Ok, but you have to remember Danielson was hurt badly in the knee by cheating just before that. He couldn’t fight at all with it so that was the only move he could use.
Daniel-san, as Mr. Miyagi called him.
No, but the pathetic guys all THOUGHT it looked badass. To them that was its cliched meaning. To us its cliched meaning is that the guy’s a loser.
There is an actual stance that is similar to the so called “crane stance” and might have been inspirational and lore to its movie devise. Neko Ashi Dachi (Cat or Cat Foot stance) is universal to the internal Okinawan school and its practicality lies in the fact that the leading leg bears little weight and is therefore protected against sweeps and in a ready position to deliver a quick kick or be put into use as a counterweight or to sweep quickly in its “cocked” state.
Miyagi-Sensei, The Karate Kid, Part II.
The other advantage to that stance is mobility. It’s very easy to move fast, especially at a 45 degree angle. Many of the Goju Ryu Kata use that stance. It’s also heavily practiced as a defensive technique - dodge to the side and into that stance when someone attempts to a strike, and then your front foot is perfectly positioned for a low kick or a sweep in return. It may look a little like the ‘crane stance’ in the movie, but it’s never used that way.
Fumio Demura was a technical advisor on Karate Kid, and he’s an Okinawan practitioner of Shito-Ryu, And Nekoashi Dachi is part of that style, so it may have been somewhat of an inspiration for the ‘cat stance’.
Incidentally, one of the katas that Daniel-san can be seen doing is Seienchin, a kata common to many styles of Okinawan Karate. Of course, he does it really badly.
It’s sort of like the one in this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfGwYkPp5p8
and another variation in this Hun Gar video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoJz0hqWviA
Sort of. Maybe.
Oh, I quite agree…my inference as to neko ashi as counterweight, was to its mobility. The movie was bullshit, but the Kata, Kururunfa, is testament to the spirit of traditional Okinawan Goju-ryu and correct “Karate kid heritage”. This is the crane kick’s true roots revealed. The essence of Goju is displayed and culminates in the correct understanding of this Kata. Goju and the karate kid intention is also more correctly displayed in Tensho.
Yes, Ralph Macchio has no physical ability or he had very little time to attune to seiunchin. It was very very badly and weakly executed.
Wow. That is hilarious! Thanks for sharing it. Zabka rules.
In Taekwondo at least, there are points in a match where you may want to adopt a one-legged stance to be able react faster (since you don’t have to lift your leg to kick) and to maybe intimidate/disorient your opponent. For example, if he looks like he’s about to come at you, raising your leg might make him flinch. But raising both hands would be silly because it leaves you wide open while in a vulnerable position. And you almost always have your side facing your opponent in a Taekwondo match.
Something closer to that Karate Kid stance is found in a poomsae (the equivalent of kata) though.
It’s not quite the stance you’re looking for, plus I don’t even know if it has a name.
But don’t completely write off one legged stances. 
The footwork is common enough but it’s that thing with the hands that makes it distinctive.
And I can’t imagine a kick totally from the knee being effective as anything but a distraction. My experience was in Jiu-Jitsu, which is all about distraction, and Judo, where my fellow students learned that, if they weren’t fast enough, even a big, clumsy oaf, though spectacularly airborne easy meat for the instructor, could shift his weight slightly and be unthrowable. Even if I tried to let myself be thrown. I probably place too much emphasis on balance because of that.
It wouldn’t necessarily be completely from the knee. Depending on the kick you go into, there could be some momentum from turning your hips as well. Or you could do an axe kick, which would be unaffected by starting in that stance. And in the context of point sparring you just want to land a kick so it doesn’t matter how hard you hit your target.
Either way, it sucks getting slapped in the face with a foot, even from a kick from the knee (in my personal experience at least).
Sorry about the hijack.
In the movie, the kick is not from the knee. the raised leg is thrown forward while jumping up and kicking with the foot that was on the ground. it boiled down to, what we used to call, a front-snap kick, but with a goofy set-up.
Can you tell I’ve watched the movie about a hundred times?
Meh. How did he ever get into the Legion Of Super-Heroes with a pose like that?
you think that pose is embarrassing? Try this!
In one of our kung fu forms, we had a posture that ended in a very similar position to the KK crane kick. The application was totally different however.
Application was if someone was two-hand grabbing at your face or neck, you would simultaneously grab at the insides of their wrists with both hands and whip your arms outward, while quickly raising your knee forward. It quite effectively jerked your opponents upper body forward off balance with a nasty knee into their groin or midsection. Optionally included was a head butt 
The ending of the movement was knee raised forward, with arms to either side, looking very much like Karate Kid. The movement transitioned to some other attack and stance shift though, no kicks involved at all.
Totally different application than the movie, but we still joked about “sweep the leg Johnny!” in class.
Why was Tommy disqualified for going below the belt, but Johnny wasn’t it?
I’m no martial artist, but can someone tell me the purpose of raising the leg in that move? It appears entirely superfluous to me.
Hard to tell. Could be just to practice balance, could be to fake that a kick is coming. Could be that’s just the way the guy who taught him did it.