Fictional styles that have become popular in real life

[OneKickWonder]

Inspired by the thread about real life styles that are more popular in fiction, I thought I'd start the opposite and see what comes out.

I'll start.

Ninjutsu. It seems to be an actual thing now. But it (probably) wasn't always. From what I can gather, the term Ninjutsu is relatively new. Somewhat older is the term shinobi, which apparently doesn't describe a style at all but alludes to a long struggle or to endure. The term Ninjutsu started out meaning the art of invisibility, implying the art of camouflage, concealment or disguise, further implying covert operations. Nothing directly to do with fighting (although such people, if employed as some kind of special agent, would not doubt have some combat skill).

Even as recently as the 1980s when Hollywood fell in love with the idea of the ninja for a while, there were no (or few) schools that claimed to teach it. When Ninjutsu schools did start popping up, they were often mocked. In fact some still are. It doesn't help when you get guys like Ashida Kim writing ridiculous books and performing silly displays on YouTube.

The guys from history that we might now call ninja, no doubt had several styles of Japanese martial arts to their name. Perhaps kendo for weaponry and perhaps various of karate's predecessor arts for unarmed combat. In that respect I can see how a credible style could be developed. But it is exactly that. A style that has been developed, recently, rather than a genuine historical style.

[Himokiri Karate]

I am honored to be able to inspire.

To answer your question, I remember a martial arts that was freakishly rising in popularity until they were publicly challenged and defeated by BJJ fighters in mid-2000s. It was called the yellow bamboo.

It was based on no touch fighting and healing. They had branches in Indonesia, Cambodia and Bali.

I want to say they were less dragon ball and more Naruto because they were using chakra and visualization to gather chi. Now I understand chakra is a concept used by real life yogis but the mannerism of the yellow bamboo seemed extremely similar to Naruto series.

[Spodo Komodo]

Lightsaber fighting is very sought-after by hipster Jedi at the moment. Even my local gym has a few shinai covered in a UV fluorescent wrap for twirling around while executing kung-faux moves and generally being annoying.

[skullsplitter]

Lightsaber fighting is very sought-after by hipster Jedi at the moment. Even my local gym has a few shinai covered in a UV fluorescent wrap for twirling around while executing kung-faux moves and generally being annoying.

There's a Lightsaber Academy 2.5 hours from my town. They even had a tournament this year.

[Fat Cobra]

Here is a list:

Rex Kwon Do

Ameri Do Te

Dragonball Z