May 30, 2018

Join the dojo


from the Cobra Kai Facebook page

May 28, 2018

The Martial Arts Teacher


(from the Research Martial Arts Facebook page)

Do you own a martial arts school, or dream of running a school someday? My new book, "The Martial Arts Teacher," is aimed at providing insights and helpful info...rmation to make your teaching practice a success. These are challenging times for traditional martial arts, but if you approach it the right way, you can run an honorable, ethical and financially successful school and become an important part of your students' lives. I use real-life examples from my own experience to help you become the teacher your students need. You will find advice and insights on maintaining a culture of equality, on dealing with students who show a lack of respect, on teaching children, and much more. A martial arts teacher is a mentor, a psychologist, a coach, a curriculum developer and a business person. It is difficult to be successful in all these roles. This book is written as a practical guide to what I consider to be a noble way -- the path of a martial arts teacher.

Being that I am a teacher of the traditional Chinese martial arts, the book is written more from that sort of perspective. However, it is approachable to and readable by just about anyone.

The book is readily available on any Amazon-affiliated website, such as below:

https://www.amazon.com/Martial-Arts-T…/…/ref=zg_bs_16571_14…

More information is available on the official website:

https://www.researchofmartialarts.com

May 24, 2018

May 22, 2018

How 'Cobra Kai' Brought 'The Karate Kid' Roaring Back to Life


Ralph Macchio, William Zabka and the creators of the YouTube Red series break down the long road back to the dojo

(by Andy Greene rollingstone.com 4-24-18)

In September 2016, William Zabka – best known for portraying quintessential 1980s teen movie villain Johnny Lawrence in the original The Karate Kid – was summoned to his favorite Mexican restaurant in L.A. The reason: A mysterious meeting with three young comedy writers who had found big success in recent years with the Hot Tub Time Machine and Harold and Kumar franchises. He had absolutely no idea what they wanted. "We must have finished four or five baskets of chips and salsa," says Zabka. "But they kept pushing away the waiter from taking our order so they could tell me their idea."

The elaborate plan they unveiled left the 52-year-old actor in a state of absolute shock: They wanted to bring back The Karate Kid as a serialized television series. "I said to them, 'This sounds too good to be true,'" says Zabka. "'To do something like this you'd need to get everybody to sign on it, including [rights holders] Sony, [Will Smith's production company] Overbrook [Entertainment] and [the estate of late Karate Kid producer] Jerry Weintraub.' They said, 'Everybody is in. The next step is to get Ralph Macchio.' I said, 'All right, just make sure at his lunch they serve broccolini. That's the secret to his youth.'" When the long meal ended, Zabka walked out and drafted a text to the guys that he was ultimately too embarrassed to send: "The Johnny in me just opened one crusty eye."

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/cobrai-kai-karate-kid-TV-show-w519028

May 17, 2018

May 3, 2018

The Crane Kick Is Bogus: A Karate Kid Oral History



Nearly three dozen members of the cast and crew of the original 1984 "The Karate Kid" share behind-the-scenes moments and filming secrets of an all-time classic movie.

(by Alex Prewitt si.com 5-1-18)

At the end of a switchback road that winds through Sonoma Valley wine country, the wood varnish has worn from the spot where Robert Mark Kamen still practices karate on his vineyard porch each day. Now 66, the screenwriter took up martial arts after getting jumped by a gang of bullies at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. In hindsight, it was a history-altering asskicking.

His earliest instructor was a truculent Marine captain who preached raw violence, which helped on the revenge front but which left Kamen desiring a deeper spiritual connection with the craft. He branched out and discovered Okinawan Gōjū-ryū, a defensive style designed to turn aggression on the aggressor with smooth blocks and sharp counterstrikes. Kamen trained four hours each day, seven days a week, under a teacher who spoke little English but who had learned directly from the founder of Okinawan Gōjū-ryū: a sensei named Chojun Miyagi.

Sound familiar? Three and a half decades after Kamen turned his life into a 109-page draft of a script, The Karate Kid waxes on. Released in June 1984, two weeks following the premier of Ghostbusters, the film endures through an endless list of quotable catchphrases: “sand the floor. . . paint the fence. . . sweep the leg.” It inspired generations to stand up against schoolyard tormentors (pity those who did so with a crane kick), introduced a mainstream audience to the heroism of the all-Japanese 442nd Infantry Regiment from World War II, and lives on through an upcoming web series, Cobra Kai. The film’s $90 million domestic gross helped Kamen build his beloved vineyard, where he’s sitting on this sun-splashed afternoon, fielding a call from the manager of a local cinema who wants him to appear at an upcoming Karate Kid tribute night.

“I’ll wear my Mr. Miyagi T-shirt,” Kamen replies. “Or I can wear my WAX ON, F--- OFF T-shirt.”

Many of the production’s principal figures have passed away, including producer Jerry Weintraub, director John Avildsen and Pat Morita, whose turn as Miyagi earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor, a first in that category for an Asian-American. But nearly three dozen other members of the cast and crew spoke with SPORTS ILLUSTRATED about the making of The Karate Kid, reliving a whopping hit that, like Daniel LaRusso’s performance in the final round of the All-Valley Under-18 Karate Championships, no one saw coming,

(more to come)

https://www.si.com/tech-media/2018/05/01/karate-kid-movie-oral-history-cobra-kai

May 1, 2018

‘Karate Kid’ Revisited: This Rivalry Is Not Quite Ready for a Body Bag


(by Jeremy Egner nytimes.com 4-26-18)

To hear William Zabka tell it, Johnny Lawrence was a victim of circumstance.

As the roundhouse-kicking nemesis of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso in “The Karate Kid” (1984), the definitive underdog tale for at least one generation, Johnny was both the story’s villain and a template for similar roles in comedies like “Back to School” and “Just One of the Guys.” The films cemented Mr. Zabka’s pop culture reputation for golden boy bullies just begging for the kicks to the face, literal or otherwise, that inevitably landed in the final act.
 
It’s a legacy he’s fine with, he insisted on the set of “Cobra Kai.” The 10-episode series, debuting May 2 on YouTube Red, the video portal’s paid streaming service, picks up the “Karate Kid” story more than three decades later.
 
But in a locker room at a college gym here, the cheers from an ersatz karate tournament echoing outside like glories past, it didn’t take much prompting for Mr. Zabka to break down the injustice of Johnny’s infamy: There was Daniel’s cheap shot on the beach. The unprovoked water hose incident at the Halloween dance. And the fact that in the film’s final showdown, Johnny was “fighting square and clean” until his demented sensei ordered him to sweep Daniel’s injured leg.
 
“So I never saw him as an [expletive],” he concluded, a revisionist theme that also has been espoused in viral videos and in Mr. Zabka’s own memorable arc on “How I Met Your Mother.”
But not everyone is convinced.
 
“He was the biggest [expletive] of the ’80s,” Mr. Macchio said.
 
Some grudges go dormant, but they don’t go away. That’s the idea animating “Cobra Kai,” and it gives this latest TV revival more baked-in tension than the average nostalgia-fest.
 
Created by Josh Heald (“Hot Tub Time Machine”), Jonathan Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg (the “Harold and Kumar” films, “Blockers”), longtime friends and “Karate Kid” obsessives, the half-hour comedy flips the story to focus on Johnny. “Cobra Kai” offers the young tough-turned-old deadbeat a chance at redemption while illuminating the reasons behind his behavior all those years ago. (They involve a stepfather played by Ed Asner.)
 
When Johnny resurrects the old Cobra Kai dojo, it triggers Daniel, a successful car dealer who misses the stabilizing influence of his late mentor, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita). As the rivalry reignites and finds proxy in young protégés, multigenerational resentments, confrontations and hook-kicks ensue.
 
“It’s a karate opera,” Mr. Schlossberg said. “There’s a fun sort of Hatfields and McCoys vibe.”
 
Now in their 50s, Mr. Macchio and Mr. Zabka each have had periods of wanting to keep “The Karate Kid” at arm’s length. (They’ve heard enough “wax on” and “sweep the leg” jokes for many lifetimes.) But they were lured back into their headbands by the update on the story and its themes, some of which, like bullying, are getting more attention now than they were in 1984.
 
The Google-owned YouTube, which beat out more established outlets like Netflix and Hulu for the rights to “Cobra Kai,” was enticed by the series’s potential to expand the audience for YouTube Red, said Susanne Daniels, the global head of programming. The service has been making deals lately with established franchises (the “Step Up” movies) and filmmakers (Doug Liman) in an effort to move beyond its homegrown stable of viral stars toward more mainstream appeal.
 
YouTube also knows from search metrics that “The Karate Kid” remains popular among its users, and it plans to use its multitude of clips from and inspired by the movies to promote “Cobra Kai.” Anyone who wants to relive, say, the original’s cheesily triumphant “You’re the Best” montage, which has more than 15.5 million views, can expect to see in the adjacent “up next” queue the first two episodes of “Cobra Kai,” which will be available free. (The show’s trailer, hyped in similar fashion, has been viewed nearly 13 million times.)
 
That plus the fact that Ms. Daniels offered a full series deal in the pitch meeting was enough to get the “Cobra Kai” creators to overlook the relatively paltry subscriber base. YouTube declined to release figures, but it’s safe to say they lag far behind the totals for streaming behemoths like Netflix (125 million) and Amazon (which has more than 100 million people paying for Amazon Prime, which also includes access to its programming).
The upside, the creators say, is that unlike at a place like Netflix, which plans to release hundreds of shows this year, there is little chance “Cobra Kai” will get lost in the marketing shuffle.
 
“It’s nice to be a big fish in a small pond,” Mr. Hurwitz said, “when the small pond is Google.”
 
There have been five “Karate Kid” films, including the initial three movies (Mr. Zabka appeared in the first two); a partial reboot with Hilary Swank replacing Mr. Macchio, in 1994; and a totally new one in 2010, starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith.
 
“Cobra Kai” draws almost exclusively from the first movie and actually begins with a flashback to the moment Daniel laid out Johnny in the ’84 All Valley Karate Championship with the infamous crane kick, the legality of which is still debated online.
 
“That kick to the head sent them on two different trajectories,” Mr. Hurwitz said. “Daniel on the upswing, and Johnny in the downward spiral that’s been going for the last 30 years.”
 
Johnny is now a Coors-guzzling handyman who is “stuck in 1989,” Mr. Zabka said, cruising around Southern California in an old Firebird, jamming to vintage hair metal and scowling at billboards for LaRusso Auto Group, which gives away bonsai trees with every purchase. They are still on opposite sides of the tracks, but they’ve switched sides: Daniel has a grand compound in affluent Encino, Johnny a dingy apartment in Reseda. (Aside from some exteriors, the series was shot in and around Atlanta.)
 
When events conspire to bring the old foes back into both karate and one another’s orbit, history repeats itself in melodramatic fashion. Johnny’s student Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), a bullied new kid in town, squares off with Daniel’s protégé, Robby (Tanner Buchanan), who happens to be Johnny’s estranged son. Each pines for Daniel’s daughter, Samantha (Mary Mouser), shades of the Ali-Daniel-Johnny triangle of the first film.
 
“The good news is now I’m sitting on the sidelines — I’m not getting my ass kicked,” Mr. Macchio said. “At 56, no matter how much hair and makeup help me, everything hurts more in the morning.”

Even off camera, both he and Mr. Zabka, 52, are remarkably well-preserved. This is key to maintaining the possibility that the story’s old guys might actually fight, too — the will-they-or-won’t-they of this particular sitcom. (“My kicks are still high,” Mr. Zabka warned, grinning. “No mercy.”)
 
But neither was interested putting on a karate gi for a broad, nostalgic spoof. In separate interviews, the actors struck similar notes of protectiveness about the “Karate Kid” legacy, about how important it was for “Cobra Kai” to spin the story forward and include some of the film’s heart along with the clever callbacks, fan Easter eggs and “humor that comes from the fact that these two guys have not moved past it,” Mr. Macchio said.
 
The actors long ago made peace with the fact that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they’ll never entirely move past “The Karate Kid.”
 
Mr. Macchio had other indelible roles in movies like “The Outsiders,” “Crossroads” and “My Cousin Vinny,” and he has starred on Broadway. But he knows that any time he attends a sporting event, the arena will put him on the Jumbotron and play “You’re the Best” at some point.
 
Mr. Zabka moved on to other roles and was nominated for an Oscar for “Most (The Bridge),” a 2003 short he co-wrote and co-produced, about a father forced to make a tragic sacrifice, but he still gets asked to send up Johnny in sitcoms and music videos. “There’s something alive about it — these characters have become real to people in a way,” he said.
 
The actors have a hard time articulating precisely why “The Karate Kid” endures, chalking it up to some alchemy of the underdog story, the unforgettable characters (Mr. Miyagi, the aggro Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese) and a script that balanced the corniness and catchphrases with great pathos.

(Even the villain got a moment of grace at the end, when Johnny handed Daniel the trophy.) The movie stuck with them, too — Mr. Zabka admitted that it was more than a decade before he was able to watch it with anything like objectivity.
 
“For so long, I still felt that kick,” he said.
 
Kept mostly apart during filming, Mr. Macchio and Mr. Zabka never really became friends until later, on the fan convention circuit. But while it’s an odd thing, being randomly but inextricably linked to another person for your entire adult life, there’s something transporting about it, too.
 
Mr. Macchio, for one, was stunned at how quickly the old fire came back once the actors finally faced off for the first time during filming for “Cobra Kai.”
 
“It just had all that tension — you look into his eyes, and he’s looking at mine,” he said. “The eyelids had a couple more wrinkles, but it felt like yesterday.”
 
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/arts/television/karate-kid-cobra-kai-youtube-red.html