Karate Kid: Mr. Miyagi’s Magic Healing Touch Explained

In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi seemed to use a magic touch to heal Daniel. Here’s the most likely real-world explanation for Miyagi’s healing ability.

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In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita) seems to have a special healing ability but here’s the most likely explanation for his magic touch. Introduced in the original film, Miyagi was the co-protagonist of all four Karate Kid movies from 1984 until his final appearance in 1994’s The Next Karate Kid, when he mentored Julie Pierce (Hilary Swank). But Miyagi is most famously the sensei and best friend of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in the first three Karate Kid movies. Sadly, Miyagi is dead by the time of the sequel series, Cobra Kai.

Nariyoshu Miyagi was born in Okinawa, Japan in 1925 but he emigrated to the United States in 1943 to avoid fighting his best friend, Sato Toguchi (Danny Komekona), to the death over their love triangle with Yukie (Nobu McCarthy). Before Miyagi left Okinawa, both he and Sato were students of his father and learned the secrets of Miyagi-do karate. Miyagi went to the University of Santa Barbara and he met and married a Japanese woman but they were interned in the Manzanar Japanese internment camp. Miyagi then served in World War II with the U.S. Army 442nd Infantry. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor but his wife died in the internment camp due to complications from childbirth, a loss that haunted Miyagi for the rest of his life. The details of Miyagi’s life between World War II and 1984 are sparse but he became a handyman at the South Seas apartment building in Reseda, California while maintaining a home with an elaborate Japanese garden.

After Daniel met Miyagi and became his student, LaRusso was often puzzled by the fantastic abilities the old Japanese man seemed to possess, like how he could effortlessly karate-chop a beer bottle in half. Beyond his cryptic wisdom, Miyagi’s teaching style initially infuriated Daniel since it seemed to him that his sensei was just using him to perform household chores like washing his fleet of antique cars and painting his fence and house. Later, Daniel realized that the relentless odd jobs were Miyagi’s ingenious way of drilling basic karate blocks into his student’s muscle memory. But Miyagi’s saved his most magical ability for when Daniel was injured in the All Valley karate tournament: when LaRusso’s left leg was seriously injured, Miyagi slapped his hands together, rubbed his palms, and his touch healed Daniel’s leg enough so that he was able to compete and defeat Cobra Kai’s Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) in the finals to become All Valley Karate Champion.

Miyagi’s healing touch isn’t magic, however. The most likely explanation for the Japanese karate master’s healing hands is that he used Reiki to temporarily make Daniel’s leg feel better. Reiki is an ancient Japanese healing practice that was inspired by the necessity of warriors to be able to heal their comrades on the battlefield. Reiki was founded by Mikao Usui in the 1920s and it was based upon the practices of his ancestors, who were from the Chiba clan and Hatamoto samurai. Reiki is essentially a form of energy healing by harnessing a person’s Qi or Chi (life force), which is a practice widely used in Eastern martial arts.

What Miyagi essentially did with his hands-rubbing and touch was the same as Reiki: he was able to temporarily heal Daniel’s injured leg muscle with his Chi, enabling him to walk and fight in the tournament finals. But it’s really no surprise that Mr. Miyagi would have this healing ability since his discipline, Miyagi-do karate, came from China and was brought to Okinawa by his ancestor. Of course, Miyagi never explained what he did to Daniel in the films so his healing touch seemed like magic, which was also enhanced by the sound effects and musical cue of the scene in The Karate Kid.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/karate-kid-mr-miyagi-healing-touch-reiki/