6 Things I learnt from Karate Kid: the wisdom of Nariyoshi Miyagi
The 1984 Karate Kid franchise has been re-awakened by the recent Cobra Kai series from Netflix. Karate Kid follows the journey of a teenager, Daniel LaRusso played by Ralph Macchio, who moves to a new neighbourhood with his mother, but is bullied by a gang who all belong to karate school called Cobra Kai. One evening where LaRusso is getting beaten up by the gang, the handyman Mr. (Nariyoshi) Miyagi played by Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita intervenes and that is when Daniel is taught karate by Mr Miyagi. The lessons I learnt from life were nestled in the Karate Kid series. If only I paid attention to them earlier on. Huge spoiler alerts for those who have not watched the Karate Kid series!
1. Balance in life is crucial
In this scene, Mr Miyagi imparts his wisdom to Daniel who becomes worried about the competing interests in his life. Balance in life is pretty obvious. However with anything that plays a role in your life it is easy to get carried away. Adding more to your plate including work means something must fall off your plate. I’ve realised this more and more as my ambitions grow that more work means less time with family. Having hard time cut-offs when is work time and when is recreation time helps me create boundaries.
2. Meditation and breath control
In the series, Mr Miyagi encounters a very stressed Daniel and tells him to return to the basic basic of life ‘breathing’. A small time investment everyday is definitely worth a go. Many athletes before pivotal moments in their competitions. Most of them a take a deep breath to centre themselves. Why not give it a go and see if it helps?
Meditation seems idealistic and most of us are too busy to really spend hours reaching enlightenment with this. However whenever I can in the mornings and especially busy days I spend about 1 minute telling myself that “I’m happy, I’m calm, I’m stress-free” followed by 1 minute of focused breathing. Two minutes is not a lot and I was very skeptical at first but it is not a big investment. For me I felt more able to take on the day and felt myself getting less angry at myself and others during stressful working days.
3. The dots only make sense when looking back
Have you ever used a skill learnt from a different part of your life and applied it to an entirely different part? One example for me was designing spreadsheets for my GCSEs but then retiring them only to need them to train others around me and for my postgraduate degree projects. In this scene, Daniel is annoyed that he has been asked by Mr Miyagi to what he believes to be meaningless chores such as painting a fence and waxing a car despite promises of karate lessons. However, Mr Miyagi shows Daniel that these transferable skills are directly applicable to karate itself. When it comes to our careers and sometimes our life, we are told to figure everything out quickly and get our lives in order. For those of us with the luxury of time and resources, we may be able to explore different options which undoubtably will provide us with opportunities later in life. Everything makes sense looking back but not always facing forward. If you can, follow what you think is right not what others expect of you. This is the philosophy of the late Steve Jobs.
4. Focusing on a single thing helps achieve mastery
With so many things to achieve and countless responsibilities, it can definitely seem like there is not enough time. It’s easy to get distracted by the constant humdrum of the misery blasted out daily by the news which in case you had not noticed is overly negative. It’s hard to quieten those noises around us to reach inner calmness and focus on the task in hand. Whether it is reaching for a few deep breaths before an important activity or putting your mobile phone out of sight and out of mind, we must all develop our own strategies. Mr Miyagi advises the overly franticly minded Daniel to focus his energies for a punch into a small area for maximum impact. How do you focus your mind to the task in hand in a busy world?
5. Not fearing fear itself
Probably one of the pivotal moment of the film series, was the final fight in Karate Kid III where Daniel practically gives up afraid of the circumstances that preceded the fight and the difficulty of fight itself. Miyagi, as Daniel’s coach, rallies him to consider what is he really afraid of? Is it his fear of fear itself or is it fear of his opponent? I have no doubt lived a hugely privileged experience due to the sacrifices of humanity before me and the people around me. The minor setbacks, in the grand scheme of life itself, I have encountered were often due to self doubt, that fear of failure and those piercing eyes of judgement from those surrounding me. That fear of fear can be crippling and stop future attempts when previous attempts have been been unsuccessful. When you do not succeed, what do you fear? What stops you trying that one more time?
6. A lack of forgiveness leads to resentment
With such a divided society, especially in our politics and our digital platforms on this side of the planet it can be easy to get drawn into arguments either in person or online. Sometimes this result in skirmishes with no resolution. Disagreements often without reason or context can breed division and resentment. It is very easy to lash out and speak out of turn and take the sentiments expressed personally rather than simply agree to disagree and close a discussion. Negative comments on all sorts of online social media exist and often may be genuine felt do not need to be taken to heart. This is not a license to tolerate abuse or discrimination: this must be stamped out.
Instead appreciating that someone may have a different background, different taste and upbringing is an easier way to forgive those who do not share the same views or simply do not wish to engage with us in compassionate way. Walking away brings a certain kind of peace, feeling content rather than being drawn into negativity. I can’t tell you the film scene to this last one — you are going to have to watch the Karate Kid and Cobra Kai series now!
Conclusion
If you got this far, thanks for reading. I hope you do watch the series and not only enjoy them but maybe learn a thing or two. If you’ve watched them, what did you learn? What did you take away from them?
