Why do most western fights (e.g. wrestling, swordplay) seem like 2 bodies smooshing into eachother while eastern fighting (e.g. martial arts, fist fights) look compartmentalized and light?
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There is a lot of ignorance in this thread.
Asian martial arts look light and flashy because they’re either not tested or they are tested under rules that promote unrealistic attacks (I.E. Tae Kwon Do). Look at San Shou for an example of what Asian martial arts look like when they’re tested in competition: much different than all the untested forms of Kung Fu. And if you really want to see Asians smooshing each other, look up arts like Muay Thai and Lethwei.
For an example of the same watering-down happening to Western martial arts, look at pro-wrestling, which used to be a legitimate martial art called catch-wrestling. Pro-wrestling is no different than Wushu or any other martial art that doesn’t pit it’s practitioners against each other. These systems develop flashy looking techniques because they don’t need to be effective.
Western martial arts tend to be sports (which have never been mythologized by cinema) and so they resemble athletes attacking each other and do not possess any sort of mysticism.
Even boxing has changed: before gloves protected the fighters’ hands, matches used to possess much fewer head punches. Fighters used body punches and wrestling throws to wear down their opponents in order to achieve a knock out, which is easier against an exhausted opponent. Basically, the less rules a martial art has, the more they resemble each other.
TL;DR Every sport martial art looks like it does because of the rule set. Every non-sport martial art looks like it does because its practitioners never get tested and their training doesn’t need to be practical..
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