Dawn breaks across the barren, remote British Island of Isle of Wight.
As the light filters through the trees, figures appear dressed in white robes and walk slowly toward the clearing in the trees.
They form into a square. At the front is a small tree stump onto which an old man, known as The Miyagi, climbs.
The group performs a series of slow, mystical movements, as they do so, sacred murmurings echo through the morning fog.
‘Wax on, wax off,’ ‘paint the fence,’ ‘this school sucks, man, sucks.’
The ritual concludes with The Miyagi performing a jumping kick whilst stood on the tree stump.
It is 1987 and Larussism is at its height.
Formed in 1985, Larussism was a fringe religion based on the teachings of 1984 classic, the Karate Kid and its lead character Daniel Larusso.
“I was just a kid drifting from one shallow spiritual fallacy to another,” admitted Pat Kove.
“Until I found Larussism. There was really spiritual truth there, something to build a life on.”
Larussism found a home on the Isle of Wight.
“There was an ancient grandeur to the island, particularly the hover port,” recalled Kove.
The Larrusist Church opened in the remote settlement of Ventnor.
“Those early days was just beautiful, man,” said Kove.
“Just a handful of us sanding the floor and listening to Cruel, Cruel Summer by Bananarama.
“But then, well, he turned up and the whole thing became a circus.”
The ‘he’ in question was, of course, pop star Bono Vox.
Best known for shouting on the Band-Aid song, Bono converted to Larussism following the a period of pretending to be a cowboy for U2’s hit album Cactus Blues.
Vox’s arrival caused huge upset amongst the Larussians.
“You couldn’t even kick a football up and down a beach without a photographer asking where Bono was,” said Kove, sadly.
“The whole thing had just lost any meaning.”
Kove left the island in 1988.
“It was just U2 fans trying to karate kick each other by then, and the U2 fans trying to karate kick each other was everything Larussism wasn’t.”
Kove now lives to the teachings of PrettyinPinkism on the remote island of Guernsey but whenever he sees anyone waxing their car, he still feels a pang of regret for the lost religion of Larussism.
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