All Miyagi was doing was heat therapy. A movie version of it but that really isn’t a that uncommon in martial arts. An old rommate of mine was a nationally ranked Kung Fu competitor and he would occasionally mention his Sifu doing similar stuff. It doesn’t magically cure you, it just stops the swelling and pain long enough for you to continue the exhibition or whatever… but then next due you’ll be virtually immobile.
Nugget of trivia- Pat Morita’s stunt double for the fight scenes was none other than Shihan Fumio Demura, former head of the Japan Karate Federation.
Scroll down for a couple of pics… http://www.doshinmartialarts.com/itosu/instructors.html
I had forgotten that Hilary Swank was in that God-forsaken sequel…
You’d be surprised. It is amazing how many times I’ve seen advanced martial artists walk face first into the simplest jab or snap kick, especially against other people or styles that they don’t train regularly with. It is a common training trap where you can quickly get conditioned to your regular instructors and classmates. Often, you are so focused on progressing on the more advanced stuff, that a simple punch becomes a rarity in training.
In my case, I was sparring someone (from another school who I had never trained with before) who shot down and grabbed for my legs. It is something that I defend against so well and regularly that no one in my particular school even bothered to try anymore while sparring.
Well, my brain suddenly got paralyzed into Infallible Overconfident Supervillain Mode thinking “Why, I can’t believe it, he’s actually trying to shoot down for my legs, how dare his insolence, doesn’t he realize how foolish that is, when I have at least a dozen options to choose from, my personal favorite being a switch of lead with a dropping elbow, which I could then follow up with—hey, why am I on my ass!”
Okay, but Daniel got it in the knee from a jumping up and slamming his foot down. When I got that my knee heated up plenty fast on its own. Also swelled up melon-sized and if Miyagi had tried putting his hands on it I would have headbutted him so hard his moustache and beard would fuse.
Crap. I meant, he got kicked by a kid jumping up and slamming his foot down.
That doesn’t really mesh with the earlier use of the technique, when Daniel was barely able to move his arms after one of the training technique/slave labor exercises. But I guess that can be explained away as more movie-wanking.
Some of the Cobra Kai guys look like they actually have trained in martial arts and I always thought Daniel-san looked okay, but my instructor disagrees; he finds it funny that he wins a competition against black belts with what looks like a yellow belt’s technique.
As to the martial arts in the movie, the blocks Daniel learns are all real enough, although I don’t know that anyone has yet developed a housework method of training. I’d bet a dollar that the whole “wax on, paint the fence, sand the floor” comes from the Japanese story of the samurai Yagyu Matajuro, as well as some of Peter Seller’s Pink Panther stuff. When Matajuro was a young man, he sought out a hermit named Banzo who supposedly was a great swordsman. Banzo agreed to take him on as a student, but only set Matajuro to work around his home, forbidding him to even mention swords. After a few weeks of this, Matajuro was thinking he’d been conned into being an old man’s houseboy. He was seriously considering leaving as he chopped wood one day, when out of nowhere, Banzo bum-rushed him with a wooden sword and beat the living shit out of him. Banzo contined to do this many times a day, ten, then twenty, and when Matajuro got good at anticipating him, he attacked him in his sleep. Finally, one day Banzo rushed him from behind as he was making dinner and Matajuro, without looking, calmly deflected his blow with a pot lid and went back to his cooking. Banzo presented him with a certificate and a sword the next day, saying there was nothing more he could teach him.
So, anyway, back to Daniel-san. The funny thing about the “wax on” scene is that although most kareteka don’t have to be tricked into training, the sudden realization that something you’ve been doing for a while is actually useful is an experience common to some martial arts training. Many martial arts utilize forms, or kata in japanese, that are pretty much elaborate systems of moves whose usefulness in a fight may not be immediately apparent. Analysis of the practical application of the moves in the kata is called “bunkai,” and when the bunkai for some move you’ve been practicing for months becomes apparent, it’s sort of a light-bulb comes-on moment like Daniel-san’s. Sort of, “Oh! That’s what that’s for! So it isn’t useless after all!”
As for the mystical crane kick technique from which one “no can defend,” pretty much Hollywood hoo-hah. It’s a front snap kick from a cat stance with his arms stuck up in the air. Still, at least he’s not catching arrows.
And when he catches the bullet with his teeth? What then Mr. Arcadian? :wally
Tru 'nough. When I used to spar in competition and kickbox, many of the opponents were classical TKO tournement guys. I mainly studied Arnis and American Kempo with some kickboxing for stand up and Brazilian JJ for ground. It amazed me how many of the Tae Kwon Do guys did not adequately guard themselves. Often they would lead in with a jad and roundhouse combe, but they would not defend a simple block and sidekick counter. I won one tourney by betting 5 guys in a row with not much more than that. It just kept working. That is really a yellow belt technique and it was tearing apart brown belts. I guess they thought that I was surely going to try some flying spin kick. I figured, why bother?
Oh, and trust me, I and every other person who have studied martial arts have walked into something really simplistic. It just happens. Jordan missed free throws and I’m sure many, many black belts have walked into a fist without thinking. Bruce Lee may not have walked into too many fists, but there have not been many Bruce Lees in the world. (not too mention any grandmaster, Lee is just an example).
YOUR OPPONENT DESERVES NO MERCY!
Every advanced fighter I ever knew feared fighting some rookie more than fighting someone at thier own level. Rookies are so unpredictable. I saw more black eyes, strained joints, and “I’ll be walking funny for a day or two” out of those matches than I ever saw out of expert to expert combat. It was usually followed by a “I never knew you could do <insert move> from <insert position>.”
Sort of a take-off on the old military maxim: “professional soldiers are always predictable, but the world is full of amateurs.”
Well aside from all the MNFTIU talk here, yes, some of Daniel-san’s karate was real. It seems to have been a type of Goju-Ryu, and odds are that Mister Miyagi’s name was taken from Chojun Miyagi, the real-life founder of Goju-Ryu. Daniel also performed Seiunchin Kata in KK3, a Goju-Ryu kata.
The groundspring for Miyagi-ryu in The Karate Kid is the internal school of Okinawan Karate-do. The actual source for the techniques used in the movie is the Goju-ryu tradition founded by Chojun Miyagi. However, Fumio Demura was the technical advisor to the movie and he is a practitioner of Shorin-Ryu which is also within the internal school of Okinawa and shares common roots with Goju, including Kata and basic techniques.
It is a different line of teaching lineage but evolved entirely out of original Goju practitioners. I would say that Shorin-ryu is the intermediary between Okinawan Karate’s evolution into Japanese Karatedo. Shorin is a little “harder and clipped”, Goju is a bit “softer and Zen”, relatively. I like to say Goju-ryu is the Father, Shorin-ryu is the son, and Shotokan is the Grandson.
One of my first posts here was in a Karate Kid thread just like this one. I outlined the exact Goju-ryu techniques that correlated to all of Daniel’s “chores”. I wish I could find that thread…I was searching for it earlier and couldn’t find it.
Yep. Goju Ryu. I recognized Sieunchin Kata right away, and I doubt if the name Miyagi is a coincidence.
Also, the ‘paint the fence’ thing could be used for Goju-Ryu hand positions.
And didn’t Miyagi say he was from Okinawa in the movie?
But then there’s that crane stance thing. “No defense against it!” Yep, nothing like standing on one foot with your arms over your head to give you that perfect invincibility.
Screw Daniel. After reading this thread, I want to see Barry Gordy’s The Last Dragon again in the worst way, now.
"When I say, ‘Who’s the Master?’ you say, “Sho 'Nuff!”
It is true that a fortune cookie understands the mystical powers that Leroy contains. I can’t argue with that. But what you fail to realize is this:
Daniel is the best.
Around.
And nothing’s ever gonna keep him down.
I’m sorry. I was mistaken/misspoke Fumio Demura is a practitioner of Shito-ryu, not Shorin-ryu. Here is a good overview of Shito-ryu.
This has got to be a joke. For those of you who don’t get it, Fred Ettish has a professional record (which includes all Mixed Martial Arts leagues, not just the UFC) of 0 wins, 1 loss, and hasn’t fought in ~10 years.
I would agree with that, with just one caveat: I fear sparring with a rookie, because generally they have no “touch.” In full contact for all the marbles, I’ll gladly take the amateur over the pro. If you’re sparring somebody that’s been at it for many, many years, they can usually control and/or defeat you easily without hurting you too badly just through the proper application of technique. It’s the guy who’s just been in it for a little while and has some game but no touch who’s likely to wade in and completely coldcock you in what was supposed to be “light contact.” I’ve never had a black belt seriously injure me accidentally, but I’ve had an intermediate belt send me to the minor emergency clinic with a “straddle injury to the perineum,” i.e. kicked the bejeezus out of me right in my taint.