Quote:
Originally Posted by K
My opinion for why Eastern arts are exoticized is because in the East orders of fighting monks and nobles trained from the age of 6. By the time they were adult they had enough skill that horribly inefficient but nice looking moves were possible with a young adult body and decades of training. Think gymnastics for a Western comparison.
The West never developed the same kinds of arts because of the simple "gun/bow > fists/sword". Heck, the history of the crossbow is fascinating because it was outlawed for hundreds of years because peasants could learn it with little or no training and kill armored knights.
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The eastern martial arts weren't and aren't "horribly inefficient with nice looking moves". I can only speak for tai chi, because it's the only one I've tried myself, and it can be brutally effective, if the practitioner is taught to use it that way. In the week I had to learn it, I spent about as much time learning applications as I did learning the form.
In the west we had knights who were trained from childhood not only to fight, but to improve and keep up an impressive physical ability. Among other things, they practiced getting on and off a horse.
Speaking of gymnastics...
And finally, even if the papal ban was made, it didn't get enforced, and it certainly didn't last for hundreds of years.
I agree with your post otherwise: different martial arts mostly differ in the time and place they were developed. Styles' effectiveness should be situational. Unless it's hard to implement, in which case gameplay triumphs over theoretical realism.