Day 8

Friday
25/01/19

In the 8th session, we were seated in the auditorium. The faculty wasn't there. 'The Karate Kid', the movie was on pause on the screen. Some staff members were fiddling with the laptop kept on the podium. After a while, the faculty walked into the auditorium.  The faculty asked whether he was late, to which someone replied, no, the boss is never late. The faculty asked us why can't we hear even when there's a lot of noise around us. Students answered. Someone said because of the commotion. Some else replied because of the noises in our head. The faculty asked the same question from the students who left the class early the previous day. The faculty also asked one of them about what did the other student answer. The student who left early the previous day said she didn't hear the previous answer. The faculty asked another question which was why can't we see even when there's a lot of light around. Some students answered. A discussion followed about what should the students who left the class early in the previous session do. The faculty asked whether they should apologize to the class. The class didn't reply. Those students said they shouldn't have to apologize to the class. Some students said no apology is required and we should move on from this and continue with the class. A discussion followed there after. After the discussion the faculty took our attendance. He called iut a few names aloud the the faculty started whispering names. After that the faculty asked us to complete watching the movie. He asked us to relate it to the class learnings as well as to our lives and do a scene by scene analysis of it. The faculty then left the class. The class continued with the movie. The movie got over in about an hour. The faculty didn't come back. The students left the auditorium.

Movie analysis is as follows:-

Movie Name : The Karate Kid (1984)

Genre : Drama, Action

Real time : 2 hrs 13 min
Film time : A couple weeks or months at least

Scenes and their relation with real life:-

ACT I : Exposition

1. Daniel moves with his mother from New Jersey to California not much to his liking.
The faucet of their new apartment is broken. Daniel goes to find someone to fix it and finds Mr. Miyagi.

- Change is inevitable whether one likes it or not.
- In the most unexpected places, under the most odd circumstances you might come across something or someone that could help you turn your life around for good, and you might not even realise it then know.

2. At the beach party, Daniel gets acquainted with a beautiful girl named Ali, but gets into a fight with her jealous ex-boyfriend, Johnny and gets hurt.

-There are certain goals in life that you might want to achieve. The same goal could be shared by others. You'll have to face competition. There would be difficulties on the way to achieving it. You might have to put up a fight fir it. You might even get hurt in the process. But that'll only take you closer to your goal.

3. Daniel lies to his mother about his black eye. At school, he’s bullied by Johnny and his friends, but befriends Ali.

- When life slaps us hard in the face and we fail to fight back, we're ashamed and we take to lying.

4. Daniel desires to learn karate, he visits a karate school and finds Johnny and his friends there. On his way home , Daniel is chased by Johnny and his friends. He tumbles down a hill on his bike. When his mother finds him, he tells her he must learn karate to defend himself.

- We often want to learn something new and different but at times there are obstacles in our way which discourage us. However, when we realise how important it is for us to learn that, we decide to overcome any obstacle that comes in our way to learning.

ACT II : Rising Action

5. Daniel finds his bike has been fixed by the apartment maintenance man, Mr. Miyagi. He thanks him and they share time trimming bonsai trees.

-You might come across those who would help you out of the goodness of their hearts and without hoping for anything in return.

6. After a Halloween dance at school, Daniel is beaten by Johnny and his friends, but is saved by Mr. Miyagi who takes all five of them out by himself.

- Help can come from unexpected places and people.

7. Daniel discovers that Miyagi saved him from Johnny and his friends. He asks Miyagi to teach him karate, but instead, Miyagi takes Daniel to Johnny's karate teacher to call a truce. There, Kreese, the sensei, dismisses it. Miyagi then proposes that Daniel enter an upcoming tournament where he can compete on equal terms. He makes the sensei agree to end the bullying while Daniel is under training.

- You might approach people with a white flag hoping to make peace but they might not be on the same page as you. Then the only way left is to play by their rules, beat them in their own game and make them surrender.

8. Miyagi takes Daniel to his home to begin training, but he makes Daniel wash and wax all of his cars instead. He makes Daniel paint his fences and house too. Daniel goes on a date with Ali, but the date ends on a sour note when Johnny and his friends show up.

- Things are not always as they seem. Even the little things from our daily life could have important lessons in store for us. What we might think of as a useless activity might indeed be of great value. We just need to have a little patience and good observation.

9.While training at the beach, Daniel watches Miyagi perform crane kicks on a wooden piling. Daniel wishes to learn it but is told by Miyagi that one needs to learn to walk before one can learn to fly.

- We often aim to achieve big things in life, but we want to skip through the steps that would lead us to it. However, we don't realise how unprepared we are to play the end game and only proceeding step by step can prepare us for the finale.

10. Daniel is heartbroken when he sees Johnny kiss Ali at an event. From there, he goes to Miyagi’s home and finds him drunk. He learns it's Miyagi's anniversary. He finds out that Miyagi fought in the Army. An old telegram revealed that his wife and child died in childbirth while he was at war.

- We blindly trust our eyes and believe everything we wee. But what we see is only the half truth. We mustn't believe it unless we know all the sides to a story.
- Everyone has a soft spot, even those who appear to be the toughest.

11. Daniel and Miyagi finish training. For Daniel’s birthday, Miyagi gives him a car. Daniel then finds Ali, learns that Johnny forced himself on her and it was not consensual. She offers to cheer him at the tournament.

- Knowing the complete truth could be a great relief.

12. Daniel fights his way through the initial rounds of the tournament and makes the semi-finals.

- If we are determined and have good preparation, we can overcome all obstacles in our way to the final goal.

ACT III : Climax

13. Kreese has one of his students perform an illegal kick to Daniel’s knee to secure Johnny’s victory, but Miyagi fixes Daniel’s leg and the two face off for first prize. After Johnny takes advantage of Daniel’s bad knee and ties up the score, Daniel performs Miyagi’s crane kick and wins the tournament.

- Life would not always play fair. Things might not always be in our favour. But despite that instead of giving up if we choose to keep fighting for what we truly believe in, it's only a matter of time before we emerge victorious.

ACT IV : Falling Action

14. Ali, Daniel's mom, Mr. Miyagi and some others from the crowd come to Daniel after his victory to show their excitement and happiness for him. Ali hugs Daniel.

- Those who love us will genuinely be happy for us for when we achieve our goals.

ACT V : Denouement

15. Johnny himself hands the trophy to Daniel.

- If you keep fighting for what you believe in, one day even the opposing forces would be shaking hands with you.

Through out the movie, Miyagi tried to instill discipline, focus, balance and other such important skills in Daniel, for he knew that the art of Karate was not about the action or the movements or for that matter no art is about what it looks like from the outside but about such basic skills like the ones mentioned above which one requires for anything and everything in life.

What I learnt from this session after I completed watching the movie is that The Karate Kid isn’t just about karate, but about using karate as a means to learn more important things. Some of the best education experiences are not about what they’re supposed to teach but about preparing students to learn other, often more important, things. And that's what our faculty has been trying to communicate to us since the very beginning. Also, at one point in the movie Miyagi stress over quality rather than quantity. That's the other point that our faculty has tried explaining to us. However much he teaches from the specified syllabus, if we lack the basic skills like discipline, focus, balance, team spirit, then no amount of bookish knowledge can do us any good.

This session was different from the others as I was instructed in advance about the task that was to be done after completing the movie and, hence, it was the first time I watched a movie and I could find similarities in it from various aspects of life.

- Shikha Singh