Season 3 of ‘Cobra Kai’ is a few days away from its premiere, so we are going to tell you what the true martial arts are behind the Netflix original series and believe it or not, it is not karate.
Since the 80s, the Karate Kid franchise taught us that we should never give up no matter how complicated things get and always seek physical and mental balance to lead an honorable life. Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) demonstrated it to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) while he shared his knowledge in karate and of course, the same essence would be transmitted to Cobra Kai, Netflix original series. Now get ready to know the real martial arts behind these productions, because it is not karate.
Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and John Kreese (Martin Kove) have made it clear to us that the Cobra dojo teaches the roughest karate in all of All Valley, but we’ll have to get technical and tell you (in theory) that is not the case. It all started with Pat E. Johnson, who was the match choreographer in the original films, and also played the referee for Daniel’s first tournament..
Johnson’s experience with martial arts is truly outstanding: He was a student of the legendary Chuck Norris and captain of Norris’s own Black Belt Competition team that won 33 consecutive national and international championships. There is no doubt that there was no one better than Pat E. Johnson to supervise the matches throughout Karate Kid, however, his knowledge is focused on the Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art.
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Hawk and Tory are the new generations who practice Tang Soo Do.
MEANING OF TANG SOO DO
Being a concept made up of different words, we will start with the complete translation and then we will separate the word: Tang Soo Do means “Path of the Tang hand”; Do is “The way”, so it is common that it is part of other ancient combat techniques such as Karate-Do, Judo or Taekwondo itself.. On the other hand, Soo means “Hand” and Tang refers to the true Tang dynasty (618-907), which corroborates its Chinese origins despite developing and perfecting in Korea.
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There is a legend that contemplates the origin of all Asian martial arts come from the historic Shaolin Temple in China, the same place where Kung Fu was born; That is why the “Road of the Tang hand” is also known worldwide as the “Road of the Chinese hand”, paying homage to the point where the first knowledge began. Despite this, we must clarify that traditional Karate and Tang Soo Do are different disciplines.
William Zabka is a Tang Soo Do expert, after ‘The Karate Kid’, he continued to learn Korean martial art.
WILLIAM ZABKA, EXPERTO EN TANG SOO DO
After El Karate Kid, William Zabka was captivated with Tang Soo Do and decided to continue practicing it for many more years, of course Pat E. Johnson himself was his sensei. This is how the Korean martial art is the solid foundation in the three seasons of Cobra Kai, simply one of the protagonists is an expert.
Other clues make it clear that Johnson’s teachings and Zabka’s training are the DNA of Netflix production, for example: the high kicks that we constantly see in the series are characteristic of the Korean style, even in episode seven of the first season Johnny himself yells the following: “Jun be”, which means in Korean, “get ready”; now its influence on Cobra Kai.
John Kreese founded Cobra Kai after learning martial arts in the military, the same thing happened in real life with American soldiers.
That is why within the story, John Kreese founds Cobra Kai in the United States and this has a historical context: Many American soldiers learned Tang Soo Do during their stay in Korea and that is how they traveled from the mainland; also the photo of Kreese that we have seen so much surrounded by his companions in the army, is when he was a karate champion in the army. In the end everything is connected between historical events, ancient traditions and an addictive dose of drama that has worked so well for the giant of the world. streaming.
