John Kreese's Training
Much of Kreese's way of training is unknown, however, it follows two different Creeds.
The first Creed, spray-painted proudly on the walls is:
- Strike First
- Strike Hard
- No Mercy
The second Creed shows emphasis on the third rule:
"We do not train to be merciful. Mercy is for the weak. Here, on the streets, in competition: A man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy."
These methods included punching practice and physical fitness training. The latter of which, is used more as a punishment. Kreese's favored method is push-ups on the knuckles. On top of physical training, Kreese's philosophy is to win at all costs. Whether it's injuring an opponent, or exploiting said injury. A notion only two students disagreed with.
Johnny Lawrence's Training
While Lawrence does borrow things from Kreese's way, his way seems to both deconstruct and reconstruct the Creed in an effort to help the students better themselves. While not emphasizing the Miyagi family's attitude of "Karate for defense only", he has also discarded Kreese's cruelty. Lawrence seems to promote the concept "the best defense is a good offense", but also warns students that certain moves could result in severe bodily injury and are only to be used in extreme scenarios.
Lesson 1: Strike first. Strike Hard.
The first lesson. Strike first. Strike Hard. The Cobra Kai teacher first asks if a student is ready. If answered yes, then without warning, the teacher will throw the student onto the ground. Demonstrating the lesson. To never wait for the enemy to attack. The Cobra Kai teacher then teaches the meaning of Strike First: That to strike first, you must know how to strike. To demonstrate he brings out a Body Opponent Bag or B.O.B. to demonstrate both the strike and the vital areas. The strike, known as the Cobra Strike, is comprised of two components. The lunge, which incorporates the whole body strength. As well as the bite, which ends with the fist. To punch, you don't just end at the surface, you have to punch through your opponent as though you are trying to hit the person behind them. For better motivation, the Cobra Kai teacher tells his student to imagine their enemy.
Training 1: Pushups on knuckles.
Borrowed from Kreese. The push ups are less of a punishment and more standard training. Designed to increase the student's arm strength. However it still can be used as a punishment as demonstrated when Miguel walked in on Johnny and Daniel's confrontation and asked if he needed to do them as punishment for interrupting. They are later incorporated as such, when Johnny dresses down Miguel and Hawk, for fighting dirty in the tournament. Should you fail to do so on your first try, The Cobra Kai teacher compensates by telling his student to do alternatives such as Crunches. However, eventually, the student will master the push ups.
Training 2: Manual Labor
The instructor requests the student clean and paint. Unlike the Miyagi-Do way, which was intended to teach moves through muscle memory, this was intended to bring the dojo up to code. Although used for the personal benefit of the sensei, it was also part of the student's training to focus on tasks at hand even if they did not have anything to do with fighting. Like the Miyagi-Do way, questions were disallowed.
Training 3: Learn to Kick
To do this, the Cobra Kai teacher must take their student to a body of water. Be it a swimming pool or a lake. Whichever has a deep point. The student is then fitted with a rope around their hands to restrain them and told that to kick they need to increase the strength of their legs. Without warning, the Cobra Kai teacher pushes the student into the water and tells them to kick up with their legs. When they manage to stay afloat for 10 minutes that's when the next half of the lesson is taught. To demonstrate the kick strength, the student must learn how to front kick on a series of boards, representing the vital areas of an opponent, such as the kneecaps, stomach and face.
Lesson 2: The Best Defense is More Offense
While learning how to strike is good, a Cobra must also learn how to defend itself from oncoming attacks and counterattacks. That's where the next batch of training comes into play.
Training 4: Jogging
On top of continuing the pushups, one must jog. The student can do this training anywhere. It is designed to increase your cardio and endurance.
Training 5: Baseball Launcher
To test the reflexes and get a student used to getting hit in the process, the Cobra Kai teacher will use a ball launcher. This demonstrates the speed of an opponent's strike and the student is required to prevent the balls from hitting vital areas using blocks.
Training 6: Slither
The Cobra Kai teacher will have you in a headlock, repeating the phrase "What does a Cobra do?" The answer is to "Slither" or to strike the ribs, move out of the lock and lock one of the arms.
Training 7: Sparring
When the Cobra Kai teacher, feels that the student is ready, they will personally spar with them. When you defeat them, that's when you've learned. However, don't underestimate them just because they are on the ground, for they may have a friend that will strike you from behind. In the teacher's case, the remote to the ball launcher.
Lesson 3: Cyberbullying
According to Sensei Lawrence, real bullying is done to your face. With honor and the guts to back it up. That those who use anonymous accounts to bully and harass people are a bunch of spineless losers. And that to truly fight bullying one must send a message, not with your keyboard, but with your fist.
Training 8: Breaking in new student.
The training prior to this while it can apply to a group, has more or less been applied to one student. Whereas here, when more students show up the most trained one must test their skills against the newer one. As demonstrated when Miguel strikes Aisha. The newer one is required to in turn retaliate as best they can. As demonstrated when Aisha in turn overpowers Miguel. Once the demonstration is over, the new Cobra is required to train in the same way the trained Cobra is trained.
Challenge 1: Fight to earn your Gi
In this challenge, you must first find yourself in a confrontation. Preferably where you're the one defending yourself. Incorporate the lessons you've been taught prior and once successful, the Cobra Kai teacher will award you with your very own Gi. The Gi comes in two variations: Student White. The standard amongst Karate students. Tournament Black. The standard formal wear for competitive fighting.
Lesson 4: Weed Out The Weaklings
Presumably the result of Challenge 1, would up the students' reputation and would cause many potentials to show up. However, since there are so many in the start, it requires the Cobra Kai teacher to be more harsh. This lesson is required, because in real life no one cares about boundaries, laws and rules and would do anything to provoke or dominate you. Those that understand, stay and train. Those that don't, leave. Those that disagree will be used as an example and most likely thrown to the floor.
Training 9: Flip the Script
This is more of a confidence booster rather than actual training. If the student has a physical deformity, a mental disorder or just downright has social problems. They are required to take those problems and turn them into feats of strength. Case in point Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz. When he started out, he was insecure about his cleft palate even when corrective surgery is applied. As a result, he barely spoke and was also implied to be on the autistic spectrum. After a few words from Johnny, he changed his look and attitude. Donned a mohawk and tattoo and became a berserker similar to that of Dutch.
Training 10: Flinchers Get Punched.
This training is designed to know what a hit feels like, so one doesn't flinch preemptively. To do so, before the end of the session, senior students will line up the newer students. Who in turn get punched one by one, very hard to the face.
Lesson 5: Be Better than your Best
Once your training is complete for the most part, the Cobra Kai teacher will take you to an abandoned junkyard. Where he will motivate you into pushing yourselves beyond your best. This is mostly to prepare the students for the upcoming tournament.
Training 11: Obstacle Course
This obstacle course requires you to do the following
- Running through tires to increase endurance.
- Running through a balance beam over a dumpster full of sharp rusty metal. To make the student quick on their feet and increase balance.
Training 12: Destroy Your Enemy
This training is more to give a proper outlet for the students anger and to sharpen their instinct for future fights. Johnny gave his students a blunt object such as a bat or stick, and instructed his students to destroy abandoned cars in a junkyard.
Training 13: Dog Dodge
To demonstrate who is hungrier, Johnny hands pieces of meat to students to lower their guard. He than blew a whistle that attracted a pack of dogs to the class. The students were then required to avoid them as best they can. This taught the students agility, strategy, and a sense of defense.
Lesson 5: No Mercy
This lesson is more for motivation and can be summed up in one quote.
"You've all learned to Strike First. To be aggressive. To not be losers. I've taught you to Strike Hard. To put every ounce of your power behind everything you do. But I haven't taught you the third rule of Cobra Kai: No Mercy. The older you get, the more you're gonna learn, that life isn't fair. You wake up one morning feeling great and then life throws a spinning heel kick to your balls and takes a big steaming shit in your mouth. You get an F on a test. You get suspended. You fall in love with a girl, then some other dude comes and steals her away. Your car gets set on fire. Just when you think things are going good, everything falls apart. That's how it goes. Life shows No Mercy. So neither do we. We do whatever it takes to keep our heads above water. We do whatever it takes to keep moving forward. We do whatever it takes to win. Remember who you are. You're badass. You don't give a shit. You kick ass!! You're Cobra Kai. "
Lesson 6: The Two Cobras in The Jungle
Following the tournament, Sensei Johnny Lawrence realized that without restraint, he inadvertently turned the students into the very people he and his fellow students used to be in 1984. So he implemented a lesson in an attempt to reign it in. He was specifically mad, that Miguel and Hawk resorted to illegal tactics to win. To prove his point he asks the following:
"Two Cobras in the jungle. One kills the strongest lion. The other kills a crippled monkey. Which Cobra do you want to be?"
The correct answer is the Lion. For a Cobra is most badass when they beat the animal at its strongest. Not when their back is turned, not when they are injured. Failure to comply to the new rule, will cause the offenders 50 pushups on your knuckles. As well as the rest of the class, to be reduced to white belts to further motivate them.
Training 14: Move Forward Or Get Stuck
As further punishment, both for the events of the tournament and for arrogance; the Cobra Kai Students are required to go to a remote location and mix cement until it is ready. Johnny then brought out a cement mixing truck to pour the cement inside. Once it's good enough for the students to be up to their knees inside, they are required to step into the mixer and push it manually like a treadmill. Combining their strengths to keep the cement going lest they be stuck. Once they mastered this training, they will be hosed down and fit for another training session.
Punishment 1: Exercise Until One Breaks.
This is less of a training exercise and more of a punishment. While Miyagi-Do is considered an enemy of Cobra Kai, the Cobra Kai teacher will not tolerate petty retaliation. In one instance the teacher was accused of vandalizing Miyagi-Do Dojo. The teacher had no knowledge of such an event and in an effort to get a student to fess up, the entire school was forced into a rigorous set of training. This includes but not limits to Squat Thrusts. While a punishment it also tests the will of the students. However another Cobra Kai teacher, has twisted it, in an effort to test the loyalty and conviction, similar to that of Spartacus. First by pointing out one student responsible, then holding the rest responsible for his/her actions.
Red vs Black
Challenge 2: Red vs Black
This challenge is meant to test one's skills in the real world. It is similar to that of the games Capture the Flag and Predator and Prey. The object of the challenge is simple: The game itself takes place in a remote location, such as a forest. The students are divided into two teams. One wears red bandanna and the other wears black. The goal is to find spots to hide and then seek out the opposing team. Then steal their headbands off them by any means necessary. Whichever team gets the most headbands wins the challenge.
Lesson 6: Mercy
Due to controversial events between Sensei Kreese and Sensei Lawrence, the latter has opted to change the creed of Cobra Kai for the better. In a call back to Training 14, those who don't move forward get stuck like cement. The lesson summed up in this quote.
"To be a great fighter, you got to learn to adapt. This creed on the wall. Follow it to the letter and it will make you strong. It will make you formidable, but it will also make you an asshole. Because that's just black paint on a white wall, but life's not black and white. More often than not, it's grey. And it's in those grey areas, when Johnny Lawrence's Cobra Kai sometimes shows mercy. It doesn't mean you can't be badass. That's still a requirement, but you have to learn to think not just with your gut or your fists. To really use this (your head)."
Training 16: Headbutting
To precede the lesson, Johnny taught the students how to properly headbutt. Each student is paired off with a partner where they practice giving and receiving the strike. Johnny instructed the students to tuck in their chins and aim for the nose and/or the crown of the head.
Fighting Style
Cobra Kai, or "the way of the fist," is an aggressive, strong, merciless style of karate. Its founder, John Kreese, learned hand-to-hand combat from Captain Turner, who learned Tang Soo Do (a style of martial arts similar to taekwondo and karate) from Kim Sun-Yung. Cobra Kai karate is heavily kick-oriented and focuses less on self-defense; instead, students are taught the best defense is more offense, diametrically opposed to Miyagi-Do Karate. Students are taught to "finish" their enemy and strike when they are weak, and that the fight is not over until they say it is.
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