Dan's Muay Thai! (crosspost)

[chubbyfingerz]

I don’t know how familiar some of you are with Dan’s story but it`s actually quite interesting. Essentially he had only the most basic Ansatsuken training under Gouken before being expelled and left on his own, at which point he decided to learn… muay thai. The very art used to kill his father, is the one he sought to master.

The interesting part is you might never realize it if you never read the character’s story or pay close attention to it, but once you do I think you’ll be amused by just how much of his arsenal is more closely related to that of the muay thai fighters ( Adon, Sagat) instead of the shoto gang that kicked him out ( Ryu, Ken, Gouken, Akuma, etc.)

As a Dan player and a sort of fan of the lore I felt like sharing with you these tidbits, though the unwary might even feel that they are easter eggs, of Dan’s moveset. These aren’t all of them, just the more obvious ones, but if you look you’ll find a bunch more.

After the image I’ll pop up with some explanations. Check it out!

**Dan’s Muay Thai! **

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/277/0u28.png

You will immediately notice that quite a few of the moves are actually reversed in order to make it a little less obvious. You might also notice that hand placement is slightly changed on some of them, to emphasize Dan’s karate influence. Nevertheless, it should be pretty clear. I’m not sure if it is a coincidence that Dan’s best moves are in fact, his Muay Thai moves while his karate ones are pretty much useless ( except for gut punch, pretty much).

Notice the dragon punch: the shotos will bend the leg directly under the punching arm, but Sagat will bend the opposite leg and have his body much more erect… just like, you said it: Dan! THAT AINT NO DRAGON PUNCH, THAT’S A GOD DAMN TIGER UPPERCUT

Dan kicks are quite obviously Tiger Knees, but had you noticed just how Dan’s st.mk was identical to Adon’s st.hk?

Dan even uses his elbow in the close lp, which is a muay thai staple.

http://img547.imageshack.us/img547/4036/reml.png

So there it is. Dan is a shitty shoto because he only had like a week’s worth of lessons… the rest is all muay thai and stubbornness!

[Texas]

Uh. Yes. Indeed. There’s a very clear that Saikyo-Ryu is a mix of Muai Thai and Karate. And as the lore goes, Dan only got a limited training from Gouken, which is quite naturally showed in his gameplay. The most obvious examples being the Shoto moves. It’s pure basic Character Design that follows the #1 rule. Show, don’t tell.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Dan copied Sagat’s moves. He doesn’t condemn a whole martial art for one incident(albeit a very terrible one). I think that it just shows that Dan is a tad smarter than what most give him credit for(still not that much more :P), and it’s often shown in his dialog that he’s quite knowledgeable about different martial arts. It’s shown again in his style.

Muai Thai and Karate isn’t the only martial art he implemented into Saikyo-Ryu. Compare Dan’s moves with Abel. There’s hints of MMA(Go was also a MMA/Muai Thai fighter btw, the lore is a bit confusing) with open hand strikes and poses. There’s even a small taste of Tai Chi.

Dan basically took his knowledge and concepts from his incomplete training of different martial arts and combined them to be Saikyo-Ryu. Muai Thai being his most proficient since that is the one he have the most training in. Adon and Sagat have similarities between their moves, even tho the uses between them are radically different, so it makes sense for Dan to have that too.

Again, it’s the #1 rule of Character Design(also why the majority of previous SF characters are better design wise than recent ones :P). Show, don’t tell.

EDIT: Yes, it’s mainly his incompetence why he’s so bad at these styles. How radically different it would be if he actually took a good look at his style and improved it instead of being so over confident all the time.

[Matchat]

Heh. I love little theme-talk in fighting games like this. Feels so lively. As an aspiring Muay Thai buff, I have showed some interest every now and then picking up Dan in addition to my more experienced Sagat. Hmm!!

[haney]

Not gonna lie this is pretty cool.