Is The Cobra Kai Mentality Toxic Or Empowering?

Cobra Kai has shown the world that maybe the Cobras from The Karate Kid aren’t so bad after all. Before that, How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson argued that Cobra Johnny Lawrence was the movie’s true hero. My lacrosse coaches, Mike Drab and Mark Iodice must have felt the same way when they named our club team Cobra Kai. And since the TV show came out, more Cobra supporters have been born. Why? The answer lies in the Cobra Kai mentality that, nurtured alongside an understanding of purpose, breeds success in all aspects of life.

A Mentality?

After watching the movies and seeing the TV series that follows, I think people have picked up on the fact that Cobra Kai and The Karate Kid are stories about the ways martial arts can influence lives than they are purely about martial arts. But, in order to understand why martial arts can have such an influence, let’s look at what it means to be a black belt.

As a second-degree black belt with nine-and-a-half years of training, I can tell you that a true black belt lies not in the physical strip of black cloth but in the mind. A true black belt is a mentality of dedication, motivation, and determination. That is powerful for two reasons. One, since it is a mentality, you can earn a black belt in almost anything (lacrosse, for example). Two, this means that it can bring you success in every aspect of your life. Thus, success lies in a mentality. When I look at the show and reflect on my lacrosse team, no one embraces this idea more than Cobra Kai.

The Cobra Kai Mentality

The Cobra Kai mentality is similar to the black belt mentality, but it is more specific. Let’s define it: Cobras are…

Confident

What I am about to describe might sound like determination. However, determination also requires belief in order to produce success. I believe that confidence is that union of determination and belief. In the show, Johnny Lawrence exudes confidence. Whether he is fighting his ex-sensei Kreese or opening his own Cobra Kai dojo, Johnny rarely exhibits doubt in his ability to succeed. And he passes this on to his students, who go from slumped-shouldered outcasts to admired powerhouses.

Look at Miguel — he went from being the kid who cowered in fear of the popular kids at the drug store to the kid who dated the popular girl. Moreover, because they are confident in themselves and their ability to succeed, Cobras win. For example, Johnny made Cobra Kai a successful dojo, Miguel won the All Valley Karate Tournament, and Hawk got the girl he wanted.

My lacrosse team is no different. It’s common for the Cobras to face higher-ranked teams with quadruple the number of subs and still win. Yes, the Cobras are skilled players with high lacrosse IQs. But more importantly, they have coaches and players with the confidence that they can and will win, so they do.

Tough

Physically speaking, Cobras are tough. In the show and on the lacrosse field, Cobras battle hard. When they take hits, they get back up, and they always keep fighting. Beyond that, Cobras are mentally tough. Whereas the criticism Cobras receive might break some, it fuels them. For example, when Johnny Lawrence tells Eli Moskowitz that if he wants to be seen as more than just his deformed lip, he needs to “flip the script,” Eli doesn’t run away and cry in his room. Instead, Eli returns as Hawk, the red-headed monster with a mohawk. Likewise, whereas the coaching on the Cobra Kai sidelines scares some of the other teams, it brings out the best in the Cobras.

And it doesn’t stop there. Cobras get to be as successful as they are because they are also tough on themselves; that’s also why we admire them. Johnny Lawrence wins our hearts by continuing to question the Cobra teachings he learned as a child; he wants to be better than his predecessor. Miguel wins our admiration when we see him training extra hours after class in his room. And my teammates win my admiration when I see how hard they work to be the best lacrosse players they can be. All of this to say, Cobra Kai fosters a mentality that combines a motivation to be the best with the toughness (mental and physical) to actually get there.

Loyal

Finally, Cobras are loyal. If you notice in the show and especially in the movies, Cobras travel together in school, to parties, and out in public. Now, I’m not going to pretend like in the show and the movies, it doesn’t seem a little cult-ish (I’ll address that later), but I will say that there is something very admirable about the fact that the Cobras always have each others’ backs.

Cobra Kai Lacrosse reflects some of the healthier elements of this loyalty. My team shows up for each other — whether that means driving four hours so that one team member can play in front of a college coach or that means continuing to practice and play until “every girl gets what she wants” in terms of college and lacrosse. Coaches and players alike are incredibly loyal, and it is truly (for lack of a more encapsulating word) incredible.

How Does This Mentality Lead To Success?

Okay, so we’ve defined the Cobra Kai mentality more specifically as one of confidence, toughness, and loyalty. But why is this the key recipe for success in whatever we do? Let’s start with confidence.

Cobra Confidence

The motto of the Cobra Kai dojo is “strike first, strike hard, no mercy,” which sounds very evil and violence-inciting. But I don’t think the saying itself is actually bad. Yes, I recognize that some Cobras have taken the saying to do some bad things (more on this later), but I think the saying itself relates to having the confidence to seize opportunities when you see them.

Let’s say you see a job opening for your dream job. Are you going to mull over whether you can actually get the job and wait to apply for it and put forth a half-completed resume? Or are you going to jump on the opportunity, put your absolute best effort forward, and get the job? If you want something, you have to “strike first” in the sense that you jump on opportunities, “strike hard” in the sense that you put your best foot forward, and show “no mercy” in the sense that you don’t fear outshining your competitors.

Look at Aisha from the Cobra Kai show. When she was being bullied, instead of waiting for the bullying to stop, she began the process to end it herself by joining Cobra Kai; she “[struck] first.” Moreover, she “[struck] hard” and showed “no mercy.” When Johnny tried to turn her away, she sparred with Miguel and argued that he should let her join until he actually did. In this context, the “strike first, strike hard, no mercy” motto is a tool for success, not for evil.

Without using the rhetoric, my coaches at Cobra Kai Lacrosse teach us the same success strategy in terms of college recruiting. Just the other day, they were paralleling the recruiting process of getting the most attractive prom date. The moral of the story was that if you want the date, you make it happen. Tell the person you like them, convince them why you guys would be great together at prom and don’t feel bad for getting the date over all the other girls. Be confident that you can do it!

Cobra Toughness

All that being said about confidence, without toughness, long-term success still isn’t possible; confidence does not inherently guarantee that you get everything you want. You might not get the aforementioned job, training opportunity, or prom date, but — as cliché as it sounds — what matters is what you do next. Being tough means that you don’t shy away from other opportunities out of fear that they might also fail when one opportunity fails. No, you get up, and you pursue those opportunities as intensely as you did the first.

Johnny Lawrence is the perfect example of this. When he first opens Cobra Kai, he can barely get any students. When he does finally get some, he gets a bunch of “losers.” But Johnny doesn’t call it quits and board up his dojo. Instead, he turns it into a dojo of high demand where people join because they want to be cool. He made his success possible because he pushed through the failures.

Cobra Loyalty

Confidence and toughness create initial successes, but loyalty maintains them. Without loyalty, you can’t have a successful business because people working entirely for themselves will undermine its value. You can’t have a happy marriage or a good group of friends without loyalty. And even on a more personal level, you won’t feel successful if you are not loyal to yourself. That’s because if you need to put on a face to gain and maintain your income, family, or possessions, then it’s not truly you who achieved the success in the first place. Thus, loyalty to others and oneself is the final ingredient in the recipe for life successes.

Where It Can Go Wrong

Now, I mentioned I’d talk about the corrupt Cobras in the TV show and movie series. There’s no denying it: the Cobra Kai mentality does hold the potential to lead people astray. But corruption is not the inevitable. Rather, it happens under two main conditions: the ones teaching the mentality are corrupt or fail to provide a broader context.

Corrupt Cobras

Let’s talk about “strike first, strike hard, no mercy” again. I said before that in and of itself, the saying could actually be positive. However, that’s only when it is coming from a good place. It is not good when it is taught by someone like John Kreese in TV shows and movies.

Instead of teaching it as a tool for success, Kreese uses the saying to encourage violence. Through it, he permits Cobras to attack innocent people, cheat their way through competitions, and act without morals. As a result, he breeds people like Hawk, who feed off the power it gives them to bully, belittle, and beat “weaker” people. He turns good people — again, like Hawk — into mindless evil-doers. And he’s able to do it because he is a corrupt person teaching an easily-manipulatable idea.

A Lack Of Context

The Cobra Kai mentality can also go wrong when taught without the larger picture of its usefulness. Again, instead of teaching the Cobras the usefulness of the “strike first” motto regarding attaining life goals, Kreese spouts the ideology, which leaves the unassuming Cobras to figure out what it means. Johnny falls into the same trap when he spouts the saying without explaining it. As a result, Miguel — his good-hearted student — fights dirty against his injured opponent in the All Valley Tournament. Thus, without context, Cobra rhetoric can become cult-like chants that incite violence and evil.

Doing The Cobra Kai Mentality Right

At Cobra Kai Lacrosse, Mike Drab and Mark Iodice do it right. They are well-intended people who want the best for their players and explain the importance of what they teach. For example, they tell us that they are hard on us to help us get better, and they show us the parallels between what we are doing in our college recruiting processes and what we’ll face later in life. As a result, they’ve fostered a community of truly-impressive winners. (It probably also helps that we don’t live in a dramatized fictional world, but you get the point.)

Cobra Kai Lacrosse is proof that the Cobra Kai mentality fostered in the TV show Cobra Kai can breed success when nurtured properly. They have shown that Cobras are actually the kind of people we should all want to be. And, best of all, because being a Cobra is a mentality (and therefore not exclusive to Cobra Kai martial artists or lacrosse players), we all can potentially be Cobras.