 For those of you familiar with this channel, you know how much we love the Karate Kid and the Cobra Kai TV series, and one of our primary focuses has been trying to determine what type of Karate is Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai. Now, with the release of season three, we now have a definitive answer, so we're going to look at that real quick, but also the season also brings to attention another very important aspect of the martial arts that I don't think gets enough attention and that enough people are talking about, so we're going to dig into that right now. So I have to upfront say, spoiler alert. We're going to be talking about events of season three and in the Cobra Kai TV series. If you have not yet watched Cobra Kai season three, pause this video, go watch this. If you have not yet seen Cobra Kai, pause this video, go watch this series and come back. If you have not seen the Karate Kid movies, then that's just like a cranky to the face guys. I mean, come on. So with that out of the way, going forward, our previous assessments of Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai, we're not going to go into it too deeply now because we've already done a few episodes on that, but we had determined that Miyagi-Do is a version of Gojiru, an Okinawan-style Karate, and that Cobra Kai was actually a variant of Tonksu-Do because of the different Korean art elements that we have had peppered into the movies and the series. Now, if you want to see a full breakdown of how we came to these conclusions, you can check out the link below. We have some of those episodes there, but basically that's what we came up with, Gojiru and Tonksu-Do. Now, of course, we're talking about what's canon, what's actually in the narrative structure of the story. We know that there are different people who are stunt doubles and other coordinators and choreographers that brought their influences of other arts. And of course, on screen, we see a lot of mixture of arts from stunt work. I'm talking about the narrative arts, you know, what in the story are the styles supposed to be. And the season Cobra Kai, season three, came right out and confirmed it. Cobra Kai is in fact Tonksu-Do. So that was actually really interesting that they actually just came right out and said it. They confirmed the instructor that Terry Silver mentioned, Kim Sung-Young, so he was actually telling the truth. And we are told up front that Chris's instructor was taught Tonksu-Do, and he's going to teach him the same art. So there we have it. Narratively speaking, canon Cobra Kai is Tonksu-Do, or at least some version of it. Now, with Miyagi-Do, we determined Gojiru from a variety of factors, based, you know, just ranging from, you know, Miyagi's name to the village he's from, and then there's Versailles and the Kata's Hughes, the screenwriter practiced Gojiru, and he based a lot of it off himself. In Chronic Kid II, Sato's nephew, Chosen, actually wears a Gojiru or the Goju Kai patch right here on his gi. So some of you might be saying, okay, so what? That's Chosen, not Daniel. Well, let's not forget that Chosen's instructor, Sato, trained under Mr. Miyagi's father. They trained together. They were basically brothers. So Miyagi's father trained both of them, and then they each had their respect to student, which was Daniel and Chosen. And we broke this down in the previous episode. Well, what's interesting is Cobra Kai, season three, pretty much came out and gave almost the exact same explanation. You know, Chosen takes Daniel to his home dojo, and Daniel's looking through the scrolls, and he realizes that this is actually Miyagi-Do karate, and they come right out and say it. And Daniel even says, we're basically karate cousins because they explain the lineage. So we have to assume they are the same art, Gojiru, because it's confirmed by wearing the patch, or at least Sato's school was registered with the Goju Kai. And I know Jesse Enkamp, the karate nerd, actually issued his own theory about what kind of art the Miyagi-Do style is. And it's actually a really good watch, and that's in the link in the description below as well. The thing though is this theory is different than mine. However, they can coexist because his theory actually really more explains the background of Miyagi-Do's family lineage versus what I'm talking about, what we see in the films and what's supposed to be in the story going forward. So all that aside, we now have confirmation that Miyagi-Do karate is Goju-Ru and that Cobra Kai is Tonksur-Do. So that was awesome. And I love the discussion that we had. So many of you out there have proposed so many different ideas, and it was a really fun debate and discussion to see what perspectives people were coming from. And there were a lot of great points made. But as fun as that is, I think this show actually brought to the surface a much more important issue that I don't think enough people are talking about. The whole premise of Cobra Kai is talking about the ultimate rivalry, Daniel versus Johnny. We see them as polar opposites. We're like, you know, here's an example of politics, here's an example of opposites, here's an example of how different styles can diverge and all that. The thing though is, I don't believe that Daniel and Johnny defines that duality of karate and the division and the split. I believe that that distinction goes to Daniel and Chozen. Daniel and Chozen show a much deeper opposition to each other than Daniel and Johnny. Even as Ali brought up in season three, she said to them, she goes with this rivalry that they see a lot of themselves in each other and they might not like what they see. And if you look at the conflict, the problems between Daniel and Johnny are personal. It was over a girl, it was a high school drama. It wasn't over the martial arts. The martial arts were just a tool that they used, but their actual personal conflict was petty issues. And when they put them aside, they actually get along together pretty well. And we've seen that a few times where they do work together and they work together well when their egos allow it. With Chozen and Daniel, the problems go a little bit deeper and it's more about honor. Even though some of their conflicts were superficial as well, but I think that the dynamic here shows us the grand scheme of the martial arts and one of the biggest problems we have in the martial arts today is the division, the politics, the splits. The show was showing us how easily the martial arts can splinter. Look at, for example, Mr. Miyagi's father. In this case, we're going to refer to him as the grandmaster because he's the one who kind of started this particular lineage that we're following. Mr. Miyagi's father taught Miyagi and Sato. Look how drastically different their teaching methods are. And look at Daniel and Chozen, how different they are. We're talking two generations. Right off the bat, you can see, you know, Gojiru means hard soft. Miyagi is the soft side of the martial arts. Sato is the hard side. It's very evident. Sato is very, very bold, very strong, very powerful. Miyagi is always on the defensive and he's always doing the more softer techniques and they pass those values down. And that's what happens in the martial arts. When a teacher learns something, they take their lessons, they take their instructions, they pull out the values that mean something to them and they go with that and they cultivate that. And many times they'll leave out stuff that they don't like or they don't find valuable, although mixed in other influences. And it doesn't take long for the art to look different than what it was just one generation back. So in season three, Chozen is enlightening Daniel that there's more to Miyagi Do than he knew because Daniel's like, this doesn't look like Miyagi Do when they start sparring. It's because Miyagi didn't teach him this part of the art. He must have learned it, but he chose not to pass it on. Why is that? Was it because it was more aggressive? We know that Mr. Miyagi was a much more passive individual. So did he find these techniques too brutal and aggressive? Or did he feel like Daniel couldn't handle it? Daniel was a hothead. He had a temper. If you recall in the first movie when Mr. Miyagi asked Daniel why he wanted to learn, the very first thing out of his mouth was revenge. Daniel's a hothead. We all know that. Miyagi knows that. He might have thought that might not have been appropriate to teach Daniel or maybe he just didn't believe in it. We don't know, but the bottom line though is Chozen has part of the system that Daniel never learned. And Daniel, after all this time, just realized he didn't know everything. There's more to it. And I think that shows a massive split. We saw the reverse of that in Karate Kid Part Two. If you recall, you know, in the many conflicts with each other, there were moments where Daniel was employing the soft side of the art that Chozen did not recognize. For example, the ice breaking scene in the bar when Chozen forces Daniel to do the ice breaking competition. Miyagi has Daniel stop, breathe, focus, and Chozen's laughing and joking the whole time. But we see over across the room, we see that Sato recognizes it. So that was part of the training that Sato was part of too. He didn't pass that down. So Chozen didn't understand that part. Chozen was definitely strength and power and aggressiveness. You know, so Chozen's a little bit blown away when that works. We see that later in the end of the film too with the drum technique. Again, obviously Sato knew it because the second Miyagi pulled that drum out, Sato followed suit and started doing it. Chozen, once again, was perplexed, baffled. He didn't know what this was. Right there, Sato and Miyagi cultivated their own different opinions and values of the art and they passed that on to their students. And there was some interesting overlap too. The Crank Kick. You know, Johnny didn't know what the Crank Kick was. He walked right into it, even though it was horribly telegraphed and he should have seen that coming. But he wasn't familiar with it. Chozen was. If you go back and watch the end of Criedy Kitu when they're doing the final fight, Chozen recognizes the Crank Kick. Daniel takes a stance. He knows what's coming. We see this in season three. He's got the scroll right there. Chozen knew it all along. And that's why he does, if you watch closely, he does a feint and triggers Daniel to act early and then Chozen is able to deflect it. So there is definitely some overlap there and that, again, just reinforces that Daniel and Chozen are the same art, but they've gone down two different paths. And that's why I think this really is a little nugget of an example of how the martial arts works. And this is where a lot of problems in the martial arts comes from is this division, the split. Miyagi and Sato took what they chose and passed it on. That's not unlike Gijin Funakoshi. He learned Okinawan karate. He went to go establish Shodokan, but he took the values that he liked, that he believed in. Some of it was too aggressive for him. He left that out. He stripped a lot of it down and he made a system that he felt was appropriate for what he wanted to teach. His own son, Gigo, had different ideas. He wanted to hire kicks. He wanted more competitiveness. He wanted more aggressiveness. So just right there is a perfect real world example of the Miyagi Sato dynamic. And that's what happens now. Take these arts, you do this over generations, over hundreds of years, and then we can start to understand why there are so many splinters and why we have exactly 4,782 types of Kempo and numerous martial arts out there because each student takes what they learn and they pass it on or they pass on the values that they feel. And as fun as the karate kit is and as fun as the Cobra Kai series is, I absolutely love them. But I think besides, if you look past the entertainment, there's some real actual values there. And I think that this is one of the most realistic lessons that they've brought forth is that they're showing us right off the bat the kind of politics and splits that can happen in the martial arts. Yes, it's just a movie. Yes, it's just a TV show. And yes, it's fun to break it down. But it, yes, ultimately is made for entertainment purposes and the actual fighting is not always realistic. It's made for onscreen drama. But I think that sometimes the lessons that the show portrays are a little bit more on the nose than we realize. And I also want to give a great big kudos to the show for showing real life consequences. You know, my favorite things about the movies were, okay, the moves might not have been realistic, but the reactions were like there were consequences to being struck. Daniel looked hurt. These kicks, these punches actually injured their opponents. So it's just like a wooden real world. It's not like in the movie, you know, the Chuck Norris film or Van Damme film where they take 20 hits with a weapon and they just brush it off. No, Daniel got kicked in the face. He bruised, it hurt him. It impeded his ability to fight. So I thought the movies really did that well. Cobra Kai, I think goes really well with showing the consequence of the story and action. We see a lot of fallout with these characters choices and that's what makes the show so darn good is these people start to feel real to us. They're rounded out, they're more filled in and more multi-dimensional now, but there is real consequence and weight to their actions and it carries the show forward. And I think it makes it much more dynamic. So a great big kudos to the show runners for keeping that integrity intact. So I think the biggest takeaway here is we don't all learn the same. You know, we all have our different methods of training and teaching. We find our own values and ethics, our own techniques, our own strategies that we, that mesh with ourselves. And I think sometimes we tend to lock out other ideas either due to ego or whatever or seclusion, but it's worth opening your mind up, listen to others' perspectives, because in the best case scenario, you both walk away learning something new. So I'd like to hear what you guys think about with the Cobra Kai series. Please leave comments down below, but if you do, make sure to put spoiler tags if you're going to reveal any story details. And also, if there's any other topics with Cobra Kai or Karate Kid you'd like us to cover, leave those comments below as well. Now, stay tuned for our next Cobra Kai video, which we might have found a storytelling mistake. So click that subscribe button, click on the bell so that way you get notified when it drops and we'll have fun with that one next. Thanks for watching.