I often think back to the 1970’s, and the 1980’s, when the martial arts really did make their mark around the world. Mention of course the now classic film Enter The Dragon from 1973 and Bruce Lee and many will know who I mean, but for sure two other martial art based stories also spring to mind.
I say stories because both the original Karate Kid film from 1984 and the television show called Kung Fu from 1972 really did have a story to tell. Unlike martial art films these days, that are all over the top action heroes in nature, the lead actors in both the original Karate Kid film and in the TV show Kung Fu portrayed a somewhat more realistic view of what a martial art teacher, or combat expert is, compared to those all action superheroes that we see in films today. In the television show ‘Kung Fu’ the character of ‘Kwai Chang Caine’ who was portrayed as a Shaolin Monk, was shown as a soft, slow moving and somewhat humble man that showed no outward aggression but a spiritual priest who helped others as he travelled from place to place. Of course being a TV show that all the family could watch it had to be somewhat less violent in nature but although somewhat boring compared to the violent nature of films these days it not only told a good story but when the fighting did start it was more than memorable even though the fighting moves were somewhat slow and very basic. At this point you do have to keep in mind that such fighting moves were surprising in nature as the general public had never seen such things before. It was all so very new to most people. Unlike the television show, which was set in the old wild west, the Karate Kid film however was set in modern day America. That story showed how a bad instructor turned his students into bullies and how a young teenager, who was new to the area, became the target of the student bullies. Enter the character of Mr Miyagi, a Japanese/American, and a somewhat old man who was trained in traditional Karate in Okinawa and an army served veteran. Mr Miyagi was far from those stereotypical muscle bound combat experts that we often see in the movies now. Rather than tell you the whole story, and also to get more to the point, Mr Miyagi taught the young teenager the art of karate. A good storyline that also included some of the typical things that young men of that age go through. The original Karate Kid film resulted in a new generation of children taking up the martial arts with the belief that all that it took to become a karate master was to learn a few easy to do moves under the tuition of a nice old man. Needless to say many soon stopped attending classes when they realised it was hard work and that in many situations, not all of course, the instructors were far from gentle and sweet like Mr Miyagi. Today of course many, if not all, instructors are far from humble like those two characters on the TV and film but far more focused on showing off their skills and promoting all their black belts. They say that learning the martial arts teaches discipline and humility? Sadly that message is long gone now. Anyway, some instructors soon realised however that children, and adults, would soon leave if the training was hard, like in the old days, so some of them did a softer, more watered down version. I have often said that around that period of time, the mid 1980’s, was when many martial art classes became what we call today a ‘McDojo’ class in nature. For a related article click >HERE< Comments are closed.
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