft mats to prevent injuries either! The fighting styles and methods that Lee had been taught had failed him. Although he "won" the encounter if forced him to re-evaluate the old traditions and begin rewriting the book on unarmed combat.
Something similar had happened to Oyama according to legend. After he had defeated the best fighters he had come across in his travels through the US, Japan and Thailand he went to see about a legendary fighter in China. He discovered an elderly man teaching Taiji Chuan and asked if he were the "Mr. Chen" from legend. The older man said he was but Oyama was ashamed to ask for a sparring match. The older man offered first much to Oyama's surprise. The two squared off and Oyama was amazed at the efficiency at which the older fighter was able to deflect all of his strikes using small circular motions and footwork. After a few minutes Oyama realized that he could not land more than a glancing blow to the older fighter and conceded defeat. It was the first time in over 200 battles that he had ever done so. He cried, according to legend, not because he lost but because he had much more room to grow as a fighter. The elderly man invited him to stay and learn what he could. After a few weeks of training Oyama was capable of competing against the best students at the school. Oyama said in later interviews that Taiji was good for health but not a practical fighting art, only 1 in 10,000 people could ever achieve the understanding and ability that Mr. Chen had. The lesson he learned was that no system was perfect and the fighter must constantly be willing to learn and grow. Although Oyama was credited as an icon for karate he had actually learned a lot from boxing, judo, jujitsu, wrestling and kung-fu in all his travels. The same thing helped make Bruce Lee a well rounded fighter in later years and had been incorporated into the Sambo that Fedor had learned.
Perhaps the story of Oyama versus Mr. Chen was what spawned the myth of the elderly master that could humble even the most powerful fighter. People wanted to believe that there might still exist a master of the ancient arts and not one of the charlatans that had been putting on phony exhibitions like Sasaki and Yanagiryuken. Ever since that moment the all-powerful master had been a staple in movies, comics and now video games. People had been hoping that some day a real master might reveal himself at an MMA competition and take out a competitor half their age and twice their size. But that day would probably never come. Age robbed the speed, strength and reflexes of the best fighters. It had been proven with Fedor, Ali, Royce and Sakuraba. Even if there were a master out there chances are the bright lights and gaudy excesses of MMA "superstars" would be the antithesis of everything they had learned. They would surely shy away from the cameras or fame seekers.
Many fans were left believing in these mythical characters, too good to ever come down from the mountain, instead the best fighters had to go out and track them down. The stories of the mythical masters would be mixed in with the legends that actually walked the Earth. These stories would become more embellished as word of mouth spread the myth. Even with the advent of film, video and the internet the line between fact and fiction blurred. Whatever the case was the grappling arts had forever changed the way the world perceived fighters. The wrestlers that were once mocked for coming from a carnival lineage, for being "fake" or having no practical fighting ability had flipped the martial arts world on its head. The oldest techniques from the dawn of civilization were alive and well and helping shape 21st century fighters. Hopefully comics, cartoons, movies and video games would begin to expose the next generation to the classic traditions. If you'd like to learn more about Catch and the history of the art please check out Say Uncle! Please leave a question of comment about the series so far and I will try to get back to you. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Monday, July 27, 2015
How fight culture became fighting game history, part 12
In every culture and in every story tradition a myth would sometimes be rooted in reality. It helped our ancestors cope with the unknown, the mysterious and bizarre. When it came to the martial arts the tradition of myth was supremely important. It helped turn local fighters into legends and military warlords into god-kings. Imagine how word of mouth helped create the fables of men that were able to break stones with a punch, were able to kick down trees and even run over water. The impossible was possible to a handful of people. It's secrets became highly sought after. As the martial arts spread throughout Asia the mythologies of each culture helped shape its evolution. The Buddhist monks of India and China were some of the strongest forces that helped shape the history of the martial arts. In the previous blogs I had mentioned how Kung-Fu travelled through China and reach the shores of Japan where it was adapted and transformed into Karate. But what happened to the art form as it went through South Asia? How did it differ from the other fighting arts? How did its founders become legend?
Something that contributed greatly to the development of the fighting arts in South and South East Asia was actually the terrain and weather. The further south in Asia had a much higher level of precipitation. During the monsoon season rainfall could be measured in meters rather than inches. Portions of Japan and China were well within the monsoon belt as well but the majority of the rainfall was concentrated over areas closer to the ocean, such as Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma). Of course the surrounding islands and peninsulas of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines were no strangers to wet climates. This heavy rainfall translated into lush vegetation, thick jungles and heavy forest canopies. Travelers had to be wary not only of wild animals but also of bandits that could be hiding at every step of a journey. This terrain also changed the way wars were fought and won. Larger armies from the North used to controlling massive areas of space with the aid of advanced long-range weaponry such as catapults and crossbows were at a loss in jungle settings. Due to the dense vegetation the wars in the South were fought in close quarters, man-to-man. The armies that combined practical close-range weapons with deadly martial arts training were all but guaranteed victory. The way men fought and trained in the martial arts in the South was much different than what Bodhidharma took with him into China. Heavy armor favored by Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese forces were too cumbersome to use or even wear in the hot tropics. Fighters had to be free to move, use the terrain to their advantage, and strike whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself. As Budhhism traveled through Bangladesh, into Myanmar and Thailand the fighting forms of the monks were dissected and portions were combined with native techniques. The hybrid of systems worked extremely well with stick, sword and shield fighting. Even without weapons the forms that grew from the tropic regions was deadly in its efficiency.
The art of "Eight Limbs" had a lineage that went back thousands of years. The bare hand fighting forms which made liberal use of elbows, knees and clutches were brutal. They were dangerous in the arena as they were in the battlefield. The form known as Muay Boran in ancient times was practiced by the personal bodyguards of the kings. It eventually went beyond the walls of the imperial palaces and changed into what the modern world now knows as Muay Thai. There were countless regional iterations of the striking arts, called Mai Mae, Luk Mai Muay Thai, Bokator, Kun Khmer and Pradal Serey. Each one could be identified for its many victories on the battlefields as well as in the fighting arenas.
Yet that was not the only offshoot fighting art that evolved in Asia. In Indonesia Pencak Silat, sometimes called Silat was a word used to represent the indigenous martial arts of over 800 styles from the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia. Betawi for example is an aggressive striking form whereas Cimande is focused on flowing combinations. The main forms originated in Sumatra and Java. Silat was used to defend the natives from Northern aggressors as well as from foreign invaders. It incorporated many unique stances, tight sweeping strikes and rapidly changing angles. These kept opponents off guard, baffled invaders and made sure that the Indonesians enjoyed their independence for centuries. The style, like those from the other coastal countries in Asia would not have worked while wearing armor or yielding heavy weapons. It was about being light and fast so swords were more like daggers and shields were light and portable. When the British, Dutch, French and other imperial armies began to colonize the port towns the Indonesians did their best to preserve the art form. The would-be conquerers from the West did their best to supplant the languages, temples and cultural icons of the Asians but this did nothing more than make them dig in deeper to preserve their heritage. As a result Silat not only survived into the modern era, its practitioners were still considered some of the most lethal fighters in the world. Pencak Silat, like Muay Thai was descended from combat, it was not a form for sport, exercise or self-improvement. It was meant to kill and thus retained its dangerous overtones.
Silat could not necessarily be considered one of martial arts directly influenced by the Buddhist monks traveling through Asia. Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation on Earth and has been for some time. The evolution of Silat was nonetheless influenced by traders and settlers from Northern regions. Kung-Fu developed striking arts that were inspired by the grace and beauty of nature however the fighting arts in South East Asia were inspired by centuries of bloody conflict. As such the fighters from South Asia gained a reputation for being dangerous combatants. The masters of kung-fu and karate could find a way of having a friendly sparring match, perhaps the first to drop an opponent or even the first to land a solid strike could be declared the winner. By contrast those that fought in Muay Thai tournaments were looking to break opponents. Blood was the measure of success, fighters would wrap their knuckles in cord and sometimes crushed glass so that they would be able to tear the flesh off opponents. Even modern matches have lost little of the lethality of ancient rules. Some strikes have been outlawed in organized competition but even without these strikes only the most dedicated fighters could hope to achieve a level of champion. For those that want to see what sort of brutal punishment the top fighters could unleash against each other take a look at the infamous "Elbow Fight" between Sakmongkol and Jongsanan at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. It was the fifth time that the two had fought each other. Round after round the two ate elbows like a kid eating candies at Halloween. Fans of this level of fighting could be considered sadistic while the fighters were clearly masochists. No amount of punishment could satiate either group. The spectacle of professional competitions and the legend of underground Muay Thai tournaments spread far and wide throughout Asia. Only the most foolhardy martial arts master would dare seek out these men in a fight. More "refined" cultures like those in China and Japan looked down on the barbaric combat from the South. This repulsion for the hyper-violent Southern eventually turned into legend. The only way that a master of the "modern" arts could prove their skill was to seek out new challengers, especially those from Thailand.
In cinema kung-fu had become a mainstay of fighting forms. Action films the world over relied on the classic Asian arts to make heroes appear unstoppable. Yet every decade there seemed to be an artist to come out of nowhere, using a different art and redefine how movie fight should look. Muay Thai rose to prominence on the heels of the film Ong Bak in 2003. In it director Prachya Pinkaw made a moderate-budget film that highlighted the fighting and stunt abilities of Tony Jaa. Tony became an overnight sensation in action film circles and created a buzz that was comparable to the early days of Jackie Chan and even Bruce Lee. Almost a decade later director Gareth Evans featured Silat through the skilled hands and feet of Iko Uwais, The Raid which was released in 2011 demonstrated how an art form at least a millennia old could amaze audiences that had grown up on expensive special effects.
The films of Tony and Iko were two examples of how the fighting arts were still integral to pop culture. This was not a new trend. In the late 19th and early 20th century pop culture would take the regional biases against different fighting forms and the stereotypes about their practitioners and turn them into fodder for stories, comics, movies and eventually video games.
It was not enough for a video game that the Muay Thai master was just an average person. As the final opponent in Street Fighter he had to become much more imposing figure and present a genuine challenge to audiences. The designers at Capcom made the one-eyed fighter into a seven-foot giant. He had a reach advantage, a strength advantage and used a fighting form that was considered more dangerous than karate. The name Sagat was based on Sagat Petchyindee, a Muay Thai fighter that dominated tournaments in the early '80s and undoubtedly made its way into the psyche of the Japanese developers. Although Sagat has always been illustrated as an incredibly muscular man in Street Fighter II he was much lankier. There was another Muay Thai legend that likely inspired this design. Dieselnoi Chor. Thanasukarn was 6' 2", possibly 6' 3" tall, and had a considerable reach and size advantage over most of his opponents. Although he was thin he packed a powerful knee, a "Sky Piercing Knee" according to legend. The character of Sagat was known for his knee strikes as well so it is entirely possible that Dieselnoi had a hand in influencing the developers on Street Fighter. Dieselnoi was such a formidable champion that after several years at the top he was forced into retirement when he could not find an opponent in his same class. Although to be fair Sagat Petchyindee was one of the few to ever defeat Dieselnoi.
There was something about Thailand that kept designers returning to the region. It was romanticized in comics, its location considered exotic and mysterious to the more industrialized nations in Asia. The inclusion of Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines presented the perfect backdrop for the Street Fighter game series and even the animated films and television shows. Adon, the cocky understudy of Sagat had stages built on the Chaopraya River. The temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were also used in the backgrounds for Adon's stages as well as the secretive location of the dictatorship Shadowlaw. The reclining Buddha of Wat Lokayasutharam, whose weathered features were awe-inspiring in real life looked fantastic when adapted to the game series.
Ryu was the star of Street Fighter and karate was presented as the ultimate fighting art but the genre would never have been the same without the inclusion of Muay Thai. This survey of the real world fighting forms will take a closer look at the Muay Thai heroes and villains from gaming in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Something that contributed greatly to the development of the fighting arts in South and South East Asia was actually the terrain and weather. The further south in Asia had a much higher level of precipitation. During the monsoon season rainfall could be measured in meters rather than inches. Portions of Japan and China were well within the monsoon belt as well but the majority of the rainfall was concentrated over areas closer to the ocean, such as Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma). Of course the surrounding islands and peninsulas of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines were no strangers to wet climates. This heavy rainfall translated into lush vegetation, thick jungles and heavy forest canopies. Travelers had to be wary not only of wild animals but also of bandits that could be hiding at every step of a journey. This terrain also changed the way wars were fought and won. Larger armies from the North used to controlling massive areas of space with the aid of advanced long-range weaponry such as catapults and crossbows were at a loss in jungle settings. Due to the dense vegetation the wars in the South were fought in close quarters, man-to-man. The armies that combined practical close-range weapons with deadly martial arts training were all but guaranteed victory. The way men fought and trained in the martial arts in the South was much different than what Bodhidharma took with him into China. Heavy armor favored by Chinese, Mongolian and Japanese forces were too cumbersome to use or even wear in the hot tropics. Fighters had to be free to move, use the terrain to their advantage, and strike whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself. As Budhhism traveled through Bangladesh, into Myanmar and Thailand the fighting forms of the monks were dissected and portions were combined with native techniques. The hybrid of systems worked extremely well with stick, sword and shield fighting. Even without weapons the forms that grew from the tropic regions was deadly in its efficiency.
The art of "Eight Limbs" had a lineage that went back thousands of years. The bare hand fighting forms which made liberal use of elbows, knees and clutches were brutal. They were dangerous in the arena as they were in the battlefield. The form known as Muay Boran in ancient times was practiced by the personal bodyguards of the kings. It eventually went beyond the walls of the imperial palaces and changed into what the modern world now knows as Muay Thai. There were countless regional iterations of the striking arts, called Mai Mae, Luk Mai Muay Thai, Bokator, Kun Khmer and Pradal Serey. Each one could be identified for its many victories on the battlefields as well as in the fighting arenas.
Yet that was not the only offshoot fighting art that evolved in Asia. In Indonesia Pencak Silat, sometimes called Silat was a word used to represent the indigenous martial arts of over 800 styles from the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia. Betawi for example is an aggressive striking form whereas Cimande is focused on flowing combinations. The main forms originated in Sumatra and Java. Silat was used to defend the natives from Northern aggressors as well as from foreign invaders. It incorporated many unique stances, tight sweeping strikes and rapidly changing angles. These kept opponents off guard, baffled invaders and made sure that the Indonesians enjoyed their independence for centuries. The style, like those from the other coastal countries in Asia would not have worked while wearing armor or yielding heavy weapons. It was about being light and fast so swords were more like daggers and shields were light and portable. When the British, Dutch, French and other imperial armies began to colonize the port towns the Indonesians did their best to preserve the art form. The would-be conquerers from the West did their best to supplant the languages, temples and cultural icons of the Asians but this did nothing more than make them dig in deeper to preserve their heritage. As a result Silat not only survived into the modern era, its practitioners were still considered some of the most lethal fighters in the world. Pencak Silat, like Muay Thai was descended from combat, it was not a form for sport, exercise or self-improvement. It was meant to kill and thus retained its dangerous overtones.
Silat could not necessarily be considered one of martial arts directly influenced by the Buddhist monks traveling through Asia. Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation on Earth and has been for some time. The evolution of Silat was nonetheless influenced by traders and settlers from Northern regions. Kung-Fu developed striking arts that were inspired by the grace and beauty of nature however the fighting arts in South East Asia were inspired by centuries of bloody conflict. As such the fighters from South Asia gained a reputation for being dangerous combatants. The masters of kung-fu and karate could find a way of having a friendly sparring match, perhaps the first to drop an opponent or even the first to land a solid strike could be declared the winner. By contrast those that fought in Muay Thai tournaments were looking to break opponents. Blood was the measure of success, fighters would wrap their knuckles in cord and sometimes crushed glass so that they would be able to tear the flesh off opponents. Even modern matches have lost little of the lethality of ancient rules. Some strikes have been outlawed in organized competition but even without these strikes only the most dedicated fighters could hope to achieve a level of champion. For those that want to see what sort of brutal punishment the top fighters could unleash against each other take a look at the infamous "Elbow Fight" between Sakmongkol and Jongsanan at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok. It was the fifth time that the two had fought each other. Round after round the two ate elbows like a kid eating candies at Halloween. Fans of this level of fighting could be considered sadistic while the fighters were clearly masochists. No amount of punishment could satiate either group. The spectacle of professional competitions and the legend of underground Muay Thai tournaments spread far and wide throughout Asia. Only the most foolhardy martial arts master would dare seek out these men in a fight. More "refined" cultures like those in China and Japan looked down on the barbaric combat from the South. This repulsion for the hyper-violent Southern eventually turned into legend. The only way that a master of the "modern" arts could prove their skill was to seek out new challengers, especially those from Thailand.
In cinema kung-fu had become a mainstay of fighting forms. Action films the world over relied on the classic Asian arts to make heroes appear unstoppable. Yet every decade there seemed to be an artist to come out of nowhere, using a different art and redefine how movie fight should look. Muay Thai rose to prominence on the heels of the film Ong Bak in 2003. In it director Prachya Pinkaw made a moderate-budget film that highlighted the fighting and stunt abilities of Tony Jaa. Tony became an overnight sensation in action film circles and created a buzz that was comparable to the early days of Jackie Chan and even Bruce Lee. Almost a decade later director Gareth Evans featured Silat through the skilled hands and feet of Iko Uwais, The Raid which was released in 2011 demonstrated how an art form at least a millennia old could amaze audiences that had grown up on expensive special effects.
The films of Tony and Iko were two examples of how the fighting arts were still integral to pop culture. This was not a new trend. In the late 19th and early 20th century pop culture would take the regional biases against different fighting forms and the stereotypes about their practitioners and turn them into fodder for stories, comics, movies and eventually video games.
It was not enough for a video game that the Muay Thai master was just an average person. As the final opponent in Street Fighter he had to become much more imposing figure and present a genuine challenge to audiences. The designers at Capcom made the one-eyed fighter into a seven-foot giant. He had a reach advantage, a strength advantage and used a fighting form that was considered more dangerous than karate. The name Sagat was based on Sagat Petchyindee, a Muay Thai fighter that dominated tournaments in the early '80s and undoubtedly made its way into the psyche of the Japanese developers. Although Sagat has always been illustrated as an incredibly muscular man in Street Fighter II he was much lankier. There was another Muay Thai legend that likely inspired this design. Dieselnoi Chor. Thanasukarn was 6' 2", possibly 6' 3" tall, and had a considerable reach and size advantage over most of his opponents. Although he was thin he packed a powerful knee, a "Sky Piercing Knee" according to legend. The character of Sagat was known for his knee strikes as well so it is entirely possible that Dieselnoi had a hand in influencing the developers on Street Fighter. Dieselnoi was such a formidable champion that after several years at the top he was forced into retirement when he could not find an opponent in his same class. Although to be fair Sagat Petchyindee was one of the few to ever defeat Dieselnoi.
There was something about Thailand that kept designers returning to the region. It was romanticized in comics, its location considered exotic and mysterious to the more industrialized nations in Asia. The inclusion of Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines presented the perfect backdrop for the Street Fighter game series and even the animated films and television shows. Adon, the cocky understudy of Sagat had stages built on the Chaopraya River. The temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom were also used in the backgrounds for Adon's stages as well as the secretive location of the dictatorship Shadowlaw. The reclining Buddha of Wat Lokayasutharam, whose weathered features were awe-inspiring in real life looked fantastic when adapted to the game series.
Ryu was the star of Street Fighter and karate was presented as the ultimate fighting art but the genre would never have been the same without the inclusion of Muay Thai. This survey of the real world fighting forms will take a closer look at the Muay Thai heroes and villains from gaming in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Monday, July 20, 2015
How fight culture became fighting game history, part 9
Ancient Chinese medicine was based around the principals of Chi (spelled qi) in a collective form known as Quigong. It was internal energy, sometimes considered life force. It was constantly flowing through everyone and everything. It was the philosophical concept that George Lucas had based "the Force" on in the Star Wars film series. The most obvious example was that qigong was used as the root for the name of Qui-gon Jin, the mentor of Obi-won Kenobi. It was best reflected when Yoda gave Luke Skywalker the famous speech about the force flowing through all things. Substitute the Force with chi and the philosophies were almost interchangeable. "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship."
In the Star Wars films the Jedi that used the dark side of the force (the Sith) could shoot electricity from their fingertips. In manga and manhua some characters could generate similar powers in the form of chi and direct them at enemies. The fireball in SF was one of the most famous of the chi-based strikes. The origin of the fireball was based on qigong practice. The word Fa Jin best described the ranged special attacks in Street Fighter. The word roughly translated to “release of energy,” or in western circles "explosive power." Fa meant strength while jin meant energy. An example from popular culture would be Bruce Lee's one inch punch. This punch originated with the wing chung style of boxing and was featured as a technique in the Kill Bill movie. Lee was able to generate tremendous power for the strike at close range using a combination of rotational mechanics with his wrist and torso as well as a concentrated use of chi.
The way that fa jin worked was a focus of particular hard and soft qi techniques. Muscles had to be loose, chi had to be concentrated, tendons had to be contracted and the skeleton extended simultaneously. This released physical force and chi energy as one. Bruce Lee had a very loose and fluid style, he never tensed up before delivering punches or kicks and as such delivered strikes with tremendous power. In the film Enter the Dragon Bruce Lee explained part of his philosophy. "A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself."
The best martial artists were able to fight almost instinctively. They could observe a fight objectively as it was happening and look for nuances in spacing and angles of attack while trusting in their techniques and letting the strikes flow automatically. Practitioners of fa jin had tremendous mental and physical strength in order to perform these strikes. The average person could spend years developing one successful fa jin strike. In the Street Fighter series the characters could perform many types in rapid succession, demonstrating that they were far more than regular martial artists. The movement of the hadoken, and many other fireball attacks in manga and animé derived from the core of a person's chi and exploded from within, they were examples of ranged fa jin. Ryu's hadoken, Chun-Li's kikoken and Guile's sonic boom attacks were all types of this explosive energy.
The physical core of a person, near the lower abdomen, was the center of gravity. In qigong it was also the spiritual core as well. The meridians constantly cycled energy through the body and circulated at the core. The upper half of the body was closest to heaven and was constantly striving to clear the mind from distractions and elevate the consciousness. The lower half was concerned with expelling energy and satisfying physical impulses or Earthly concerns. This constant exchange of energy circulated and found a balance in the core. In a martial arts the full release of a strike originated at the core of a person. The focus of breath came up through the diaphragm and was expelled in a short but powerful burst, the resulting expel of energy was accompanied by a yell. In karate this was a “kiai” literally a spirit yell or a spirit meeting. This focus on breathing, generating energy and striking at the same time was passed down from Chinese kung-fu and distilled into Japanese karate. The concept of a core of energy and vitality existed in several schools of martial arts, and not solely in Asia. Strength and power were drawn from the core and could be expelled as fa jin. Study the art and animations for Ken and Ryu's hadoken, the energy came from the core, was gathered in the palms and was drawn out before the characters struck.
This concept was exploited in the boss character Seth in Street Fighter IV. He had a literal yin and yang sphere where his abdomen should have been. This "Tanden Engine" was generating power for him and allowing him to absorb the attacks of his opponents as well as sending energy out.
Fa jin explained the philosophy behind the ranged attacks but visually they were inspired by manga and manhua stories. The attacks used in the martial arts had various naming conventions. The first blog of this series mentioned how early Shaolin Quan used metaphors for nature to describe techniques like "flood sweeping the land and floating like a feather." Other schools of martial arts also had developed similar naming conventions for the attacks. These names were popularized in films like Buddha's Fist and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. In fact a character from the Four Constables manhua named Yuxia Tie aka Iron Hands used the crouching tiger hidden dragon technique as one of his moves. Another one of his moves, the Temper Fire Burning Fist was more reminiscent of a fireball attack featured in Street Fighter.
Street Fighter was filled with moves that were either metaphors or literal translations describing the attack. Hadoken was made up of three Japanese words (HA, DO, KEN) that translated to punch wave fist. In the original Street Fighter the attack was presented as a golden ball of energy. In Street Fighter II the same attack appeared as a light blue ball of energy with two palms traveling within it. The hands were in the same pose that Ken and Ryu had struck when sending out the energy blast. This was very similar to how ranged strikes appeared in manhua stories. A fa jin slash, chop or punch was actually drawn as a force of energy with the same position of the hands. The manhua titles that featured this artistic stylization predated those of Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star.
The attacks of Kenshiro in Hokuto no Ken were not completely original either. The drawings featuring multiple hands in different poses were pulled from the Indic Mudra which were spiritual gestures featured in Hindu and Buddhist iconography. Each position of the hands and fingers in the mudra represented a state of consciousness. There were 108 poses in total. Whether the number had influenced the 108 heroes in the Water Margin or the 108 stars of destiny was not known.
Each of the punches delivered from the 100 Crack Fist of the North Star was drawn in different pose as well. These hand positions were not accidental but had been seen in earlier manhua stories. Hokuto no Ken featured a great deal of spiritual iconography based in Buddhism.
It was originally difficult to see the palms hidden in the fireball animation on the original SF II. The redrawn SFII HD sprites made it much easier to see how the attack was supposed to look.
The choice of color for the special attacks in the SF series was also done with forethought. The light blue color associated with Ryu's hadoken signified strength and purity. The attacks of other characters also had their own individual colors. In the previous blog I had mentioned how special moves in HNK had distinct colors and shapes as well. The more aggressive characters and fighting styles had moves that looked jagged, or appeared frightening like a ghastly specter, or elemental like fire and lightning. The good characters had attacks with smoother lines and softer colors.
Street Fighter enjoyed the use of fireballs with unique shapes and coloring schemes. The "Sonic Boom" from Guile rotated like a helicopter, which was appropriate for a military fighter pilot. The "Kikoken" of Chun-Li not only reflected her mastery of fa jin, but it also highlighted the grace and beauty of the character. Kung-fu was considered to have more superfluous moves than were actually required for fighting by the modern fighting schools. Styles like karate and muay thai focused heavily on direct strikes and maximum force whereas kung-fu seems caught up in preserving techniques and traditions even if the forms were redundant. This contrast and comparison to kung-fu might explain why Chun-Li's ranged attack was presented as a swirling multicolored force. It glided across the screen like a jellyfish. While beautiful to look at, it did not have the speed or range of the hadoken from Ken or Ryu.
In manhua stories these ranged attacks were constantly growing and evolving. Both good and evil characters were developing variations of their own techniques or even of stolen techniques.
In the Iron Marshal comic two of the main characters were pursuing ultimate forms of the Thunderbolt Techniques. Tienway Champ, the mentor of the Iron Marshal, stole these techniques from a maser named the Great Thor. When Tienway's dark chi was combined with the technique he was capable of forming Thunderbolt Blasts of evil energy, represented as a dark fireball. By comparison the Great Thor never stopped evolving his technique and formed a more powerful variation called the Thunder Wrath. This new blast was bright by comparison and could overpower the dark version.
In the SF series the characters had developed their own variations of striking moves as well. Ryu had a focus on more powerful hadoken strikes, in Super SF II his fireball attack had changed shape from palms-shaped to a glowing sphere of energy. In SF III Ryu's had several variations, one of his most powerful ones, the Denjin Hadoken had lightning effects added to the attack. A focus on the shoryuken (rising dragon punch) was put on Ken. These attacks began to be animated with fire effects and did more damage than a regular shoryuken. By SF III Ken had several variations of the move as well, including the Shoryu Reppa (rising dragon destroyer) and Shinryuken (divine dragon fist) to distinguish himself from Ryu. The use of effects like lightning and fire harkened back to the elemental inspirations of kung-fu. Qigong observed the elements as having chi and effecting the meridians of the body. If these forces could be tapped then the striking power could be stupendous.
The creator of the original Street Fighter, Takashi Nishiyama actually credits an animé series for inspiring these moves. Takashi stated in a 1UP interview "…the Hadouken was inspired by a Japanese anime called Space Battleship Yamato. In that, the battleship has a laser missile called Hadouho -- it collects energy and then blasts it into space, destroying the enemy. That that's where I got the idea for the Hadouken. The Shoryuken and Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku were original ideas -- I took martial arts moves and exaggerated them so they looked like special attacks."
The Space Battleship Yamato series was originally aired in 1974 and several remakes have appeared since. The battleship would gather cosmic energy like a martial artist would gather chi and then expel it in a brilliant flash of energy. The wonderful moves used in Street Fighter were pulled from the martial arts as well as things well outside of the culture. These influx of ideas and influences would continue shaping the world that the developers were growing up in. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
In the Star Wars films the Jedi that used the dark side of the force (the Sith) could shoot electricity from their fingertips. In manga and manhua some characters could generate similar powers in the form of chi and direct them at enemies. The fireball in SF was one of the most famous of the chi-based strikes. The origin of the fireball was based on qigong practice. The word Fa Jin best described the ranged special attacks in Street Fighter. The word roughly translated to “release of energy,” or in western circles "explosive power." Fa meant strength while jin meant energy. An example from popular culture would be Bruce Lee's one inch punch. This punch originated with the wing chung style of boxing and was featured as a technique in the Kill Bill movie. Lee was able to generate tremendous power for the strike at close range using a combination of rotational mechanics with his wrist and torso as well as a concentrated use of chi.
The way that fa jin worked was a focus of particular hard and soft qi techniques. Muscles had to be loose, chi had to be concentrated, tendons had to be contracted and the skeleton extended simultaneously. This released physical force and chi energy as one. Bruce Lee had a very loose and fluid style, he never tensed up before delivering punches or kicks and as such delivered strikes with tremendous power. In the film Enter the Dragon Bruce Lee explained part of his philosophy. "A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself."
The best martial artists were able to fight almost instinctively. They could observe a fight objectively as it was happening and look for nuances in spacing and angles of attack while trusting in their techniques and letting the strikes flow automatically. Practitioners of fa jin had tremendous mental and physical strength in order to perform these strikes. The average person could spend years developing one successful fa jin strike. In the Street Fighter series the characters could perform many types in rapid succession, demonstrating that they were far more than regular martial artists. The movement of the hadoken, and many other fireball attacks in manga and animé derived from the core of a person's chi and exploded from within, they were examples of ranged fa jin. Ryu's hadoken, Chun-Li's kikoken and Guile's sonic boom attacks were all types of this explosive energy.
The physical core of a person, near the lower abdomen, was the center of gravity. In qigong it was also the spiritual core as well. The meridians constantly cycled energy through the body and circulated at the core. The upper half of the body was closest to heaven and was constantly striving to clear the mind from distractions and elevate the consciousness. The lower half was concerned with expelling energy and satisfying physical impulses or Earthly concerns. This constant exchange of energy circulated and found a balance in the core. In a martial arts the full release of a strike originated at the core of a person. The focus of breath came up through the diaphragm and was expelled in a short but powerful burst, the resulting expel of energy was accompanied by a yell. In karate this was a “kiai” literally a spirit yell or a spirit meeting. This focus on breathing, generating energy and striking at the same time was passed down from Chinese kung-fu and distilled into Japanese karate. The concept of a core of energy and vitality existed in several schools of martial arts, and not solely in Asia. Strength and power were drawn from the core and could be expelled as fa jin. Study the art and animations for Ken and Ryu's hadoken, the energy came from the core, was gathered in the palms and was drawn out before the characters struck.
This concept was exploited in the boss character Seth in Street Fighter IV. He had a literal yin and yang sphere where his abdomen should have been. This "Tanden Engine" was generating power for him and allowing him to absorb the attacks of his opponents as well as sending energy out.
Fa jin explained the philosophy behind the ranged attacks but visually they were inspired by manga and manhua stories. The attacks used in the martial arts had various naming conventions. The first blog of this series mentioned how early Shaolin Quan used metaphors for nature to describe techniques like "flood sweeping the land and floating like a feather." Other schools of martial arts also had developed similar naming conventions for the attacks. These names were popularized in films like Buddha's Fist and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. In fact a character from the Four Constables manhua named Yuxia Tie aka Iron Hands used the crouching tiger hidden dragon technique as one of his moves. Another one of his moves, the Temper Fire Burning Fist was more reminiscent of a fireball attack featured in Street Fighter.
Street Fighter was filled with moves that were either metaphors or literal translations describing the attack. Hadoken was made up of three Japanese words (HA, DO, KEN) that translated to punch wave fist. In the original Street Fighter the attack was presented as a golden ball of energy. In Street Fighter II the same attack appeared as a light blue ball of energy with two palms traveling within it. The hands were in the same pose that Ken and Ryu had struck when sending out the energy blast. This was very similar to how ranged strikes appeared in manhua stories. A fa jin slash, chop or punch was actually drawn as a force of energy with the same position of the hands. The manhua titles that featured this artistic stylization predated those of Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star.
The attacks of Kenshiro in Hokuto no Ken were not completely original either. The drawings featuring multiple hands in different poses were pulled from the Indic Mudra which were spiritual gestures featured in Hindu and Buddhist iconography. Each position of the hands and fingers in the mudra represented a state of consciousness. There were 108 poses in total. Whether the number had influenced the 108 heroes in the Water Margin or the 108 stars of destiny was not known.
Each of the punches delivered from the 100 Crack Fist of the North Star was drawn in different pose as well. These hand positions were not accidental but had been seen in earlier manhua stories. Hokuto no Ken featured a great deal of spiritual iconography based in Buddhism.
It was originally difficult to see the palms hidden in the fireball animation on the original SF II. The redrawn SFII HD sprites made it much easier to see how the attack was supposed to look.
The choice of color for the special attacks in the SF series was also done with forethought. The light blue color associated with Ryu's hadoken signified strength and purity. The attacks of other characters also had their own individual colors. In the previous blog I had mentioned how special moves in HNK had distinct colors and shapes as well. The more aggressive characters and fighting styles had moves that looked jagged, or appeared frightening like a ghastly specter, or elemental like fire and lightning. The good characters had attacks with smoother lines and softer colors.
Street Fighter enjoyed the use of fireballs with unique shapes and coloring schemes. The "Sonic Boom" from Guile rotated like a helicopter, which was appropriate for a military fighter pilot. The "Kikoken" of Chun-Li not only reflected her mastery of fa jin, but it also highlighted the grace and beauty of the character. Kung-fu was considered to have more superfluous moves than were actually required for fighting by the modern fighting schools. Styles like karate and muay thai focused heavily on direct strikes and maximum force whereas kung-fu seems caught up in preserving techniques and traditions even if the forms were redundant. This contrast and comparison to kung-fu might explain why Chun-Li's ranged attack was presented as a swirling multicolored force. It glided across the screen like a jellyfish. While beautiful to look at, it did not have the speed or range of the hadoken from Ken or Ryu.
In manhua stories these ranged attacks were constantly growing and evolving. Both good and evil characters were developing variations of their own techniques or even of stolen techniques.
In the Iron Marshal comic two of the main characters were pursuing ultimate forms of the Thunderbolt Techniques. Tienway Champ, the mentor of the Iron Marshal, stole these techniques from a maser named the Great Thor. When Tienway's dark chi was combined with the technique he was capable of forming Thunderbolt Blasts of evil energy, represented as a dark fireball. By comparison the Great Thor never stopped evolving his technique and formed a more powerful variation called the Thunder Wrath. This new blast was bright by comparison and could overpower the dark version.
In the SF series the characters had developed their own variations of striking moves as well. Ryu had a focus on more powerful hadoken strikes, in Super SF II his fireball attack had changed shape from palms-shaped to a glowing sphere of energy. In SF III Ryu's had several variations, one of his most powerful ones, the Denjin Hadoken had lightning effects added to the attack. A focus on the shoryuken (rising dragon punch) was put on Ken. These attacks began to be animated with fire effects and did more damage than a regular shoryuken. By SF III Ken had several variations of the move as well, including the Shoryu Reppa (rising dragon destroyer) and Shinryuken (divine dragon fist) to distinguish himself from Ryu. The use of effects like lightning and fire harkened back to the elemental inspirations of kung-fu. Qigong observed the elements as having chi and effecting the meridians of the body. If these forces could be tapped then the striking power could be stupendous.
The creator of the original Street Fighter, Takashi Nishiyama actually credits an animé series for inspiring these moves. Takashi stated in a 1UP interview "…the Hadouken was inspired by a Japanese anime called Space Battleship Yamato. In that, the battleship has a laser missile called Hadouho -- it collects energy and then blasts it into space, destroying the enemy. That that's where I got the idea for the Hadouken. The Shoryuken and Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku were original ideas -- I took martial arts moves and exaggerated them so they looked like special attacks."
The Space Battleship Yamato series was originally aired in 1974 and several remakes have appeared since. The battleship would gather cosmic energy like a martial artist would gather chi and then expel it in a brilliant flash of energy. The wonderful moves used in Street Fighter were pulled from the martial arts as well as things well outside of the culture. These influx of ideas and influences would continue shaping the world that the developers were growing up in. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
Monday, July 6, 2015
How fight culture became fighting game history, part 3
Chun-Li started out like most Street Fighter characters as a basic concept. The game already had karate archetypes through Ken and Ryu. The developers at Capcom wanted to spread out the styles including pro wrestling, boxing and sumo wrestling through different characters and nationalities. It was a given that the Chinese character would represent kung-fu, especially since it was the cradle of the Asian martial arts. In order to make the character stand out it was decided that she would be a woman. There were no female characters in the 1987 release of the original Street Fighter. To be fair Konami had featured two Chinese female martial artists named Star and Fan in their 1985 arcade game Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Chun-Li differed in that she was the first playable female fighting game character and the only female in the lineup for the 1991 release of Street Fighter II. At first the design for the "China Daughter" was very simplistic. She was a young girl dressed in a traditional uniform.
The martial artists spread by Bodhidharma had survived persecution and strife for well over a thousand years within China. The arts continued on with the help of brave Buddhist monks and nuns. The mysterious fighting arts continued to shape the world even past the industrial revolution and well into the atomic age. In pop culture the Shaolin monks became legend. Some of the oldest schools of fighting were still around and continued to crank out disciples that could perform impossible feats of strength and endurance. In the next blog we will go further back in time and see how ancient Chinese spiritual beliefs intermingled with the martial arts traditions of Bodhidharma. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
The martial artists spread by Bodhidharma had survived persecution and strife for well over a thousand years within China. The arts continued on with the help of brave Buddhist monks and nuns. The mysterious fighting arts continued to shape the world even past the industrial revolution and well into the atomic age. In pop culture the Shaolin monks became legend. Some of the oldest schools of fighting were still around and continued to crank out disciples that could perform impossible feats of strength and endurance. In the next blog we will go further back in time and see how ancient Chinese spiritual beliefs intermingled with the martial arts traditions of Bodhidharma. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
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