Well... this is kind of a big stretch. But hear me out.
Part of Samurott's design is based on the Japanese war fan. Many special attacks are non-contact or stereotypically graceful. The art of using Japanese war fans is called Tessenjutsu -- also quite graceful.
Japanese war fans were also used to direct other attacks, which ties into the no-contact thing that special attacks have.
I understand that this is probably a huge stretch, but this is what I came up with.
Japanese war fan (Wikipedia)
Tessenjutsu (Wikipedia)
Hope I helped!