TCMA animals and the African connection?

I was at my part time job last night and this co worker next to me out of nowhere goes off and does three perfectly executed jumping kicks. I never would have guessed it of him, since he ummm, does not look like he exercises at all.

So I complimented him on his kicks and asked where did he or does he study and what? It turns out his uncle back in Philly is a long time practitioner of several TCMA traditions.

In the discussion, he then said "did you know that the animal influences came from studying African animals?" uhhhh, I diplomatically said that I would have thought that they came from the home region of China, being Chinese MA.

I thought the coconut breaking thing was dubious and it turned out to be legitimate, so I ask you all before I pass judgement on this statement, have any of you heard that before? Is there any validity to it?

The closest I know of that is that someone dreamed of lions for lion dancing and since, they ARE an African creature, they came out looking very phantastical looking because the dreamer really had no authentic idea of lions. But otherwise, I rather assumed all the animals in TCMA came were found in China.

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l could be wrong but in the far distant past there were animals similar to whats now only found in africa in most places in the world . plus the chinese as well as others in asia were traveling by ship to the americas and elsewhere . my ancestors were here hundreds of years before columbus got lost ( no offence ) to italians but its truth . in b.c we have the haida who have told me they are a mix of chinese, filipino , and who ever was here before they got here. ancient man wasnt as seditary as they used to teach so influenced by what they saw or heard about would influence how they discribed movement. also early martial artists fought for a living werent well educated and picked animals to describe movements because they couldnt comeup with a statement more sophisicated . here in north america there were horses that were only the size of a dogand so on. an example a tiger claw in different styles can be used quite different . in pak mei we dont form it like hung would and so on , but its still called tiger claw. didnt mean to write a book .

“	didnt mean to write a book .	”

I enjoyed your post.

My friend lived at a Chan monastary for 3 years. On one of my visits, we were checking out a statue of a Lion that guards the temple gates ( with another one on the other side, I believe ). Now, the thing about this Lion is, it doesn't look one bit like a Lion. It looks more like some kind of weird dragon / cheetah thing. My friend said, that the artists had to guess how it looked based off of other people's stories, because they couldn't go look at one in person. Maybe they just had really weird lions back in the day.

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Those were probably Fu Dogs, they are used as guardians, watchers, protectors and to ward off evil spirits, they are not lions though they do resemble them in appearance.

I think Old Guy nailed this on the head with his post.

Mei Hua. I remember the lion/dragon/Fu Dog/thing had it's paw on something. I can't remember what that was. Do you know what I mean, and what it represents ? Just curious.

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"To alcohol ! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

I know one was a Globe of the Earth, forgot what that represented though, sorry.


Edit: Thinking about it, it probably means it is celestial or all watching, something of that nature....

No prob.

Yes, the one was a globe ( the one I forgot ). But the other one has some kind of creature under it's claw.

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"To alcohol ! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

Here we go, described about them and what they have in their paws

Chinese Foo Dogs

thats interesting about the fu dogs . l used to own a kennel raising champion american ****er spaniels, a freind raised chows . his story was that they represented chows as they were used as guardians of homes ect. if you look at a chow thats a purebred they do resemble a fu dog in a way. or maybe its just chow breeders way of marketing there dogs lol.

It's maybe time again to tell the people STILL argueing that animal styles came from watching animals to STFU. It's impossible to tell whether one or the other idea was inspired from watching animals going at it, but the practice for sure was not. Lions and tigers doing jumping kicks anyone ?

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“	his story was that they represented chows as they were used as guardians of homes ect. if you look at a chow thats a purebred they do resemble a fu dog in a way. or maybe its just chow breeders way of marketing there dogs lol.	”

At the temple my friend was at ( Chan temple here in SA ). They often took in stray dogs and raised them. They were mostly kept inside certain areas, because as a pack they are quite intimidating to visitors, and have a general dislike for people not in monk clothing ( and only understand Chinese ).

But they have one dog, a Chow, that is given free rights to wander wherever it pleases. It often busts into meditation sessions and licks people etc. But they consider it a good luck dog and a guardian at the temple. Cool dog, though if you don't speak to it in Chinese, it just looks at you like you are an idiot.

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"To alcohol ! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

“	The male plays with a ball that symbolizes the Earth, while the female holds a cub.	”

Thanks Mei.

Nik,

I agree. But, I think what the masters were doing with regards to animals, was trying to disect, experiment and understand, why certain creatures had certain superior attributes to others. They also realised the value in something like harnessing the ferocity of a Tiger. Not trying to replicate the body mechanics of a tiger, but the intensity of the "hunter" mentality. Though, something like a Tiger Claw, I would guess that was named after the fact because of what oldguy was saying earlier.

A Taoist art like Taijiquan, with a general affinity towards nature, benefits from these "comparisons".

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"To alcohol ! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson

From a purely ecological prospective

Snakes you get everywhere (except Ireland).

People tend to use Panther and leopard interchangeably although technically panthers are from the new world while leopards are from Africa and Asia.

There are both African and Asian lions. The last Asian lions can be found in India off the top of my head I don’t think the Asian lion spread as far as china but it might have been possible.

The crane can be found across the world.

Elephant both African and Asian.

Rhino both African and Asian (defiantly India and down to Indonesia.)

Dragons – not sure if Africans have any dragon myths but the do have crocs as do the Chinese.

However (of the top of my head again but I am reasonably certain) THERE HAVE BEEN NO TIGERS IN AFRICA IN RECORDED HISTORY.

fossil records show the last tigers were about one million years ago sabre tooth tigers in africa . during early hominids

Nice posts