karate vs aikido

most of us know steven seagal as an aikidomaster, turned movie star. despite loosing his strong stand in hollywood, he is stillloved by many. yet when you look at his life more closely, many plot holes start to popout. being a controversial figure as he is – one can only stop and wonder – whatwas the influence of seagal to martial arts and his primary art – aikido? to betterunderstand the answer, we will have to look

at some details that are often left unmentioned.there are loads of caricaturist montages about seagal. one could argue, that a caricaturecould be made about anyone. yet it is also said that there is 60% of truth in every joke,which means that every caricature is actually inspired by something. that seems to be trueabout seagal when you look at the details

of his past.it turns out that seagal has a strong reputation in hollywood as a pathological liar. thereare many stories about his distorting of truth. one of the more commonly known: his claimto have been an operative in cia and also a member of the navy seal. in 1988, he toldlos angeles times: “"you can say that i became an adviser to several cia agents inthe field, and. through my friends in the cia, met many powerful people and did specialworks and special favors." yet it was stated by many of those associatedwith the cia, that this claim is absurd. as one of the examples, in a story told by garygoldman, an ex-mercenary and former business partner of steven seagal, while they weretogether on a trip, he realized that seagal

had no clue how to even use a map or a compass.in his letter to times magazine he wrote that seagal: “would surely die of starvationif he was given a compass and a map that led to a restaurant five miles away.”a story like this really puts some doubt about the possibility of seagal ever being a ciaoperative or a former navy seal, even more so with him never giving any proof about it.actually, even steven seagals aikido background story has been caught being suspicious. basedon “peoples” article published in 1990, during various interviews seagal indicatedthat it was anywhere from 1968 to 1973 that he went to japan. according to enrollmentrecords at fullerton college, he attended classes from the fall of 1970 and left afterthe fall of 1971, putting him at age 19 before

he could have departed for a long stay injapan. of course, it could have been a mix of dates in seagal’s memory, but what thesedates contradict with, is that steven was also claiming that he studied with moricheiueshiba, the founder of aikido. this was not only denied by one of ueshiba’s westernstudents, terry dobson, who stayed with the founder during that time, but morihei alsopassed away in 1969, during the time when seagal was recorded to be still in collegein the states, making his claims even more so ridiculous.one element that is often used to fortify seagal’s image as a ‘great’ martialartists, is the often proclaimed statement, that he was the first non-asian person toopen a dojo in japan. based on ‘peoples’

investigation, it turns out that the dojothat he was teaching in japan, belonged to his former wife’s, miyako fujitani’s,father. looking at all these claims and contradictions, seagals role as a martial artist and an aikidokabecome really peculiar. seagal had been into other series of troubleas well. to begin with, he had a series of law suits for sexual harassment and thereare many recorded stories of different women sharing how awful and sexually inappropriatelyseagal was acting with them. up until now, seagal has had three law suits for sexualharassment, spamming from 1995 to 2013. he has also been reported acting unethicallyand violently in the filming set, most notably when he intentionally punched actor john leguizamoduring a rehearsal, when john laughed from

seagals statement: “i’m in command, whati say is law, anyone not agree?”. there had been numerous other troubling eventsthat were recorded about seagal in various situations, yet these alone mentioned before,are already enough to create a big sense of doubts about his personality and credibility.one could argue, that maybe some of these stories are not true, that maybe it is justwhat happens to actors in hollywood, with lots of gossiping. yet then why so much troublewith seagal in particular? with so many of these stories and recorded facts, for allof them to be out of thin air, it becomes hard to believe. yet trying to prove if itis true or not, is not our main goal. it is now time to come back to our original question.without doubt, seagal has been an important

figure in the development and popularizationof martial arts in the west. popular culture always had a strong influence on people’sinterests. with seagals fame rising, rose also the fame of martial arts and aikido evenmore so. many came trying martial arts after seeing his movies. yet what image has he presentedabout aikido and martial arts in general? most martial arts masters who have demonstratedincredible feet’s, even after turning famous proclaimed self-development and good exampleas of utmost importance in martial arts. up to this day we still look up to the founderof jeet-kun-do and famous actor bruce lee, who would go about saying: “to me, the functionand duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.”many other great martial artists would promote

good character and example as well [collectionof quotes]. yet looking at steven seagals actions, it alsmost seems that he was actingthe opposite, showing a terrible example of how a true martial artist should be.what is even worse, is that many still associate seagal as a representation of aikido. yetthe founder of aikido constantly emphasized that a true martial art should be a meansof creating good individuals. he would often say that: “the goal of aikido is to reconcilethe world”. yet did seagal represent this at all?steven seagals movies not only lacked completely mentioning the philosophy of aikido, but tomake it worse, in his movies, he would always go about injuring and utterly destroying hisopponents. with the excuse of them being bad

guys, he would sometimes be hurting them beyondcommon sense. some could say that seagal was just playing his role as an actor, but eventhen, an actor always has a choice at what movies to start. although, his support ofviolence, which contradicts the essence of aikido, does not end there.even in his life, he is proud to this day of having a close connection to russia’spresident vladimir putin and expressing personal support to the annexation of crimea. we allhave a choice to whom we connect ourselves with, but here we speak of supporting a leaderwith a very controversial situation and worse so, a military war strategy, which has theoutcome of violence and loss of lives. could that ever be called a representation of aikido?it is clear that no human is perfect, but

the more we expose ourselves to the generalpublic, the more conscious we should become that our actions do matter and that otherswill potentially take us as an example for what we stand for. when this leads to a strongimpact, we have to be very conscious of what we do, in order to show a good example, notonly for ourselves, but also for what we represent. seagals movies has brought a lot of attentionand flow to martial arts, yet for what cost? even these days there are still people whowould come to various dojo’s wanting to be the next steven seagal. but is that whatwe really want people to think of martial arts? is that how we want a true martial artistto be represented and thought of? a person of pathological lying, sexual harassment,one using force without sense?

worse so, many people when being asked ifthey know aikido, often connect it to steven seagal, as a representation of what it is.yet it is so far from what aikido really stands for, that despite all the attention that itbrought, it only makes one wonder if there was more gain then actual harm, to peoplesability to understand what aikido is truly about.so i ask again to look back at what we might have taken for granted. steaven seagal isfor many a representation of a martial arts, and specially that of aikido. but is thatreally a representation that we want to have? do we really want to take seagal an exampleand support him in that? or should we rather take him as an example of what a martial artistshouldn’t be? the more we will be aware

of the true situation, the easier it willbe for many to understand how it truly is. martial arts should not be vehicle for misconduct.it should be a vehicle for self-development and the bringing of the best of ourselves,not only in fights, but even more importantly, into our daily life. but as long as we willaccept terrible examples as a representation of it, we will probably never get very far.let’s become clear on what is what and start cleaning the harm by supporting those, whoshow a true example and doing our best to living a good example ourselves.what do you think a true martial artist should be? do you think steven seagal is a good example?join the discussion bellow in the comments in searching for what true martial art. alsosubscribe, if you like the video, to further

explore these topics together. this is senseirokas and see you on the virtual mat again soon!