On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 12:36:25PM -0800, David Silberstein <davids at kithrup.com> wrote: > On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Matthew Hunter wrote: > >On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 08:37:40AM -0800, David Silberstein > ><davids at kithrup.com> wrote: > >> And watching some of the many and varied styles, both with weapons and > >> unarmed, my impression is that the Chinese martial arts have a > >> tendency towards being much more swirly and flashy, with a lot more > >> motions that might be meant to distract the opponent (such as the > >> drunken style). > >> The Japanese styles, from what I could see, are usually more > >> direct and choppy, in contrast. > >That's a little odd; the Japanese came up with Aikido, > >Aiki-Jutsu, and probably more styles in the "extremely circular" > >category. Perhaps the selection of Japanese martial arts simply > >didn't include those as examples? > They did not, actually. > But I have seen Aikido, and I thought of it as a counterexample as I > typed that above. > > Perhaps I am not using the correct phrasing, though. Maybe I mean > that Chinese style is more elaborate and ornate, and Japanese is more > austere and simplified? I dunno. It was just a vague impression, > anyhow. That would fit the general pattern of Japanese/Chinese cultural interaction. The Japanese tend to "borrow" and "improve" the interesting stuff originally developed in China. They did this with their alphabet, IIRC, and some other cultural elements, including martial arts. Aikido is not an example of this pattern; it is too modern. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp