There are several styles of Chinese martial arts which imitate the motions of snakes (蛇) as some part of their training system. Proponents claim that adopting the fluidity of snakes allows them to entwine with their opponents in defense and strike them from angles they wouldn't expect in offense. The snake is one of the original five animals of Shaolinquan, and there were many snake stylists known formerly from Wudangshan. Snake style is said to especially lend itself to applications with the Chinese straight sword. T'ai Chi Ch'uan is said by some of its schools to originally have been based on a combination of the Snake and White Crane styles, and the snake is also one of the animal styles emulated in the related arts of Baguazhang and Xingyiquan. The sinuous, fluid motion of the snake lends itself to the practical theory that underlies such soft style martial arts.
As there are different schools that train based on the motions of snakes, there are different snakes that are imitated; some, for example, imitate the Cobra, while others imitate the Python, while some schools will imitate both for different applications.
Snake style is one of the first five Shaolin animal styles; the other four being Crane, Tiger, Leopard, and Dragon. These five animals originally represented the five elements before developing into their own styles. Snake is usually Wood, Tiger is Fire, Crane is Metal, Dragon is Water, and Leopard is Earth. Since they were derivitive of the Five element forms, they are kept in this pattern. At this point many styles diverge into more advanced animal training or actual element training.
Snake style is based on whipping power which travels up the spine to the fingers. The stancework is fluid in order to maximize the whipping potential of any movement. This necessitates building a strong spine to contain the power and strong fingers to convey the strike. Since breath is important to any movement of the spine and ribs, most of the internal training was considered snake training. Power travels the length of the body in every movement causing health to be a consideration. It would seem obvious that a limp would interfere with this but it needs to be said. Many arts can have an injury and be unaffected in execution, but not snake. Snake has limited ground fighting training. If the power generation is correct, any physical contact can become a strike by the snake stylist. Elbows and knees can be devestating with no change from the original movements. This means that a grappler is playing into the hands of the snake stylist. Snake actually prefers to be grappled since they have contact with less effort.
