While all the characters in Cobra Kai showcase tremendous karate skills, the actors who play them aren’t all proficient in the martial art, or any martial art, for that matter. Some of them, however, do have extensive training in real life. Thomas Ian Griffith, for example, who plays Terry Silver, has been studying karate since he was in high school and has amassed more than 40 years of training. Sean Kenan, who plays Mike Barnes, was initially hired for The Karate Kid III because he already had karate experience.
What about the younger, new cast members? Some of them have dabbled in martial arts prior to receiving training for this series. In the latest and final sixth season of the series, one actor who has real-life martial arts experience is Rayna Vallandingham, who plays the fierce Iron Dragons student and social influencer Zara Malik.
Who Is Zara Malik in ‘Cobra Kai’?
Zara Malik is introduced in the second of the three-part series finale of Cobra Kai. She is one of the students of the Iron Dragons dojo, the reigning champions of the Sekai-Taikai Tournament. She initially looks like an innocent young woman who is more interested in pandering to her social media followers than actually taking the tournament seriously. But once she hits the mat, perception changes.
It’s evident that Zara and Axel Kovacevic (Patrick Luwis) are the two top students at the dojo, fighting with both skill and confidence. She easily takes down others of any size and gender, performing moves that no one sees coming. Her strength is in her speed and agility, something she uses to her advantage given that she is shorter and lighter in weight than most others. She also uses her intelligence to outsmart her opponents, who are often relying on brute force alone.
The Iron Dragons sensei Wolf (Lewis Tan) is so confident in Zara and Axel, in fact, that when every member of their dojo is left in a competitor elimination challenge, everyone else voluntarily opts out of the final round to allow Zara and Axel to show what they can do on their own.
Zara has a loyal legion of followers on social media, and she is often seen recording her antics and poking fun at others in the process. But her followers eat it up and love her because of her talent, travels, and accomplishments. When Tory retaliates by stealing Zara’s phone and telling the truth to her followers on the live feed, Zara gets even angrier because this move causes her to lose sponsors. However, in the final fight, Robby defeats her and defends Tory, leaving Zara upset that she did not win his heart and, most important, didn’t get what she wanted.
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What Martial Arts Training Does Rayna Vallandingham Have?
Rayna Vallandingham is dually equipped to play the part of Zara because she not only already has martial arts experience, she is also a social media influencer. The 21-year-old from Encinitas, CA has been doing taekwondo since she was just two years old. She won her first tournament when she was just eight years old, making her one of the youngest black belts to do so.
Through her martial arts career, Vallandingham has won 13 world titles with the American Taekwondo Association. This includes fights that involve traditional combat as well as ones that involve weapons like the bo staff and nunchaku. She is seen using weapons in some of her fight scenes in Cobra Kai as well, leveraging skills she already possesses.
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Vallandingham is a vocal supporter of martial arts who works with the Bruce Lee Foundation to promote the sport worldwide. Additionally, she’s an advocate for women in sports, and uses her social media status to promote martial arts for women and encourage girls to participate. Speaking of which, as a social media influencer, Vallandingham promotes martial arts on her channel along with diversity through her Indian heritage. She has millions of followers on social sites like Instagram and TikTok.
In terms of her martial arts ranking, Vallandingham has a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo from the American Taekwondo Association, making her one of the most highly trained martial artists among the cast.
Rayna Vallandingham’s Acting Career
Cobra Kai is Vallandingham’s most notable acting role to date. However, she has been pursuing acting since she was 10 years old. She appeared in Underdog Kids in 2015, a movie about a coach teaching a misfit group of students on a martial arts team. The movie starred Tom Arold, Ted McGinley, Patrick Fabian, and Beau Bridges. It was created by Phillip Rhee, a six-time taekwondo black belt and actor.
Three years later in 2018, she appeared in the Shawn Mendes music video for the song “Youth” where she once again displayed her martial arts skills. Given her extensive training and interest in acting, Vallandingham was an obvious choice to play Zara in Cobra Kai, which is her first TV role. These three jobs remain her only acting credits to date.
She does, however, have a massive presence on her own YouTube channel, which has close to 700,000 followers. She posts a variety of shorts there while on the mat or training at home. She demonstrates various styles of kicks, boxing, and using weapons like a bo staff and nunchucks.
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On Instagram, she has 3.7 million followers and posts similar content along with fashion photos, posed images, and fun photos while out and about.
Thus, while many of the cast members on Cobra Kai received minimal training to be able to perform on the show convincingly, Vallandingham need only focus on learning her lines, her character, and the choreography. She is a talented martial artist in her own right who has been studying for close to 20 years, virtually her entire life. Even with some of the older cast members having dabbled in martial arts themselves before, Vallandingham has one of the most impressive resumes in the sport, making her the fiercest fighter of the bunch.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
