The Karate Kid (1984) is one of my favorite 80s movies because of the sweet nature and appreciation for Asian American culture. A young kid named Daniel from New Jersey moves to Los Angeles with his mother and becomes friends with the Japanese superintendent of his apartment building, Mr. Miyagi. The high school bully found a new hobby in beating on Daniel for dating his ex-girlfriend. While Daniel tries to fight back, the bully uses his black-belt skills from karate to win the fights. As it turns out, Miyagi is a karate master; a student of not only karate fighting but of the whole martial arts philosophy. He agrees to take Daniel as his student. Miyagi’s training is sure to be unconventional, making Daniel paint fences, scrub the bottoms of pools and shine cars saying “wax on, wax off”, but there is a method to this training. Using the training, Daniel becomes one of the best karate students in southern California and faces off his bully in a karate tournament. The essence of “wax on, wax off” is that one can learn valuable lessons from seemingly simple or mundane tasks.