TORONTO, ON – A new study from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Martial Arts Research is suggesting that the long-held belief that mantis style kung fu was learned from watching actual mantis moves may in fact be apocryphal, as all the insect test subject involved appear unable to fight for shit.
“Our experiment consisted of a few quick matches between various species of mantis and human volunteers,” said lead researcher Martina Leung. “The result was almost all of the mantises suffering fatal injuries regardless of their opponents skill level.”
“Kind of makes me wonder if we really needed the humans to sign all those waivers.”
Additional testing in the study is indicating that, in addition to not knowing kung fu, mantises lack any skill in martial arts at all. “We found that your average praying mantis can’t focus their chi well enough to break even a single tile. At this point, I’d have to say Cockroach with Nothing to Lose style is a more viable martial art form than mantis style.”
Leung plans to expand on her research with related studies about the plausibility of other animal-themed martial arts. “So far monkey and crane style techniques seem doubtful, but tiger and bear are holding right up.”
At press time, mantis style experts were currently reorganizing the art to be more scientifically accurate. The revised version mainly revolves around marrying one’s opponent and then biting their heads off.
