Asides from being an illegal move the stance seems to be so vulnerable.
It's just as well Johnny had to walk straight into it rather than just stand off and run down the clock. Although in a real fight you'd think you would just sweep the leg or kick the guys knee.
Are you crazy?! If do right, no can defend. Everybody knows that.
shareOnly American karate students can't lol. Karate Kid 2 showed that Okinawan karate students can block and counter the move. Must be a testament of their training, lol.
shareYes, I am crazy but what has that got to do with anything?
I think the success of the kick depends a lot on the director telling the opponent to walk head first into it. I would love to see this move pulled in a real fight and see how well it goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y6L9kRRWdk
There you go.
In the above example it works because he just springs it on the guy. I doubt it would work the way as shown in the film.
shareIt works in the film because Johnny is caught up in the moment. He was all hyped up and urged by Kreese to 'Finnish him'! It's easy to speak as a viewer and say what you are saying, believe me, I've done it. I've watched competitions for real and thought how he hell was he caught with that? In fact my old instructor used to say that any experienced fighter caught with a spinning kick to the head was a mug because you can see it coming a mile away, yet people often were. With that in mind it's not so ridiculous to think Johnny would get caught with the crane kick.
Yeah I was going to say that when Johnny first sees Daniel in that position he wants to approach it cautiously. He has that "WTF?" look in his eyes.
Adrenaline and feeling pushed, especially by someone you think knows better can be dangerous.
It was really only an invincible kick in the first film. After that it was pretty much disregarded. Chozen blocked it pretty easily, Terry Silver disregarded it as "that crane crap," and Miguel would go on to use it as a throwaway move in the first round of the tournament... which means Johnny was able to study it himself.
shareThere are many kinds of vulnerability.
Also, if you read 'The Art of War', you can see that when you're strong, you need to feign weakness, and when you're weak, you need to feign strength.
This movie and the tournament are often taken too literally, when they're clearly meant to be more symbolic. The 'wax on, wax off'-stuff is symbolically showing the inner reality expressed in Zen koans, it's not meant to be taken as a literal training technique.
The tournament is about spirit, mind, inner strength, not about 'realistic tournament fighting' or 'vulnerability in techniques'.
In a fight, 'whatever works, wins'. This crane thing would not work most of the time, but in this very specific case, it was the optimal thing to do, regardless of how 'vulnerable' it would otherwise appear to be.
If you look at the MIND, and the mind only, and compare Daniel's focused, in-the-present-moment, prepared, observant mind that reacts by itself, to Johnny's chaotic, conflicted, 'should-I-or-should-I-not'-mind that's drowned by thousands of thoughts going to hundreds of directions at once, and see how Johnny is NOT focused, NOT in the present moment, and thus becomes extremely hesitant, and by the time he is able to muster some kind of action, Daniel's more focused mind has already reacted to Johnny's needlessly slow and hesitant action.
When the other fighter is completely focused and prepared, not thinking, yet not dreaming - and the other is conflicted emotionally and filled with chaos in their head, the latter simply can't win, no matter how 'vulnerable' the position, technique or situation otherwise seems.
Just observe the two fighter's minds, do it in slow motion if you have to, you'll see how focused Daniel is and how hesitant and chaotic-minded Johnny is. Johnny is basically thousand miles away, while Daniel is right there, in the fight.
I agree. Johnny was strung out going against Daniel from the start. He's out of sync and never gains focus for the duration of the fight which became his undoing.
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