Cobra Kai: What Daniel Did To Johnny’s Arm In Their S4 Fight

Warning: SPOILERS for Cobra Kai Season 4.

During their Cobra Kai season 4 fight, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) attacked Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) arm, which was a callback to Cobra Kai season 3. Although they are lifelong rivals, Senseis Lawrence and LaRusso agreed to put aside their differences and combine their dojos in order to beat Cobra Kai at the upgraded All Valley Tournament. But although the students of Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang wanted to learn both styles, Johnny and Daniel’s stubbornness over whose karate the kids should learn resulted in The Karate Kid enemies fighting each other once again.

Daniel learned Miyagi-Do karate from his late sensei, Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita), and he kept on training after The Karate Kid Part III. Although LaRusso became a husband, father, and a successful businessman, which put karate on the backburner, especially after Mr. Miyagi’s death in 2011, LaRusso learned more karate than audiences saw in his Karate Kid movie trilogy. Still, Daniel doesn’t know everything about Miyagi-Do, which is a rude awakening LaRusso received when he visited Okinawa in Cobra Kai season 3. Daniel met Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto), his enemy from The Karate Kid Part II, but Chozen was reformed and is a Miyagi-Do sensei himself. Chozen ended up surprising Daniel-san by showing him a secret Miyagi-Do attack that Mr. Miyagi never mentioned, and Toguchi gifted an ancient scroll that details how to execute the move to LaRusso when he returned to Los Angeles.

When Daniel and Johnny had their tournament-style showdown in Cobra Kai season 4, episode 5, “Match Point,” LaRusso used the move Chozen taught him on Lawrence. The secret Miyagi-D0 technique is an attack on pressure points that incapacitates the joints and limbs. It was developed by Miyagi-Do senseis centuries ago to help Okinawa ward of Japanese invaders. Although the strike can be lethal, Daniel only used a mild attack to temporarily numb the left arm of the surprised Johnny. Ironically, even without full use of his left arm, Johnny was still able to take down Daniel and score a point to even out their contest at 2-2. An irritated Lawrence then chided LaRusso for his “dirty tricks,” but he regained full use of his left arm as Johnny and Daniel fought to a tie.

The Miyagi-Do scroll with the written instructions in Japanese of how to do the pressure point attack reappears in Cobra Kai season 4, episode 7, “Minefields.” It’s found in Daniel’s home dojo by his son Anthony (Griffin Santopietro). However, Daniel didn’t elaborate on what the scroll was since Anthony isn’t in any way ready or responsible enough to begin learning Miyagi-Do karate, and especially not anything as advanced as this secret Miyagi move. The return of the secret Miyagi-Do attack and the scroll slyly foreshadowed the surprise appearance of Chozen, who Daniel called on for help at the end of Cobra Kai season 4.

The lesson behind the secret Miyagi-Do move is that “defense takes on many forms,” which Chozen imparted to Daniel in Cobra Kai season 3. However, LaRusso didn’t take the lesson to heart because he still relied solely on Miyagi-Do’s defense-only strategy in Cobra Kai season 4 instead of really considering what Johnny offered to him and his students. To Daniel’s heartbreak, even allowing his daughter Samantha (Mary Mouser) to use both Miyagi-Do and Eagle Fang and combine them into her own style at the All Valley didn’t result in Sam beating Tory Nichols (Peyton List). Now, at the end of Cobra Kai season 4, Daniel had no idea that Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffth) cheated and bribed the referee to ensure Tory’s victory. But LaRusso did learn that it’s time to go on the offense, at last, in Cobra Kai season 5, which is why he called his “karate cousin” Chozen to teach Daniel-san how to strike first.

Cobra Kai Season 4 is streaming on Netflix.

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