 To all Karate Kid fans, Cobra Kai has become the revival and nostalgia done right in this iconic 80s franchise. This LaRusso Lawrence romp is a lot of fun, but what if I told you that Cobra Kai is far more realistic than it appears to be on the surface? Today, we're going to explore how Cobra Kai shows us real karate. We'll be using karate as a terminology for this episode to stay faithful to the source material that we are referencing, but the truth is, all of the concepts that we're going to talk about today refer to the martial arts as a whole. This show has been encapsulating almost every major message that we've tried to convey in this channel, which makes us more than just a fandom throwback. Now, we're going to be getting into spoilers for not just Season 4, but the show as a whole. So if you're not caught up yet, then pause this video, go binge, come back, and let's discuss. This is also not the first time we've covered Cobra Kai on this channel, and we will also be referring to previous episodes in which we analyzed what style of karate we see in the films and the show, and we have links to those episodes below down in the description. But OK, let's just see how Cobra Kai shows us real karate. At the surface, Cobra Kai appears to be an entertaining trip down memory lane, but looking past that, we can see that this season has layered in quite a significant amount of real life martial arts debates that we see today. Every character on the show has their own methods, egos, goals and intentions, and that's all reflected in the way that they train. Daniel Ames teach Miyagi-Do, the way of living a strong, yet pacifist life in which karate serves to balance an individual and fighting as a last resort. Johnny, on the other hand, is trying to implement strength and the foundation of bad astry so that his students can grab life by the proverbial balls and play on their own terms. Cobra Kai simply wants to win at all costs, honor and integrity, take a backseat to completely destroy the enemy. These are three very different ideologies, but they mirror the real world debate that we see between competitive MMA and traditional martial arts systems. The internet is ablaze with arguments on which is better with MMA proponents bashing traditional arts, stripping away that anything they feel is not useful for pummeling your opponent against the cage wall. And then traditional martial artists often put down using martial arts for sport and instead encouraging it as a way of life. This show is quite literally a debate between the value of karate dough and karate jitsu. They even debate the value of kata, which I'm sure this is a completely new topic for anyone here. Stemming back to Karate Kid 3, the concept of kata is mock and deemed unnecessary by Cobra Kai. What are you wasting your time with kata for? Can I tell you it's useless in a tournament? Yeah, but it's useless. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And Eagle Fang. The kata is in karate. It's dancing. While it's heavily embraced as a foundation in the Miyagi dough. That was kata. That's the foundation of my kata. Cross-training in the martial arts has also been a thoroughly explored topic in recent years, especially in the age of MMA and in America, where most arts can be found and taught somewhere. Cobra Kai takes great care to retain a distinct flavor and teachings of each of the three dojos and they demonstrate why cross-training is important. Why cross-training in general? Well, the truth of the matter is there isn't a single martial art style out there that can master all aspects of training. Most arts have specialized focuses, many having several, but no art completely and thoroughly teaches all aspects to a master level. So the objective to cross-training is first understanding what your goals are, then choosing an art that is your foundation or base art, learning it well enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses and then learning other arts that complement and fill in those weaknesses. How many characters in the course of these four seasons have changed schools either in search of something they felt they were missing or simply finding a balance between multiple styles? Season four addresses this directly and the characters make efforts to make styles, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each one, and then using that education for their own objectives. In fact, the season gives Robbie a few mic drop moments that touch on the base that we see today. Truth is it doesn't matter which way you fight as long as it works. But ultimately we see each character at the strongest when they find that blend in which they balance out the different styles. It was especially enjoyable when it came to Daniel and Johnny were luckily taking part in said cross-training. I also have to tip my hat to the choreography this season. The fight sequences have definitely stepped up since the first season and while many of the moves and fights are glorified and kind of teeter on the edge of being too flashy, they do a great job of visually representing each style to the point where you can see when characters suddenly switch styles. That's not an easy thing to do to block out in TV and film, especially when the general public isn't always aware of such differences. And an extra kudos for keeping the familiarity of Daniel and Johnny's fighting styles from the first film, we can definitely feel the connective tissue here. I hope I'm not alone in finding the All-Valley boardroom meeting a bit humorous when they were discussing the changes to this year's tournament. The funny thing is, all of the changes that they made make the All-Valley Under-18 championship more like an actual real tournament. Adding content divisions and demonstrations, splitting up the men and women's events are quite reflective of how actual American tournaments are actually organized. As much as I am obsessed with the first film, probably to an unhealthy level, I have to admit that the tournament feels a little reckless. The Under-18 tournament featuring minors fighting with no pads, no weight divisions, men and women fighting each other, and it's supposed to be like contact, but the full contact never gets past the warning, so it's nice to see the show modifying the event to reflect American tournaments a little bit more accurately, in structure anyway. Aesthetically though, real tournaments are a lot less flash in concert and more, well, gymnasium sparring. In fact, the most realistic portrayal of a tournament is probably the establishing shot in the first movie. Now these last two points surprised me not only on how on the nose they are, but they also completely support a couple of points that we've stressed on our channel recently. And at the end of the episode, I'm going to point out a few of my favorite Easter eggs that I'm curious to see if you guys picked out. When it comes to martial arts politics, I would have to say the number one source of conflict probably comes from ego and the people trying to dictate the way that a style should be practiced. Young Robbie summed it up best with a single line in the show. If you come from Wing Chun or Kempo, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. This season of Cobra Kai addresses this topic effectively and demonstrates why and how arts diverge and how we get the new martial arts styles over time. American Kempo founder Ed Parker said that the art should fit the student, not the other way around. This show highlights this concept perfectly. Daniel and Johnny are so dead set on insisting that their way is the right way while there are constant signs of change and divergence. The most obvious is Samantha LaRusso struggling to find a balance between her father's teaching and that of Johnny. She sees value in both and has to combine them. Tori mirrors this as well trying to decide how to blend her offense and defense and leave it decreased with a moment of clarity to tell her to use what she wants to. This show really pounds in this concept that even flashing back to a scene in the movie details Daniel that one day he'll take Miyagi Do and make it his own. Daniel recalls this and lets Samantha establish her own roots. It makes for great dramatic television but this is exactly how we get the variety we have in the martial arts. A people or culture develop or learn a system, they teach it, then their students learn it and over time add, delete, adjust making the system their own and eventually your tree splits off into different branches. And we've talked about this before and conditions. Heck, the show is already showing us this at an accelerated rate. You could consider Eagle Fang an offshoot of Cobra Kai. Johnny took what he felt was valuable and he changed what he felt was detrimental. And if we want to get settled with this let's look at Daniel when he did the secret Miyagi pressure points in this point match with Johnny. Did anyone notice the one very distinct difference in the way Daniel performs his opening moves versus Chosen in Season 3? When Chosen does it, he takes a very solid stance, closed fists and an incredibly reflective of the hard breathing and style of Goju Ryu. When Daniel does it, it feels lighter and his breathing is less intense and his hands are open, a little more reminiscent of Oichi Ryu interpretation. So, is Daniel misinterpreting the sequence and doing it incorrectly? Is this a different version of the technique that's not as violent as the one he did against Chris or did Daniel make some modifications for other reasons? All three of these reasons are exactly why we see so many variants of the arts over the course of centuries. And by the way, I'm usually very team Daniel, but dude, Johnny was right. That was a dirty move. I'll vouch for the crane kick any day, but this would have earned him a warning at the tournament. At the end of last year, we released a live stream as well as a standard episode discussing the criteria of what defines a martial art, system and style. We talked with all of you and came up with what we felt was a fair criteria for the definition and if you'd like to check it out, we've got links to all that below in the description. I would definitely love to hear your feedback on all of that. But the bridge version is that we define a system as the actual combat system chosen. The style is the version or how that system is taught and the art is the flavor displayed by that particular individual. So for example, a system would be Kempo, BJJ, Wing Chun, Muay Thai. A style which is a system taught tournament style, self-defense, cultural and in the art being crafted by the individual how they strategize their adjustments, judgments and flair. We see this structure very clearly in Cobra Kai. The system of Miyagi Do is Gojiru. The style can be passive and defensive as the way Miyagi taught it or aggressive and fit for combat like Chozen teaches it. The individual flavors of the art, well, Mr. Miyagi, Daniel LaRusso, Samantha LaRusso and even Robbie Keane demonstrate their own takeaways, focus and flair for the art. Cobra Kai, the system, the style, focus and killing and combat like Kreece and Silver know it or for self-defense and confidence as Johnny stresses. And we definitely see a difference in the art of each individual. Silver, Kreece, Johnny and Robbie all fight using the same material but very differently. And then we have the new roots of Miyagi Fang which circles back to demonstrate just how new arts and offshoots can form. I am honestly impressed that Cobra Kai is packing in so much value and content in just 10 short episodes a season. Cobra Kai also has a very delicate balance of nostalgia and all new stories. It has layers and layers of martial arts philosophy and tradition in it and if that wasn't enough they still make an effort to cram it full of references that only the die-hard fans will pick up on. One of my favorites is that we finally get to see the blueberry pie scene. Deleted from the first film was a scene in which Daniel and Allie are sitting in the school lunchroom and Johnny puts a slice of blueberry pie on Daniel's seat and chaos ensues. So we have a lot of fun with Daniel's presentation as well as rehearsal footage shot during pre-production. Daniel mentioned it in season 2 but finally in season 4 we get a flashback of it which officially makes this canon so I don't want to hear any more of Daniel being the bully nonsense. The wine bottle. In a moment of seeing the old Terry Silver emerge he delivers a swift hook kick to a bottle of Cayman wine. This is in reference to the original cry-to-kid screenwriter Robert Mark Cayman who in addition to writing the films was a really fun nod to him. Even more obscure is the warehouse where Johnny is teaching Eagle Fang students. In a couple of shots you can see in the background the words Weber Industrial. But what is the significance to this? This one is a bit of a deep cut but it appears to be a fun nod to the fact that in an early draft of the first movie script Daniel LaRusso was originally named Daniel Weber. Now I gotta kick out of that one which also reminded me of the boxes in season 2 labeled Fernandez Meats a possible reference to his would-be friend and neighbor in the first film, Freddie Fernandez and his famous Megan Bacon t-shirt. I could go on forever with these but here's another obscure one from cry-to-kid part 3, Terry Silver's house. Does it look familiar? If you've seen The Rock of Tears from 1991 it should or if you've seen Blade Runner. The house location is actually called the Ennis House located in California and it's been the inspiration and location for several motion pictures over the years in a little detail. So while Cobra Kai seemed like a project that would be a mindless nostalgia throwback it has been a very welcome surprise and it's been delivering us a lot more hardcore karate truths than expected. So what do you guys think? Are there any other martial arts philosophies in the shows that we missed and let me know what your favorite Easter eggs are down in the comments below. And also check out our extensive list of Cobra Kai and cry-to-kid episodes where we analyze the snot out of the series. But if anything if you only walk away with this just one message let's listen to young Robbie. You know everybody thinks their way is the only way.