 What kind of karate is in Cobra Kai? That was one of our first videos and we've had quite the response to it. Many people agree with my assessment, but I also received a lot of opposing views. Enough so that I wanted to return to the topic and address a lot of the feedback that we got. I also got a lot of comments along the lines of who cares. It's just a movie, the art, it's bullshito. Well, you're not wrong. It is just a movie and the arts performed in the movie are totally altered for the purpose of the film, which is why I refer to them as the Hollywood version of the art. However, I found it to be a very fun exercise to look at a piece of pulp culture media and try to at least find the inspirational scenes behind it. Just as before, this video is in reference to the original karate kid trilogy, yes, I said trilogy, as well as the Cobra Kai YouTube premium show. If you have not yet watched the Cobra Kai show, I highly recommend it. If you like the karate kid films, you'll really like the show. At least sign up for the YouTube premium trial and give it a shot if you don't already have a subscription already. Now, in the previous video, I had concluded that Mr. Miyagi's martial arts background was Gojo Ryu and that Cobra Kai was Tang Sudo, or at least some sort of version of them. Many people agreed, while others offered alternative arts. But before we get into the meat of that debate, I want to address the two most frequent comments that I received. The first comment, which I get on almost a daily basis, is in regards to the Crank Kick. Almost every comment is along the lines of, oh, the Crank Kick exists in this art, it's XYZ. You know, insert the name of whatever the jumping front kick is in that art. I've heard many different recommendations. The most common example is the Machita and Kouture fight in which the knockout came from a jumping front kick. I can see why people are calling that the Crank Kick. Even the commentators in the fight called it the Crank Kick. But if you really kind of analyze it, it's not the same as it's performed in the film. First of all, it's basically a jumping front kick. The jumping front kick exists in many different arts, and that alone doesn't make the Crank Kick. The whole Crank Kick in the film was the one-legged stance, the one leg up, hands up in the air, plus the mythology behind it of, if you do it correctly, you can't defend against it. That part is what's fictional. The rest of it is just the jumping front kick. And even if you watch the Machita fight, he kind of flails his arms a little bit, but it's not the same stance. And also the jumping front kick has more of a forward momentum. If you watch all videos of it being performed, the practitioner actually advances with it. Whereas in the Karate Kid, the practitioner stays stationary. Daniel doesn't move. Johnny came to him. So I can see how similar it is and why people would call it the Crank Kick. And even the UFC commentators call it the Crank Kick, but it's really not quite the same thing. The Crank Kick, as we see in the film, the full package of it does not really exist, or it didn't exist before the film. It's just fictional. The other most common comment I get is that I left out Fumio de Mura from the previous video. For those who don't know Fumio de Mura, he is a very famous karate practitioner and he was Pat Morita's stunt double in the Karate Kid films. So when you see the fight scenes where Miyagi is kicking butt, it's Mr. de Mura most of the time. I did not forget to include him in the past video. I had left him out because I was trying to focus more on the narrative of this background of Miyagi's character. Fumio de Mura did the stunts, but that does not mean he's got the same background as Miyagi. Now, yes, he was actually considered originally for the role, and yes, even Pat Morita based his performance off Mr. de Mura, but I still feel that their backgrounds are different. Fumio de Mura practices Shitoru, and a lot of people have said, because that's his art, that's the art of Miyagi. However, I still maintain that Miyagi is Goju Ryu for the reasons we'll get back into later. Now, I also had people say, oh, with the beach stump scene with the crane kick, I stated that was Darryl Vidal, who was also in the tournament scene, and he did a little bit of stunts himself. A lot of people said, well, Mr. de Mura did all the stunts in the film, that was probably him on the stump as well. No, that actually was Darryl Vidal. There's actually pictures of him on set. Fumio de Mura did all the Miyagi's fight scenes, but the crane kick on the beach was Darryl Vidal. Okay, so why do I feel that Miyagi's background is Goju Ryu and not Shitoru, as people say because Mr. de Mura practices Shitoru? Well, one reason is that Mr. Miyagi was based off the founder of Goju Ryu, Chojin Miyagi. Similar name, similar background, similar history. Also, Chojin Miyagi is from the town of Naha, Anokinawa. In the second film, Miyagi's village is right next to Naha. It's even stated in the film. So that to me is a little bit of a, it's a minor connection, but to me it still says it's based off Chojin Miyagi. Also, the kata that he teaches Daniel in the film is a common Goju Ryu kata, but to be fair, it does exist in other arts. Now, another small detail that was actually pointed out by reviewers, it might be small, but I do feel it kind of impacts this argument a little bit is in the second film, the Daniels villain Chojin actually has the Goju Ryu patch on his gi. Now, people can argue, well, maybe he practices something different. It's possible, but if you look at his background, Miyagi's father taught Miyagi and his best friend Sato, so they had the same training. Sato taught Chojin. You can see Chojin recognizes the crane kick. You can see Sato throughout the film recognizing Daniel's training. All evidence leads to that Chojin and Daniel pretty much have the same art, maybe different variations of it, but it's still the same art. So I still maintain that Miyagi Do Kurete is Goju Ryu. Now, that was the Miyagi Do Kurete. On the side of Cobra Kai, in my assessment, I said that Johnny practices Tang Sudo, or at least a version of it. This is where the real debate came in. A lot of people agree with me. Some even suggested perhaps Taekwondo instead, but I got a lot of comments that said, nope, it's definitely Shotokan, or nope, it's definitely Kyokushin, or nope, it's definitely Kempo. Okay, there's a lot to look at here, so let's kind of break this down. One of my observations was Johnny's kicks. Johnny focuses on kicks. He's got a lot of fancy spinning moves, high kicks. That's very common in the Korean arts. Now, that's not to say it doesn't exist in other arts, but that there's definitely a staple and signature of the Korean martial arts, especially Tang Sudo and Taekwondo. Now, in the third film, Terry Silver shows up to Miyagi's house when he's training Daniel, and he goes to give his apologies for John Crease's dishonorable actions, but he mentions that his sensei is in Korea, that it is a Korean art. So, now that he mentions it's Korean, that narrows it down quite a bit. I mean, you've got Tang Sudo, Taekwondo, Apito. There's not a lot of room there, or that kind of eliminates a lot of other potential arts, if we assume that Terry Silver's telling the truth. The other factor is the choreographer of the film, Pat Johnson, is a master of Tang Sudo, and he choreographed all the fight scenes. So, when you look at the kick-based fighting, Terry Silver mentioned in Korean art, and Pat Johnson, being a master of Tang Sudo, choreographing the film, that to me collects a lot of evidence that at least implies Tang Sudo is the base of it. Now, as some of our viewers pointed out, in the Cobra Kai TV show, when Johnny is lining up the classroom, he actually calls out the command, Chun-Bee. That is a Korean command. You don't see that in other dojos. It's Korean. So, that reinforces the previous argument. Even if you want to say Terry Silver was lying, why would Johnny issue a Korean command? That basically means ready stance. And you see, if you look up on YouTube, the Chun-Bee command, and then the students go into the ready stance, it's exactly how they perform it in the show. Also, many people mentioned that the actor who plays Johnny Williams Abka studies Tang Sudo. I did not include that because he did that after the film. So, that's something he went back to later, and that doesn't really impact the story at all, but it does suggest that that's what they trained in, and he wanted to continue that. So, I still maintain that the art is Tang Sudo. But now to be fair, let's look at some of the challenges to that assessment. One, a lot of people say, well, Tang Sudo is not karate. It's a Korean art. Technically, yes, Korean arts are technically not karate. However, it is very, very common to group them in with karate, especially in the 80s, even so far as many people refer to Taekwondo and Tang Sudo as Korean karate. Technically, it's not, but it's kind of put under this umbrella term. And again, in the 80s, everything was labeled as karate. A lot of people also mentioned Kempo. I'm pretty much going to say no, I disagree with that one. My background is Kempo, at least American Kempo, and there really is very little similarity between what we see in the show and film to the American Kempo system. The most common suggestion is Kyokushin. Kyokushin is a very hard style of karate. The only thing is I see no similarities in Kyokushin techniques, stances, or execution of strikes. Anywhere, I don't see that in the film or the show at all. If anyone can show me or tell me what technique they recognize or why they think it's Kyokushin, I'm definitely willing to hear it because I personally don't see a similarity. And if you look down at the comments of the first video, so many people say that, well, I practice Kyokushin. This definitely is not it. So if you feel it's Kyokushin, please, I'm actually would like to hear your input. Tell me why you think it is. Can you point to a scene or a technique that suggests Kyokushin? Some of the reasons I got were, well, because Kyokushin is an aggressive art and Johnny is aggressive. That's true, but aggression does not dictate what art it is. His aggression came from his instructor, his basically disgruntled sensei. So technically, I mean, you get someone who's really aggressive, Tai Chi could be taught wrong. So it's got to be more than Johnny is aggressive, Kyokushin is aggressive. So again, if you have any specific techniques that can point to that, I would love to hear them. Now, Shotokan, this one's interesting and there's a little bit more of a foundation for a debate on this one, mainly because Tang Tsudo is heavily based on Shotokan with other influences mixed in. In one of my previous videos, the origin of Taekwondo, a lot of people commented, oh, Tang Tsudo, it's just Shotokan with kicks. Kind of sorta, it's based on Shotokan, but it's more than just Shotokan with kicks. A lot of similarities in there. There's a lot of root of Shotokan in Tang Tsudo. So I will entertain this one because they're very, very closely related. However, I still maintain Tang Tsudo based on the Korean element. Johnny still gives commands in Korean. The choreographer Tang Tsudo and Terry Silver mentions it's Korean. Shotokan is Japanese. So it's very different in origin, but it's kind of intermingled. So again, if you can point to a specific technique that suggests Shotokan over Tang Tsudo, by all means, I'll entertain it. I even had the suggestion of, oh, Miyagi teaches Jeet Kune Do. My first reaction was, what? Jeet Kune Do was established in 1967 by Bruce Lee. It doesn't really line up with the timeline. So I asked him to elaborate and he said, well, it's obviously Jeet Kune Do. You can just tell. And I explained, well, Miyagi was born way before World War II. He actually fought in World War II, which is in the 40s. For him to train in Jeet Kune Do, he would have been 40s, 50 years old before he started training. That really doesn't fit the timeline of the film. And this guy insisted. And he insisted. He's like, you can just tell. It's definitely this. And when I presented arguments, he's like, well, you're entitled to your opinions. I'm like, well, it's not an opinion that it was based in 1967. So this was on for a while. And then it started to go for the weird saying, oh, well, the Karate Kid was based off. He started leaving fan fiction books. I'm like, what's going on? So as it turns out, the guy was just trolling me. He was just having fun. And I fell for it. So I got so wrapped up in the discussion, I was actually trying to break down his argument that he was just messing with me. So it's you, good sir. This round goes to you. So overall, my original assessments were Miyagi Do Karate is Goju Ryu and that Cobra Kai is Tang Sudo, or at least versions of them. I will entertain other arts, but I would like a little bit more discussion. People suggested Kiyokushin Shodokan. Show me techniques. I would love to hear what you see. I want to see what you see. So once again, if you have not seen the Cobra Kai TV show yet, I highly recommend it. If you've watched these two videos, I assume you're as big as a Karate Kid nerd as I am. If you love the Karate Kid, you're going to love the show. YouTube Premium, that's got a trial. If you don't have it already, I do recommend at least signing up for it. Given the show a shot, I really think you'll enjoy it. Okay. Now, there are still two mysteries that I was not able to solve during my research. And I now turn to you guys to help me solve it as it might actually determine which art is Cobra Kai after all. First of all, in the first film when Daniel walks into the Cobra Kai Dojo for the first time to observe class, you can just see right above the mirrors, there's a picture frame. It's got someone's photo in it. It's small and it's blurred, but it's in the exact same position that Dojos usually put their founder up in there. I can't make that picture out. It even shows up in Karate Kid 3 when Daniel returns to the Dojo, that picture's still there. If any of you know who's in that photo or other photos on the wall when Daniel walks in, there's other photos or practitioners on the wall, they appear to be a Korean, but I can't identify them. If any of you know who is on that wall or in those pictures, that might settle the debate of what art it is after all. If we can pin it to a founder, that's kind of said and done. The second challenge is in Karate Kid 3, when Daniel shows up to the Cobra Kai Dojo, the train with Terry Silver, Terry Silver appears to be performing some sort of Akata, which is kind of funny because in the film he was against Akatas, but he's definitely concentrating and he's doing some sort of Akata. Again, I don't recognize it. I've tried to do some research on it. It might even be just completely made up for the film, but I ask you guys, if anyone can recognize what Akata that is, if it is a real Akata, then perhaps we can determine one way or the other which art it is after all. I thank you all for the awesome response to the first video, and if you continue to like these videos, please subscribe and share. Also, as a fun analysis, I ask all of you, which martial arts can you recognize in the All-Valley Tournaments in both the film series and the Cobra Kai TV show, I'd love to hear what you think. Thank you so much for watching.