Mienshao are remarkably skilled at the art of misdirection, and many trainers have still failed to realize the trick behind their whip attacks. Although these pokemon snap their long arms onto the ground, and can trip or strike an unsuspecting opponent, this attack's true purpose is not dependent on damage, and actually knocking their foes over will typically lead to the Mienshao taking more damage than they deal. For the standard Mienshao fighting technique uses their whips to fool their opponent into jumping over them, at which point they can strike them down with a Hi Jump Kick against a target which might as well be lying prone.
Although this form of misdirection is widely known, this does not make it easy to actually stop. The sight of a Mienshao's arm – or indeed any tripping attack – aimed for one's legs causes most people and pokemon to jump instinctively, regardless of whether or not one knows that Mienshao are already transitioning into a kick which brings them catastrophe on a miss the moment they crack their purple and white whip.
For this reason, the term "Mienshao trap" in Unova refers to an obvious trap which nonetheless can not be easily avoided, if at all. In turn-based board games, it can refer to a situation where any move weakens one position; in politics, to a question where any answer will cost the answerer popularity, but where the politician refuses to evade the question – or worse, to impending environmental catastrophes prompted by human actions, yet which humans are unwilling to endure the consequences of stopping. Neither humans nor pokemon are wholly rational creatures, and knowledge can not always be successfully acted upon or properly acknowledged, whether failure means enduring a Mienshao's knockout kick or a far deadlier cataclysm.