Dick Grayson: Martial Arts
So I’m finally getting around to writing this. The first question every single one of you should be asking is what makes me– a random person on the internet– qualified to talk about a fictional character’s expert martial arts abilities. Well, I am
>> A black belt in Northern Eagle Claw Kung Fu
>> A brown belt (2nd kyu /nikyu) in Aikido
I’ve also taken some Southern Shaolin Kung Fu, Taekwondo, and Karate.
The main styles I’m qualified to talk about are Eagle Claw Kung Fu and Aikido, which mainly comes from my years of practice. I’m not an instructor in any of these disciplines, and I’m only writing this for fun. This post might be helpful to people who role play Dick Grayson or to just develop headcanons in general. Hey, you might just be straight up interested in how this guy fights.
The fact is, comic books aren’t the best portrayal of how martial artists fight. Comic books are very flashy. They like splash pages, dramatic kicks and punches, and they like to have superheroes jump to the ground with cement-shattering landings that would devastate their knee joints. The irony here is that Dick’s core martial art style is canonically Aikido, and Aikido has a grand total of zero kicks. The only punches that this style uses are your standard initial strikes in order to practice the forms. Otherwise, this style is purely defensive. The philosophy of Aikido is basically to disarm your opponent with as little damage to them as possible. In Kung Fu, I was taught how to break people’s arms, rip out the trachea, and damage the ear drums (yay, fun), but in Aikido the idea is that you don’t want to physically harm your opponent more than necessary. Dick knows various martial art styles, so clearly he knows how to execute lethal and flawless kicks and punches too, but for now, let’s focus on Aikido since it’s his core style.
This is actually an awesome style for Dick for many reasons. Aikido is a martial art focused on using your opponent’s energy against them, and it’s a purely defensive style (there are no offensive maneuvers in this style besides your standard initial strike to practice movements). Dick started crime fighting when he was a kid. He couldn’t rely on physical strength to survive, and after growing up to be an adult, he’s still only about 175 pounds which means a majority of the big hitters in DCU can easily physically overpower him. I’m 115 pounds, and I can tell you that I drop guys who are twice my size all the time in Aikido. It doesn’t take much physical effort because this style relies on innate human weaknesses. The idea of Aikido is to learn a system of defensive maneuvers that can be applied to any attack that comes your way.
Someone punching you? No problem. The grabbed both your wrists? Please. Shirt collar? Ha, whatever. Grabbed from behind? Come on. Knife stab? Zzz. Samurai sword? – You mean the one that’s now in my hands?
This is a flexible martial art style, and it works without tiring you. When I took Kung fu, I needed a water break after twenty minutes because the workout was so intense. In Aikido I can go two and a half hours straight and not break a sweat. You rarely have to move more than a few feet to complete a technique, and it’s usually to move into your opponent’s blind spot in order to execute a technique that puts them on the floor. Don’t get me wrong, you can practice Aikido fast and hard and tire yourself out with a good workout– but you don’t have to. If you’re wise about your movements, you can save a lot of energy.
If Dick is as much of an expert in Aikido as comics say, then you can’t put your hand near this guy without ending up on your back in 0.2 seconds flat. You’ll be staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell just happened (been there, done that, trust me).
Dick Grayson can put anyone on the floor in a matter of seconds without throwing a single punch or kick. He basically just needs to stand there and bam, they’re down. So by this point you’re probably wondering how this style works as effectively as it does.
It works by blending your energy into your opponent’s and then using it against them. If someone punches Dick, he can side-step their arm, grab their wrist to yank them forward (i.e. off-balance them), and then twist the wrist back so that his opponent has no choice but to follow wherever he guides them– which in this case will be backwards (lifting their elbow over their shoulder to force them to land on their back).
This entire time, Dick barely has to move to execute it other than the initial side-step. It’s a fluid, eloquent and sophisticated style. The movements you do are so small (a simple twist of the wrist) that anyone watching this fight might go, “what the fuck just happened?”
Now, I am exaggerating a bit, but there is a fundamental truth here. The key is that we’re twisting someone’s wrist in a direction that it’s not supposed to go, forcing the human body to either follow the movement or break the joint. 10/10 times the body will involuntarily follow the movement.
For any of you who want a physical example of how this works in order to better understand it, I’ll try to offer a step-by-step example here. (Explaining things over the Internet is hard, I offer no guarantees.)
Hold your right hand in front of your face with the palm facing you.
Take your left hand and hold it behind your right hand.
Wrap the fingers of your left hand around the thumb joint of your right hand (this is the meaty part of your palm below your thumb).
Make sure the thumb of your left hand is pressing between the knuckles of the pinkie and ring finger of your right hand (or at least keep it in that general area, no worries).
Now press the entire thing down and to the side (there should only be one natural direction to go). If you extend your arm down, you’ll feel it even more. You can also bend your arm toward (and over) your shoulder to further understand the type of control someone would have over you in this position.
(If any of you had trouble following that, I don’t blame you. I still can’t figure out online origami instructions.)
If you managed this successfully, then you have an idea of why you don’t want someone holding your arm like this. If they start walking you in one direction, you’re going to follow them because it’s an unnatural position.
So that’s one basic wrist movement, and there are dozens of others. Like I said, this is a very flexible style. You can punch Dick Grayson and he can respond over a dozen different ways. One might put you on your back, he could straight up throw you, he can flip you, he can put you on your stomach with your arms behind your back in a painful lock, he can spin you in a fast circle and drop you.
We can see Dick and Tim doing something similar in New Teen Titans Vol 2 #60.
Pretty cool, right? When I spar with people, I tell them to grab me as hard as they can so I can practice with a genuine threat. The guy I was last sparring with was taller than me, weighed more, and was stronger. He was gripping both my wrists tightly (and I have tiny ass wrists), and that didn’t stop me from performing this move because Aikido doesn’t rely on physical strength. Once you move a limb a way it’s not supposed to go, it doesn’t really matter how strong you are; you’re under the control of whoever’s controlling that limb.
So hopefully that helps explain this style a bit more. It’s my favorite martial art so far, and I recommend it to anyone, especially women.
As for Dick’s other martial art styles, he knows Jeet-Kune-Do (created by Bruce Lee; it’s a direct style of combat considered ideal for street fighting), Capoeira (an acrobatic style that focuses on movement and evasion) and Eskrima (where Dick’s dual wielding sticks obviously come into play). He’s also been said to practice Muay Thai, Judo, Savate, Karate, Sambo, Ninjitsu, Wing Chun and Shaolin Kung Fu.
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