To become a master of bear-fu requires discipline and hours of practice. It also helps to begin one’s training at a very early age.
Be the Stick
February 29, 2012 By
To become a master of bear-fu requires discipline and hours of practice. It also helps to begin one’s training at a very early age.
We love chewing on a good branch in the woods. This guy puts us to shame.
Bella and DiDi
Holy crap.
My sentiments exactly!
Holy crap, indeed! Is that a moon bear?
can that be real? holey moley!
Reminds me of that otter that was juggling the rocks…
Even Japanese bears are more advanced than us.
unbeareevable!!!!!!!
impossibearuuu!!!!
HAHAHAHA!! the people in the background were speaking Korean.
nop, I’m fairly certain it’s Japanese
SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO ARM BEARS!
Winner!
YEAH!!!!!!
LOLed. Now I need to wipe the screen clean
I’m wit’ ya, Jim!!
now i can see why people put bears in the circus (unfortunately).
Colbert is heading for the bunker right this second.
LOL, that was my first thought too.
This. has. to. be. a. guy. inna. bear. suit…………………… KLUNK!!!!!
(Cheshire Kitteh Kat revives just briefly enuff to croak out this message;)
“This has to be a left-over costume from Halloweenses…..!
And I won’t accept any other explanation…..!!!!”
The REALLY tricky part is twirling the stick with ones foot in ones mouth.
Poor guy just couldn’t resist sucking on his toes. A classic bear addiction: Pawholic.
Just like the Bulgy Bears. (it’s always embarrassing when one of your field marshals is sucking his paw while you’re trying to impress the opposing army with your fearsome allies…..)
(Anybody who gets the reference read the proper books as a child!)
Yeah! Prince Caspian FTW!!
I read all the proper books too!
Me too. I loved that little bit of the story.
haha… I was thinking the same thing “you must not suck your paws!” clearly, not that much of a distraction for this guy!
The really tricky part has made my brain melt. Let me quote Theresa: STINKING CUTE!
This bear has mad skillz!
Move over Skynet. This is the real threat to our future.
I think it’s a Malayan Sun Bear. They’re known for their righteous stick skillz.
Do not try to twirl the stick — that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the
truth: there is no stick.
And then, it is not the stick that will twirl, but you. Twirling, twirling, twirling.
…towards freedom!
:-O
I will translate:
OMG so cute!
Lookit that!
Wow!
Cool!
This will be on CuteOverload within a day!
No, no, no! Not kung fu–think National Championship Baton Twirling! Remember baton twirling? Used to be de rigueur at all sports half-time shows. Does anybody other than this super-talented bear do it any more?
I was just telling my husband, “Go find me a baton! I can do that!” (Maybe, it has been 20+ years)
I used to be able to do (very amateur) baton twirling….but that was eons ago, when dinosaurs walked the Earth….. (and all I had was a broken broom-handle)
What?
How…
I don’t…
That’s crazy!
I am gobsmacked.
1. total dude in a bear suit.
2. I’d hire him as a bodyguard
Kub-fu!
This is not an isolated incident.
Thanks. Now I am a believer.
Davy!
And wasn’t that news a bummer?
*sob*
I love how totally casual the bear is about all of this. “Oh sure, I’m twirling a stick like a ninja, but what’s really important is that I suck on my toebeans–that requires my immediate attention…” This is astonishing.
Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble, but this one is very much a fake. Having worked with bears for several years in my youth, I can tell immediately that’s not a real bear.
The first and most obvious clue? There is no tongue. Watch the entire video, second by second – not once will you see a tongue come out of that mouth. If it were a real bear, you’d see a tongue at some point during the film, somewhere, most likely very often.
The less obvious clues, if you hadn’t spent several years cleaning cages, feeding, and talking to bears, would be in the general head and body movements, especially the feet.
Then there’s the “original” photographer’s need to scream “NOT FAKE” everywhere – that’s guaranteed he’s trying to keep his scam alive.
hey, no need to be nasty! no one’s ready for bear feet until the first spring pedi.
there is also a video that is over 3 years old.
no, this is not fake.
now we know the why chinese herbal remedies for male enhancement are made with bear parts.
It’s clearly a trained dolphin in a bear suit.
This other video clearly shows tongue at at least one point. I’m still a believer (that’s Believer NOT Belieber)
*snerk*
It’s real. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The Asiatic black bear is named Claude and he resides at the Asa Zoo in Hiroshima Japan. I saw him twirl a baseball bat for fun.
Sorry, nice try, totally unbelievable. Twirling a stick better than a human, sure, but…. Claude? A Japanese bear named Claude?
I know! And it should be spelled, “Clawed”!
Sorry FroggyMama: Confirmed real, over and over, repeatedly. It’s fer realz. Really.
Has to be real. He puts his head between his legs. Every night I dream I can do that. But then I wake up.
The cynic in me is wondering if he was a trained performing bear before he came to this zoo?
It also looks to me like he’s trying several times to do the “spin the stick around the back of the neck to the other side” maneuver but can’t quite get it.
Maybe he’s been watching someone do this (or TV) and imitating?
I was thinking a retiree from the Moscow circus. That would make this quite plausible.
Claude was an orphaned bear rescued after his mother was trapped and kill. I believe he’s about 9 or 10 years old now. That video was a while ago.
I am massively entertained by this, stunned and currently examining clip for editing while busting a gut laughing. How I want this to be for reals! Major Bear-Fu Love!
Bears in captivity = depressing.
C’mon CO
You must be new around here…..
Yeah. Bears in zoos or on street corners worse. But bears adapt. Feel better.
Excuse me circuses…
In the clip they say he was a rescue orphan after his mother was killed.
I think the future is Cats vs Bears. Humans will be all moot!
Obviously in the same club (see what I did there? snerk) with the pebble-juggling otters. Animals Are. Amazingks!
Someone put that bear in a marching band flag section!
Ah, I still remember this one time at band camp…
I was thinking that they should give him a rifle! For all you non marching-band-geeks–I mean one of those wooden ones that the colorguard use to do amazing spins and tosses.
Nah, flags were where they were at. I still watch the Macy’s Day parade and yell at the lines that aren’t straight!
*raises hand* former flag/rifle/sabre girl here!
Ooohh the US Marine Silent Drill Platoon. I get goosebumps just thinking about their routine.
I just had to pick my bottom jaw back off the floor. Bloody hell. Who needs opposing thumbs when you have Kung Fu Bear!!!!
Had to look it up, seems it’s legit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7773078/Kung-Fu-Bear-genuine.html
Awesome bear. I wonder if watching this enough would inspire my cats to clean up around the food bowl?
I’m weeding my nonfiction right now, and I just discarded two comically dated (1980, 1982) books about baton twirling. This bear should star in an instruction manual.
Bears are pretty adept with their paws, considering that they don’t have front feet like monkeys or raccoons, and if you’re sitting on your butt in a zoo for years, without a good enrichment program, what else is there to do? Good for the bear figuring out some way to entertain her- or him-self.
Aww, it’s a cute bear. I suspect it’s real and it did play with the stick it’s just edited to make it look much more impresive then it would be with forward and backward looping. Clues are hard stops on panning then going the oppisite direction not a natural movement when people are holding a camera or as previously mentioned a dolphin in a bear suit.