Teräs Käsi
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Teräs Käsi is a fictional hard martial art in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. It has been used extensively in the video games, most notably Star Wars Galaxies, which is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG), Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
According to Steve Perry in an interview, Teräs Käsi was based on/inspired by Silat.
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[edit] Overview
Teräs Käsi utilizes extremely quick, devastating strikes to end the fight quickly. It also focuses on using hand weapons, such as vibroknuckles. Many of the moves are so fast that the artist almost appears to blur, but at the same time, they are so precise that they almost never miss. The art of Teräs Käsi itself presumably died out at the time of the fall of the Jedi Knights. Along with Echani, the martial art of the Emperors Royal Guards, and Jedi combat training, it is one of the most powerful martial arts in the Star Wars universe.
Darth Maul is an expert in Teräs Käsi fighting, which include the physical maneuvers "Rancor Rising" and "Riding Bantha", which are named after Star Wars creatures.
In Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi, one of the characters, Arden Lyn, is a Teräs Käsi artist. Some of her moves are Flip Kick, Double Ankle Kick, and Scissor Kick Takedown.
Finally, in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith video game, one of the styles of Clone Trooper are the Clone Assassins, trained in Teräs Käsi. The game explains that their conditioning has allowed them the ability to dodge attacks and even evade powers of the Force.
[edit] Linguistics
The name comes from the Finnish words teräs (steel) and käsi (hand). Presuming that the intended meaning is "hand of steel", the correct way to present it in Finnish would be as a compound word - the correct form of writing would thus be Teräskäsi. Apart, the words carry no specific meaning in formal written Finnish, and "Teräs Käsi" tends to look strange if not comical to the native speaker.
Writer Steve Perry, creator of the fictional martial art, sometimes uses non-English languages in his work, and explains that "Norse languages have the kind of rhythm" he likes [1]. Linguistically, Finnish is actually part of the Finno-Ugric language family, being quite different from the North Germanic languages. However, Finland is one of the Nordic countries, which are sometimes mistakenly referred to as Norse countries.
[edit] Trivia
In Steve Perry's novel The Musashi Flex, a prequal to his Matador book series, Teräs Käsi is briefly mentioned as one of the fighting styles practiced by the novel's main character.
[edit] References
Teräs Käsi first appeared in Steve Perry's Star Wars novel, Shadows of the Empire (Bantam, 1996.). Darth Maul is shown practicing Teräs Käsi in the opening chapter of Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (Reaves, Michael. 2001, Del Rey.). In the novel Medstar I: Battle Surgeons (Perry, Steve and Michael Reaves. 2004, Del Rey.), the primary antagonist, Phow Ji, is a Teräs Käsi champion. Also, in the book Death Star by Perry and Reaves, one of the characters, Imperial Marines Guard Sergeant Nova Stihl, is a Teräs Käsi expert.
[edit] External links
- Fan site - (largely concerned with Teräs Käsi in Star Wars Galaxies, but also material on Teräs Käsi on the larger Expanded Universe)
- Teräs Käsi article on Wookieepedia: The Star Wars Wiki
