# Rat Style Wushu



## theAfanc (Aug 29, 2014)

So, this may be an odd thing, but I'm gonna go for it!

I train wushu, which is a performances based Chinese martial art; ever see Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee films? What about Kill Bill or The Matrix? Well when the characters are doing kung fu, the actors are doing wushu.

Ok, so there are many animals styles, the common ones are leopard, crane, snake, tiger, dragon and mantis. There are more exotic styles like frog, bear, elephant and yup-you guessed it!- rat!!

My original interest in living with rats was to study their behavior to help be develop my Rat Wushu. Well, by the time I eventually got them, there were many more reasons then just that.

So why am I telling you all this and why in this forum? Well, I was hoping all of you could share with me so e key behaviors and characteristics you've noticed in your ratpals. Videos would be awesome to, particularly of them playing or tussling together!


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I had a part wild rat that tore up a special forces soldier back from Iraq and wild cats and lived with pitbulls... So if you really want to learn rat kung fu... here are the secrets of being a killer rat...
First be absolutely silent and move in the shadows, watch your opponents eyes and act when he looks away or blinks.....

Leave no trace of your presence, so no one can learn your behavior from observing you... touch nothing and move nothing...

Never demonstrate your skills, only act when you need to so everyone is always surprised at what you can do...

Fight for impact... a rat can't kill a delta forces soldier, but she can rip his hand apart, that's good enough to be let go and to escape... and when she fought she always went for the face of another animal and she always attacked until the other animal backed off and she could get away safely... It wasn't her size that won fights it was her focus and ferocity. 

Make yourself perfectly clear and only do it once... When it came to fighting for dominance our other rat bit our wild rat in the butt, she turned around and grabbed that rat by the trachea leaving two bite marks in our other rats neck, then she let go and didn't kill her roommate, but the rats never fought again. One fight.. lesson taught and learned... Basically, I don't play, I don't fight, but I can and will kill you. She loved peace and harmony, even if it meant making everything around her respect her out of sheer terror. She never picked fights, ever.. but if she was challenged she didn't lose fights either.... no rules.

And camouflage... our part wild rat slept with pit bulls so she smelled like a pitbull, most animals stayed clear of her because they thought there was a pitbull close by not a small rat... And when she moved back indoors with she would roll in anything smelly to cover her scent or smell more like a human.

I once got that rat angry and she flew into a ball of fangs and claws... it wasn't a mistake I made twice... she was a very fine animal and usually very peaceful and loving, but when it came to fighting she was a stone cold killer.. and if she couldn't kill something she made sure that every other creature clearly understood that she wasn't worth messing with... Feral cats stayed off our property when she was outdoors. Through deception and fierce attack it was clear to them it wasn't worth messing with a rat...

Now our back yard opossum is different when it comes to cats... it plays dead until they are close enough then it just rips them apart, but it is bigger and has more teeth behind it's bite.

I hope that helps.


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## theAfanc (Aug 29, 2014)

Wow, thank you so much!


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Rat combat is all about being stealthy, and smart... and taking advantage of it's small size then striking fiercely for maximum impact... as in shock and awe... No a rat can't kill a cat, but it can really bloody it's face or paws... A predator is looking for an easy meal not a ripped up face or a scratched out eyeball. And by the way, when our part wild rat was playfighting with me as a pup, she would leap right at my face from my desk and lay mock bites all over my nose... even when she was just playing and learning how to fight she went right for the sensitive spots, and she could jump over two feet easily... And once she started mock biting she didn't stop until I swatted her off, She could lay a half dozen mock bites on my face in a split second... Because it was such a shock you just don't know how to react... It always surprised me she never drew blood during play, even going after sensitive tissue, but for sure the ferocity of her attack was going to make anything even 100 times her size back off and regroup which would give her plenty of time to escape.

Oh I forgot to mention that she dug a hole into the underside of every piece of furniture in our home so she always had a safe escape route within feet of where she was... One second she was there and then a split second later she was gone.. it wasn't until after she died that we found all of her escape and hiding places... so rats craft terrain to their advantage too.

I'm no kung fu expert, but it was all about being small and fast and smart. In general it was about being absolutely invisible or deceptive so that other animals thought she was something bigger and badder... But in combat even when she really couldn't win a fight, it was all about convincing her enemy that they couldn't either... To be honest, the way the cats stayed away from my property, I'd say they believed that she could hurt them way worse than she really could. Fear is a formidable weapon too. And yes, we handled her with a whole lot of respect...


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

If it helps, ratbehavior.org lists every rat behavior you could think of!

Rat-on-rat combat generally involves a focus on the rear end/legs. In a defensive aspect, rats stand perfectly still whisker to whisker so neither can move without the other knowing an attack is coming - this is when you'll see "boxing". They also use their hips and hind legs to ward off others. Offensively, rats want to either pin the other down or attack the hip region. They will usually "sidle" up to their opponent. 

Rat fights are usually very quick -- the initial attack, a pause for defense, and then attack again.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Yup that's normal ritualized domestic rat combat... pretty much what Fuzzy Rat was expecting when Fluffy punctured her neck and grabbed her trachea... to be fair to Fluffy, Fuzzy Rat had power groomed much of the hair off her rump and bit her in the behind before she defended herself... But the rats never fought after that night... ever... Fuzzy Rat was a lot of things, and even though she was half again larger than Fluffy... she was never stupid... and not getting killed was very high on her priority list...

Fuzzy Rat kept pushing, and I saw it coming... I was very glad when I turned out to be right that Fluffy wouldn't actually kill her... but when I found the holes in Fuzzy Rats throat on either side of the trachea... (literally the only wound) I didn't realize just how close it would come. Another mm or two and she would have been dead. 


Fluffy (named by my then 5 year old daughter) was a natural born stone cold killer... but what made her so amazing was that she was also such a loving animal. She was the smartest and sweetest rat you could imagine and first to come when called... She was loyal to a fault... but there was something inside her I never saw in another domestic rat something truly vicious... Honestly I don't know if her sweet side was to cover up her dangerous side or if down deep she was a sweetheart that had learned to survive outside for 5 months... but there was never any confusion, she was one personality or the other never in between... When she attacked the mouse I was holding and bit me instead, you should have seen the look on her face, it was outright rage and she bit right through my palm without hesitation... and she ripped out a chunk of flesh... 30 seconds later after she hit the wall and the floor she came right back to me all sweet and friendly again... I'm stopping the blood flow while she was preening my ear... She was both a sweetheart and a stone cold killer, the trick was never to p*** her off. And I didn't realize that holding a mouse in front of her would send her into a frenzy... It's a mistake I never made again. I'm certain if I hadn't blocked her with my hand, that mouse would have been dead from the first bite. At about 8 weeks old playfighting was over and she was drop dead serious when she decided to kill something... Life was very real to her, unlike my domestic rats that tend to play at it.


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