Powerful fighters pretending to be weak: how hard was it, and who was best at it?

[Ken Cheng]

For various reasons (avoiding trouble, intel-gathering, infiltration, etc.), very powerful fighters in wuxia fiction occasionally need to pretend that they are weak or helpless, hiding their great power and skill. Several questions:

1. How difficult is it to accomplish this? Deceiving the layperson (non-martial artist) is relatively easy, because he/she doesn't know what to look for, and therefore, a general feigning of weakness/helplessness will probably be good enough to fool him/her. But seasoned wulin veterans can tell by looking at things such as the eyes, the way someone breathes, walks, and generally carries himself/herself. In such cases, can people such as the Greats or Kiu Fung successfully conceal their abilities from savvy wulin people, or would it be pretty much impossible?

2. What were some notable examples of powerful martial artists successfully concealing their abilities from other great martial artists? The Janitor Monk is the first to come to mind, but any others?

[tape]

The whole concealing your strength trope is always fun to read but is also quite unrealistic. These people have trained their strikes to such perfection that it's really hard to look weak without looking unnaturally so.

Like any top level athlete in their respective fields, if you ask them to hit, kick, shoot, etc a ball, they COULD miss badly on purpose, but it would be unnaturally so. The proper mechanics are ingrained in them so hard they'd make the perfect half movement then jerk the last part around on purpose. Or just flail wildly from the start that it looks like you're acting. They don't even know how to look like amateurs anymore.

[Western Eccentric]

1. We have Wuji at HSDS which occasionally "hide" his true power like common people..
2. At ROCH we see Jinlun not "consider" Yideng as a Greats until he taste the powerful blow of Yiyang Zhi

[Heromyst]

1 really good example of this was when Linghu Chong was roaming around dressed up as the general. The Hengshan nuns got ambushed by a bunch of Songshan lackeys and Linghu Chong tried to conceal his identify by fighting like a drunk idiot. He masked his sword moves with clumsiness but every strike seemed to hit a vital acupoint on the enemy and he just seemed like he was able to somehow repel them.

None of the Hengshan nuns other than the pack leader Ding Jing was able to recognize that the general was a high level martial artist. Even the stronger nuns thought he got lucky and randomly struck the correct acupoints.

[Western Eccentric]

Powerful fighters pretending to be weak: how hard was it, and who was best at it?
For various reasons (avoiding trouble, intel-gathering, infiltration, etc.), very powerful fighters in wuxia fiction occasionally need to pretend that they are weak or helpless, hiding their great power and skill. Several questions:

1. How difficult is it to accomplish this? Deceiving the layperson (non-martial artist) is relatively easy, because he/she doesn't know what to look for, and therefore, a general feigning of weakness/helplessness will probably be good enough to fool him/her. But seasoned wulin veterans can tell by looking at things such as the eyes, the way someone breathes, walks, and generally carries himself/herself. In such cases, can people such as the Greats or Kiu Fung successfully conceal their abilities from savvy wulin people, or would it be pretty much impossible?
....
We also have XZ at DGSD which "hide" his true skill when he come back to Shaolin and like Wuji I think it's likely due to their "non-fighter" nature but at ROCH we also seen YG "hide" his power when met Yideng in 1st time..

[a_tumiwa]

wow such a nice good thread

we have... (other than our friends mentioned above)
- Golden Granny Flower hid her true skill martial arts , to avoid being noticed by 3 persian emmisaries
- Huo Duo when disguise as He Shiwo, didnt use his real martial arts in beggar's gathering to fight Yelu Qi, even person as clever as huang rong failed to notice him, before Yang Guo gave some hints.
- the leader of Wudang sect in Flying Fox, being avoided to be target by Qing Government, he suppressed his internal energy , even Hu Fei thought his internal energy was so weak , before suprised to his real power nearly in the end of story
- shi potian were told to hide his true power by 2 island lords to avoid future trouble


i think its easier to hide external forces, than internal forces , and a person with wicked mind has a better chance of successful to do that, so kiu-fung (qiao feng, xiao feng) ... i dont think he could success

[Western Eccentric]

wow such a nice good thread

we have... (other than our friends mentioned above)
- Golden Granny Flower hid her true skill martial arts , to avoid being noticed by 3 persian emmisaries
- Huo Duo when disguise as He Shiwo, didnt use his real martial arts in beggar's gathering to fight Yelu Qi, even person as clever as huang rong failed to notice him, before Yang Guo gave some hints.
- the leader of Wudang sect in Flying Fox, being avoided to be target by Qing Government, he suppressed his internal energy , even Hu Fei thought his internal energy was so weak , before suprised to his real power nearly in the end of story
- shi potian were told to hide his true power by 2 island lords to avoid future trouble


i think its easier to hide external forces, than internal forces , and a person with wicked mind has a better chance of successful to do that, so kiu-fung (qiao feng, xiao feng) ... i dont think he could success

- GJ when he disfigure himself as a beggar/farmer at Chongyang Palace
- YG when he 1st met Lu Wushuang
- Wuji at Shaolin (before Lion Slaying Festival)
- YG when 1st met Yideng