# What if.....?



## ArmorOfGod (Dec 23, 2006)

What if "The Karate Kid" starring Ralph Macchio back in the early 1980's was title "The Kempo Kid" instead.  

Karate got a huge boom of new practitioners bacause of that movie.  Now, many from that generation have their own karate schools and are the dominant generation that is teaching.

I wonder what Kempo would be like today if that had been "The Kempo Kid" instead.

AoG


----------



## almost a ghost (Dec 23, 2006)

I started to do Kempo because of karate kid. Why? I wanted to do karate. People signing up for martial arts because of a movie usually don't style pick, they see a karate school listing and sign up, and considering all kempo schools are karate schools, they got the business.


----------



## John Bishop (Dec 24, 2006)

ArmorOfGod said:


> What if "The Karate Kid" starring Ralph Macchio back in the early 1980's was title "The Kempo Kid" instead.
> 
> Karate got a huge boom of new practitioners bacause of that movie.  Now, many from that generation have their own karate schools and are the dominant generation that is teaching.
> 
> ...



What if the "Perfect Weapon" was a shotokan guy?  Or got beat by the Tae Kwon Do guys he was fighting?  
Most people pick martial arts schools due to convience of location, price,  or personal research.  
Kung fu got a real lift from Bruce Lee, and aikido got a real boost from Steven Seagal.  But style popularity always works it's way back to what the students like the best, not what they saw in a movie.


----------



## HKphooey (Dec 24, 2006)

What if it was Tokyo Phooey?


----------



## Xue Sheng (Dec 24, 2006)

What if the first Kung Fu series was called some American guy pretending to do Kung fu, be half Chinese and be from the Shaolin Temple?

I probably would still have started in Jujitsu.... or did I start Jujitsu before that.... I can't remember... Damn I'm old


----------



## youngbraveheart (Dec 24, 2006)

What if there wasn't any racial prejudice in Hollywood and Bruce Lee got the role in the Kung-Fu TV series instead of David Carridine (sp?)? Bruce Lee wouldn't have had to go to Hong Kong to make it big...I did start in Chinese Kenpo before Bruce Lee had come out with those Chinese movies, but he did influence what became my favorite kicks...he influenced the height  (and flashiness) of my kicking in my younger and limber days...


----------



## youngbraveheart (Dec 24, 2006)

youngbraveheart said:


> What if there wasn't any racial prejudice in Hollywood and Bruce Lee got the role in the Kung-Fu TV series instead of David Carridine (sp?)? Bruce Lee wouldn't have had to go to Hong Kong to make it big...I did start in Chinese Kenpo before Bruce Lee had come out with those Chinese movies, but he did influence what became my favorite kicks...he influenced the height (and flashiness) of my kicking in my younger and limber days...


 
What if I would have kept up my training in Chinese Kenpo after I reached high school? This coincidently was around the time right after Bruce Lee died... What if I didn't wait so long (many many years later) to get back into the martial arts? I probably wouldn't have come across my instructor and probably wouldn't be wasting your time with my replies on here...LOL


----------



## IWishToLearn (Dec 24, 2006)

Speakman from the Perfect Weapon was actually originally Goju-Ryu. I think it's not so much which style the movie showcased - but it simply provided people with an impetus to try and learn to do "what they saw." I'd wager the actual proportion of those who went and studied THAT particular style they saw on the big screen vs. Style X isn't that high.


----------



## Old Fat Kenpoka (Dec 27, 2006)

John Bishop said:


> What if the "Perfect Weapon" was a shotokan guy? Or got beat by the Tae Kwon Do guys he was fighting?
> Most people pick martial arts schools due to convience of location, price, or personal research.
> Kung fu got a real lift from Bruce Lee, and aikido got a real boost from Steven Seagal. But style popularity always works it's way back to what the students like the best, not what they saw in a movie.


 
Mr. Bishop speaks the truth. My school did demos all day long at the local theater when Karate Kid came out. Nobody cared that we were a Kenpo school. 

Karate Kid was wimpy, lame, and cliched. To most of us who were already training, it was an embarrassment. It was worse than the Kung Fu TV series -- dime store psuedo-oriental pschology and never-never-land martial arts mythology wrapped around a wimpy character, a cliche'd plot, and cardboard characters. 

Asian Martial Arts in cinema reached its Zenith with Actors like Toshiro Mifune and Bruce Lee. It reached its Nadir with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.

If Karate Kid was the Kenpo Kid, self-respecting Kenpoists  would have abandoned the art as soon as they saw Ralph Macchio raise his arms, lift his leg, and stick out his butt...


----------

