Earlier than Rayna Vallandingham joined the solid of Netflix’s Cobra Kai final 12 months—making her debut as villain Zara Malik in season six half two—the athlete turned actor had by no means truly seen the present.
That’s as a result of the teenager motion dramedy, which is a follow-up to The Karate Child franchise and facilities on martial arts battles, hit somewhat too near residence. “It felt like my very own life,” Vallandingham tells SELF. So the 13-time tae kwon do world champion, who holds a fourth diploma black belt (that’s an excellent excessive karate rank), averted watching it…till she booked the position of Zara. Then? “I simply fell in love with it,” she says.
In flip, viewers fell in love with Vallandingham, who garnered reward for her “standout” efficiency and “fierce depth.”
With 3.7 million followers on Instagram and one other 3.1 million on TikTok, Vallandingham is a powerful advocate for participation in martial arts, usually posting movies that showcase the ability, finesse, and grit the observe calls for. “I don’t know who I might be with out it,” she says. “It teaches you self-discipline and perseverance and respect, and never solely to respect others, however to respect your self and worth your self.”
With Cobra Kai season six, half three premiering February 13—marking the tip of the present’s practically seven-year run—we chatted with Vallandingham about how she educated for the position, what it takes to grasp these high-flying kicks, and all of the methods martial arts has bettered her as an athlete (and a human!).
She channels the boldness of her eight-year-old self to crush these scenes in Cobra Kai.
Vallandingham, who simply turned 22, has been practising martial arts for 20 years—her mother and father put her in tae kwon do classes as a toddler. So reserving Cobra Kai was a homecoming of kinds. “It actually simply felt like, okay, I get to simply go on this set and simply be myself,” Los Angeles–primarily based Vallandingham explains.
That stated, regardless of Vallandingham’s decades-long expertise in aggressive martial arts, nothing may have ready her for the demanding choreography of Cobra Kai. “You’re doing it over and time and again, completely different digital camera angles, completely different lenses, completely different depth,” she says. “It’s actually a lot enjoyable, however undoubtedly very intense.”
To get by these demanding moments on set, she would take a deep breath, sip an power drink, and channel her inside eight-year-old, the model of Rayna that cherished competitors. When filming all kinds of flips, kicks, aerials, choreography, and weapon work, “that aggressive mindset actually took over once more, and I acquired again to who Rayna actually is on the core,” she explains.
This method helped her get in the precise headspace. “I used to be actually immersed on this world, and I actually turned this character,” she says. “I really feel like all of us form of felt like we had been really on this world. It was undoubtedly a cool power within the air.”
Weight lifting performs a clutch position to enhance her martial arts.
Vallandingham realized all her superior materials arts strikes—like again flips and the 540, a leap spinning kick the place you land on the identical leg—at a younger age. And that honed the muscle reminiscence that helps her nonetheless do them at present, she explains. However constant power coaching additionally performs a key position, particularly since she has a historical past of tendonitis, a situation which inflames your tendons and might trigger ache and swelling.
.jpg&description=Cobra+Kai%E2%80%99s+Rayna+Vallandingham+Shares+the+Secret+to+Crushing+These+Spin+Kicks){kind=link}