Steven Seagal doing aikido clip

[Unmatchable]

check it out yo:

http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~sws99dsc/r.../SS_Aikido.mpg

[David Jamieson]

long ago and far away.

were those outakes from one of his movies? stuff that made the cr floor that is?

[Unmatchable]

no they were clips from his training in Japan. he was like one of the first westerners to run a dojo in Japan.

[red5angel]

is aikido considerd a self defense art or more sport now a days?

[red5angel]

he kinda looks like Gene Simmons.....

[FngSaiYuk]

Y'know, something that pops in my head more and more often when I see 'application' demonstrations-

Oft times demos are presented where the opponent looks like a real fighting moron. Where the opponent appears to be completely focused on a very particular attack or approach, so of course they get nailed by the demo'd technique.

Now I can understand doing when teaching applications in class... but when demo'd in public?

Case in point, this particular video - now I'm not taking away from the grace with which Seagal executes these techniques - they look very clean. My problem is how the 'opponents' often look as if all they want to do is run at Seagal... it looks really hokey to me.

Anywayz, just something that's been bugging me more and more as I see demos which have been released to the public.

[red5angel]

yep

[old jong]

He!

[David Jamieson]

Its the attackers job to feed the kitty.

It's the defenders job to make sure the kitty gets fed.

That's how a demo is. If you wanna see it applied live, you have to do an organized fight thing. You know, where too many of us can't make the more unusual techs work, hence all the focus now on "live" or "alive" training.

Which narrows the techs and apps considerably except for those people that really really work em diligently and consistently. Even then we are all going to favour a few particular techniques and consistently rely on those for any sort of results.

Learn the tech, get it internalized and test it on a live resisting opponent. That is how the martial arts as a viable fighting resource are being trained by a lot of folks these days.

As opposed to the classical method, which shows it as shown above i.e

Attacker: Here is my arm, hanging in the air 12 inches to the left of your shoulder.

Defender: Thank you, I will now flip your ass.

and so on...

p.s I would have to admit that some techs only work well against a full speed and accurate attack. But a lot of demos don't tend to include those for some reason...hmmmmm double

[The Willow Sword]

Aikido is what i first began in but i didnt get very far,,,i did not have enough patience to really learn the better techniques. i could be thrown and l learned how to "fall" but that was about it.
i felt that it was better to learn how to strike and kick than attempt to do things in a circular way. Pakua and hsing i changed all that for me. As for Steven Segal,,i used to have a great amount of respect for him,,until i began to see how much of an a$$ he is on the screen AND in interviews. i dont know if its the entertainment industry that has just gotten to his head,,or that he is married in to the wealthy kennedy family,,OR maybe its something else. I respect his abilities but as far as a personable guy with decent character, i have to say that he lacks that humility that Sensei Morehei had when he was alive. anyway,,great clips.
Peace,,,TWS

[Mr Punch]

Technically, I've heard from friends who've trained with him (tho admittedly only at one seminar) I've heard he's very good, but he does big man's techniques and is not so efficient at translating those techs into anything useful for women or small men.

Even then, when one of my friends of a similar size was asked to stop his technique, he could with ease, so I'm not sure about his technical prowess myself, but I wasn't there.

My friend downloaded his dojo's grading test for potential shodan. To be fair, I don't know if any of them passed, but they were typically silly aikidoka... no, in fact worse than average. In my shodan test we didn't have programmed attacks, although in multiple randori the 'attackers' were limited to a one-two type combo (then they'd pause and do another). When uke didn't try to nail me, I asked for fresh uke. One of the most important things about the multiple randori was that you didn't lose position, ie you always kept one in front of the others, didn't let them get behind you, if you couldn't finish a tech without sacrificing position you didn't. It was not so realistic fighting, but it helps your positional awareness a lot and gets you used to very fast ugly techs based on getting you in a good position to run away.

In Seagal's dojo, (just by looking at the video you understand, I've never been) the 'attackers' are of the wet sheep variety. They run forwards with their arms outstretched in the old scooby-doo zombie pose, seriously overcommitted. The tori is also overcommitted for every one, leaning well forwards which (a) puts them off balance, (b) leaves them with no option but to meet force with force: their postures are such that they can't pull off a simple tenkan, and (c) because of this forward posture, their irimi are leading with their chins and their arms are too stiff. They have no positional sense, and yet they still don't put the techs on, and the uke sometimes pile onto the tori in heap on the floor. OK, maybe it teaches the "gambatte" spirit to struggle on in practise like that, but it's still a pretty big fail in my dojo.

For this reason it seems to be even more woolly-minded thinking on the difference betwen aiki principles and reality. Of course, in reality with six geezers on you, with two or three holding you down, the others are gonna be playing footie with your head.

Anyway, back to the vid Unmatchable posted: you can see Seagal's tendency to lean forwards a little even in this early vid. I'm putting it down to him being a big guy, with weak knees (so he can't get into the correct posture) and maybe a weak small of the back. And that was before he was such a fat slow old man. It's ok 'against' other aikidoka, but your average wrestler, judoka, taichi player etc shouldn't have much of a problem getting his balance, and dropping his bulk into the deck. Plus, he doesn't seems to realise what he's doing which is what I find really surprising so all his students in that dan-grading video just copy him.

On a personal level, I've never met him, but he did stare me down like a bloody big kid in the street in Shibuya. I saw him outside a restaurant and I looked at him, cos he's like a 6' 7" fat superstar wearing a poncho, and he glared at me through those piggy little eyes. So I kept his gaze and slowed down, and grinned like a schoolboy as I walked close by. He stared me down like he wanted to transmit the message "I could snap you in half"... what he actually said was "I'm whale pr**k" I think.

I love the internet when I'm sick. I've just written a very long post that nobody's gonna read slagging off an internationally recognized and probably (by default to his size, not to mention his training) quite hard superstar...!

[Shaolinlueb]

i think Seagel has a lot of skill, and a lot of the techniques lookd good, some of them were "flashy" and looked difficult to do in a real situation, but most looked good. IMO. some parts were in slow motion so.. IDK.