Jin Yong's inspirations for his martial arts creations

[david85]

I was watching a bruce lee documentary and it mentioned the philosophies of his jeet kun do martial arts aka the way of intercepting fists. They sounded very similar to DG9J which may indicate that Jin Yong might have gotten his inspiration from Bruce Lee in creating this martial art.

Also , he tend to create martial art of nature that matches his protagonist's character.

Like Dragon palm , straight to the face , simple no nonsense or flowery moves to straight forward people like xiao feng and guo jing.

DG9J to match LHC who is free spirited , not constrained to a set of social norms

Taiji ,9 yang and QKDNY for peace loving zhang wu ji , non aggressive , offensive set of martial arts.

Anyone has similar thoughts?

[PJ]

The Bruce Lee inspiration is possible. I am relying solely on Wikipedia, but it says XAJH was first published in 1969, while Jeet Kun Do originated in 1967, so the timeline seems possible.

It's also accepted that XJAH is JY's most Gu Long-like novel, with DG9J being described more like a Gu Long art and a departure from JY's previous style. So I think JY might have gotten some inspiration from GL too.

As for characters learning arts that match their personality, it's only sensible to do so. Just like in real life if you are an outgoing person, you probably won't enjoy sitting in a lab all day, and you probably won't excel if you are stuck with that.

[ToastedRossi]

Jin Yong's influences in his writing are fairly well known: they come primarily from other wuxia writers, followed by older Chinese literature and history, followed by his fascination with Western writers like Dumas. Film and actual martial arts probably don't factor much into Jin Yong's books.

In the specific case of State of Divinity and Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee came into prominence around 1967 or so, and State of Divinity had already started being serialized by then. It'd be too late for any of Bruce Lee's ideas to filter into Jin Yong's books until the Deer and the Cauldron. Besides, the formlessness of Dugu 9 Swords is only a small part of how it works; with the rest of it being an obvious fictional creation.