Fictional Fighting Styles

Fictional combat has always been an intriguing subject to me, because you're allowed to stretch the rules of reality slightly to create a greater spectacle.

I haven't taken karate in some time, however, so I was hoping for some advice about the subject of fictional fighting styles from the perspective of real world martial artists (combat buff tropers, either way). Advice about my own ideas or just the general mechanics of fighting and the willing suspension of disbelief would be greatly appreciated.

I had an idea for a style today involving noisy bangles worn on the wrists and ankles- someone using this style would move and attack with multiple parts of their body at once to create feints- I guess it would fall into Confusion Fu with some Glass Cannon tendencies since you're trading stealth for the ability to confuse your opponent.

If anyone wants to share some of their ideas for fictional combat styles please feel free (either to give me perspective or to get some of their own advice), but please don't get into anything too fantastic; Elemental Powers and Psychics change the rules too much for what I'm after.

edited 15th May '12 8:34:21 PM by CleverPun

Attacking with multiple limbs (sometimes called "bursting") is a classic element of Wing Chun kung fu, and has been incorparted into Krav Maga.

Using noise-making weapons to intidimate or distract opponents has been done before in fiction; kender in Dragonlance twirled their hoopak staffs to create ear-splitting noise, and in Pathfinder, their rebooted Derro sometimes modify their weapons for the same reason.

There's precedent for both elements, if you want to combine them, I see no reason why not. Would it be an effective style in the real world? Maybe, maybe not. It probably wouldn't be too efficient, but if your character who practices it is just damn good, then he can use it to kick ass. Capoeira is often criticized for being flashy eye candy, but I've seen one video of a practitioner knocking out a kickboxer with the most ridiculous jumping roundhouse kick I've ever seen.

I'd also note that the bangles might have some usefulness of armor. Not to the extant that they'd stop a greataxe, but if your character hails from a region where long knives are popular weapon, they might deflect the blade.

edited 15th May '12 8:24:04 PM by SuperHeroineAddict

I've kinda-sorta touched on the idea of the development of specific styles of unarmed combat for powered armor or Mini-Mecha (if that's not a complete contradiction). They tend to draw heavily on jujutsu, which was developed for use between armored samurai, and focus heavily on attacking the joints of your opponent with combined lock and throw techniques. The joints are assumed to be the only part of the enemy's similar suit of power armor you can create enough force to damage without a weapon.

Against unarmored opponents...well there's a question of whether there's a point, but I've mentioned a technique ("freeflow") which is basically designed to train the wearer of such a thing out of throwing hard blows, because they're not really necessary; even a casual strike is likely to kill or maim, so you don't need to put as much effort into them and you can throw more.

I myself have put some thought into a martial arts style suitable for use in zero-g environments. As far as I can tell, Savate would be the strongest foundation for it; originally developed for use aboard sailing ships, it once included techniques of grabbing beams and rigging for extra leverage. Fighting in zero g would require similar methods, since you can't push against the ground to generate power.

I'm not sure how important grappling would be. There are some holds that would work fine when you and your opponent are floating, but all the takedowns you'd use to force your opponent into position to apply those holds depend on the both of you being ground bound.

Does anyone know if their are any systems that teach fighting while swimming; maybe something Se A Ls are taught? Underwater is the closest analog to free fall humans where humans have ever had a chance to kill each other.

Fair points- in basing an entire fighting style on this idea I may have overestimated its efficacy as a distraction, but I have an unused story idea where music permeates every facet of life (short version), so it's use may be justified there.

That brings to mind combat in regular armor- as I understand it knights in full plate focused on knocking down/tiring out the opponent, then poking a sword or dagger through their visor's opening or joints. The main conceit of powered armor is that it's easier to move in, so this isn't an exact correlation, but the helmet might still be a reasonable weak point to consider (boxing mebbe?). The powered armor in my stories also has a big backpack thing, and a combat style focused on getting behind or spinning around your foe might be interesting...

I think ambushing and the 3rd dimension would be most important in zero-g. If you're free floating or holding onto something for leverage, scanning your surroundings would be more difficult, depends heavily on the terrain though. See also this.

edited 16th May '12 12:50:31 AM by CleverPun

SEA Ls are taught aquatic combat, but fancy labelled names arnt big with the US military. Close Quarters Battle might dissolve into melee after all. But rather than say "I was tought select areas of boxing, jujitsu, wrestling, and knife fighting" it is easier to say "I was taught to fight"

The US army may have a name for their melee combat but it would still be just a mix of different styles.

Bull. "Linear infighting neural override engagement" uses the most Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness possible to say "knocking people the fuck out".

Yeah, I know, they don't practice LINE anymore, but holy crap, is that not hilarious? "Neural override engagement" literally has no other translation. Awesome.

Well, I personally have not had any training in any kind of proper fighting (which is unfortunate; one of these days I'll have to start karate or something). So usually I don't bother trying to pretend like my characters use proper forms, and I'm not so good at writing hand-to-hand combat anyhow.

Usually my characters use melee weapons of some kind, and have superpowers, so I just follow the principle of "well they fight with swords and their style is 'whatever looks good without being too outlandish.'" When I do have characters fight hand-to-hand, it's usually intended to signal desperation and/or anger, and so I usually just write it as exceptionally violent and visceral.

LINE was a backronym, probably. Somebody made it up. It went by "Semper Fu" in the Marine Corps for longer than it did that name.

Freefall is basically impossible without a weapon. You can't throw a punch and hit with much if any force. You might end up trying to go with strangles and locks entirely since otherwise you're as likely to render yourself defenseless as you are them.

And lastly, re: the armored thing, I sort of toyed a lot with secondary effects (if you ring the helmet like a bell that's going to cause problems for the person wearing it), but in the end I decided since I'm dealing with a relatively mature form of the stuff they'd have taken steps to protect it. Maybe in a first generation.

And some of it's Mini-Mecha rather than literal armor, so it's not as simple if there's a pilot rather than a wearer.

edited 16th May '12 7:12:46 PM by Night

Did not know that.

Sidenote: Oorah.

Depends on how far you want to go mostly.

Since this is "fiction", you can go anywhere from Dragon Ball Z to somewhat realistic martial arts documentaries.

But if you will write this, I request that you foccus on Killer Resolve.

There were several works out there about empires trainning their assassins in ways similar to today's modern soldiers in hand to hand but with more....realism.

Beginers would practice on bound prisoners that would be used to test out eye gouging, fingger dislocation and other extremely unpleasant techniques.

It only gets more brutal from there. But not in an arduous, physically demanding way (ripping out eyeballs isn't tiring). More on how much pain and suffering would you be willing to inflict on another human being with your own hand.

When you said "Bangles" and "Fighting Style" the first thing that came to mind was that tailor from Kung Fu Hustle.

x7 (?)

On armor, I once saw a video of a guy doing cartwheels in full medieval armor. Oh, here it is. Here

So it's not as cumbersome as one would think. Powered armor designed to help move more quickly with the person wearing it could be fairly impressive, I would think.

In my writings there is a space alien race called the Infranites. They are tall, silicon based, humanoids who tend to develop hard, stone-like growths from the elbow to the underedge of the hand and from the knee down the front of the shin. Relatively speaking, their wrists are not so strong. Their style - called Corpo Repo - looks a bit like a cross between Muay Thai and Aikido and maybe a bit of "stick forearms" thrown in. As weaponry developed, the emphasis was put on forearm and elbow strikes. Rifles don't mount bayonets but rather the warriors wear bracers with "arm razors" down the ulna to the elbow.

I just read the trope page for 'Martial Arts Don't Work That Way' and it makes me sort of guilty for preferring the action movie martial arts as opposed ot the real thing. I am not a fighter in real life so I wouldn't know all the details about what works or what doesn't but the guilt comes from how unrealistic those styles are. I know ultimately its fiction but can you really break buildings with your bare hands? Highly doubtful. But its Awesome and yet I feel guilty for prefering the flash.

edited 17th May '12 7:15:07 PM by GAP

@Natasel: Those are always amusing to me. There's a reason it approximates no real-world training technique, even back to antiquity. Sadists and sociopaths are not good assassins; not good soldiers. They're not controllable, do not take orders well, and tend to do things that result in both themselves and their victims lingering around awhile.

Quickness, efficiency, and reflexive reaction. You build that with less psychotic forms of drill.

My buddy said the exact same thing, but whereas the Iron Fist style focused on potent strikes, active defense and Counter Attacks, this style im proposing is more about feints and tricking your opponent into wasting their defensive efforts and attention

Any aspect of fiction stretches the truth, both to make things easier to understand and to make it more entertaining. Not to say I don't appreciate realism but as a reader it never really bothered me when it was absent, unless it was to a severe extreme :P

edited 17th May '12 11:04:37 PM by CleverPun

@ Night, well, yeah. Saddists and sociopaths would excel at this but that doesn't mean its bad.

Just like how Judo/Akido is supposedly for the more gentle/restrained, Brawling for the thugish, Capoera for the energetic/graceful etc., its possible that [[Insert Name of Fictional Fighting Style Here]] is just more suited for a certain kind of temperment.

I view it like surgery. It can be a place for a Knife Nut to thrive, a Cold Professional to show their dazzlingly quick skills or more.

It doesn't have to be Bad Powers, Bad People.

Deconstructing/destroying another human being bare handed is not easy for reasons beyond being a squeemish attacker. There's also skills and technique to do it properly/quickly/efficiently.

edited 18th May '12 5:23:14 AM by Natasel

Yes, but it's also rarely the best or quickest way to knock somebody out of the fight either. Like I said, brutality doesn't earn you much, particularly in a situation where you're armed.

It does not have to be brutality.

Mastery may be a better term.

Also, knowing about the body beats being an ignorant jack ass about the body.

Ever had someone try to "armbar" you the wrong way? Its just silly.

Well, if they're sadistic, wouldn't they be less likely to simply kill quickly, and more likely to drag it out for their own amusement?

Mastery is pretty simple and again easily acquired by less psychotic forms of drill. What you're proposing is simply unnecessary, in addition to being wasteful, bad PR, and likely to leave you with poor soldiers.

If that's what the situation calls for.

It would be equally bad if you need to drag it out instead of killing quickly.

(Believe it or not, "Good" Ancient Gladiators dragged out their fights like moder day wrestlers, the Showmanship was more important than a long list of quick kills. Getting replacement fighters was expensive.)

• Shrugs*

It was a HUGE Empire.

There were prisoners aplenty.

Sort of like USA today.

There must be hundreds of people in Gitmo alone that no one will miss.

A select few Tyke Bomb s can be trained with as few as 10 per year easy.

As for all the negative, I don't think its that bad.

Ancient Japan practiced killing convicted prisoners with katanas to test the blade. By extension, killing others by hand tests the person, a more important and fundamental basis for a fighting style.

edited 18th May '12 6:51:43 PM by Natasel

If the idea is to train professional soldiers, you want them to kill the enemy before they get killed. Dragging things out hardly helps in this scenario.

Unless some professional soldier cares to tell me otherwise.

*Shrugs*

In the case of a quick kill, then practice on a live target to test out your technique seems like a good idea.

Would be bad if your "One Hit Kill" Super Move just gives someone a bloody nose.

Soldiers, torturers, bodyguards, assassins, doctors, massues....

Pretty much any field where the aim is to to cause (or prevent) harm to a body.

edited 18th May '12 7:06:24 PM by Natasel

Except people generally survive the attentions of an amateur masseuse.