Karate Kid Revival

Karate Kid 2 will be released at the cinemas in June.  Starring Jackie Chan and Jayden Smith (Will's son), Karate is sure to be all the rage again. 

If you are as old as me and remember the first Karate Kid movie (1984), then you most likely have children of your own and will be feeling very "old" right now.  You know you're getting old when movies you saw in your youth are re-made for the current generation. 

Who wasn't in love with Daniel san and Mr Miyage.  I can't even count the amount of times I've heard people say "wax on, wax off".  It is one of those movie lines that go down in history and everyone can pinpoint the movie.   I seriously hope it is not in the new movie as I don't think I can take my boys saying it every five minutes!

My older sister loved the 1984 movie so much she fell in love with Japan and moved there for a short time to work.  Although she didn't take up Karate, she did take up Kendo.   Kendo, the Way of the Sword is the art of Japanese Samurai Swordsmanship.  Essentially it involves samurai type outfits, hitting each other with large bamboo sticks and much yelling.

She didn't quite find her gentle Mr Miyage type instructor though and was assigned a very large Japanese teacher who was like a drill sergeant.  Like Daniel san, she was not allowed to so much as learn a move until she had mastered the basics. 

The first basic was learning to scream loudly to terrify the opponent.  You would think screaming would be easy for her (I recall this from our childhood), but no, apparently she was not aggressive or terrifying enough.  Although I'm sure her husband would testify differently!  Screaming practice took a couple of weeks, as did learning to run at an opponent to scare them. Seriously!

Anyway, when she was allowed to have her first hit with an opponent using her kendo stick, she was matched up with a 8 year old boy.  When he was presented to her she felt sorry for the small child and was going to go easy on him.  Big mistake!   He let fly and whacked her senseless with his kendo stick.  She also had no idea that such a small child could scream and be so terrifying at that age.  (She has children now and has now changed her opinion on that). 

And to make matters worse, the whole town came out to watch the show.  Foreigners in this little Japanese town were a sight to behold, and even more so one attempting their national sport.  My sister was that nights town entertainment!

So no real sentimental Mr Miyage moments and no alley way Kendo fights in the style of Ninja Turtles for my sister.   Like Daniel san she keeps her Japanese head scarf to remind her of the fighting ways and she only brings it out at times of extreme stress and to remind her children she means business. 

We are both anticipating that with the new movie that our children will become Karate mad and start hitting each other with objects.  Or that catching flies with chopsticks will become a hobby again.  I can only imagine the amount of walls and broken furniture around the world sparked by the movie remake.   And a whole new generation of children learning the crane stance (unless they've come up with a new trick). 

Watch Karate school enrolments go through the roof and school suspensions rise from well placed Karate kicks.  It is 1984 all over again.

Can my house withstand it?  Here we go again.  Start removing all precious objects now!