It's quite obvious, with only a cursory glance, that what is sold as martial arts today has very little to do with martial arts.
While good martial arts primarily has to do with body mechanics there are also very fundamental behavioral principles we must live by. These principles are not some "icing on the cake". They are not simply principles that a martial artist should do because they are a martial artist. They are principles that are essential to becoming a martial artist. And to remaining one.
I teach that these principles are:
*Integrity
*Discipline
*Humility
Some teachers may put importance on other behavioral principles but I think all would agree that these are critical.
And when I say critical, I do not mean you should live them if you are a martial artist. I mean that you must develop them to become one. They are critical to actually learning the physical mechanics.
Yet they are absent in many popular "martial artists" of the day. And very much so, as proven recently, in Steven Seagal.
As a martial arts instructor of a few decades, I often get asked about various martial arts movies. Do I like them? And for most, the answer is no.
Most are difficult for me to watch. Because, well, if they are martial arts movies they should have some decent martial arts in them. Seagal, for the most part, uses the same poorly executed moves over and over.
I really don't know how he rose to such stature.
*His claims of lineage are questionable. (I don't hold lineage as a measure of knowledge, it rarely is. It's the lying about it that disgusts me).
*I can't see anything remarkable in his Aikido. I'm not an Aikido practitioner but it's motions and principles are very familiar to me. It is not an old art and it was derived from other arts, which were themselves derived from much older arts that I am familiar with.
*He doesn't act like a martial artist. Hey, at least David Carradine faked it pretty well.
Years ago I taught a guy who had trained extensively with Seagal. (Yeah, I know, should I believe that lineage?) And I did believe him.
Why?
Because the things he showed me that he was taught and the claims of things he said Seagal could do, very much line up with what I see in Seagal's demo videos. All faked moves that only work with highly compliant dummies. Yes, his students have great skill in making him look good.
Aikido is prone to over-compliant dummies. I've seen it many times. I don't know why. Maybe it has crept into the culture. But I have seen very good Aikido. There used to be a guy on youtube that went by "Realakiboy". I'm sure he must still be around somewhere but I haven't found him. If someone finds him compare his Aikido to anything by Seagal. You'll see a stark difference.
I could blather on about Seagal. But the point here is that in a big way, the world does not know what martial arts really is because of representations such as this guy,
And that is a huge loss!
Martial arts has much to give to society. It empowers individuals to be their best selves. Yet when people see guys like Seagal as representations and form their opinions based on that, well, much is lost.
I don't normally bash other martial artists, but at this point, holding my tongue just lets this disgrace be perpetuated.
In the future I promise to post more constructively. It's just that this guy has provoked my ire for many years and oh yeah:
He just perpetuated an Exit Scam!
Bitcoiin - do you need anything more than the name to say scam?
Do I need to talk about lack of integrity here?
Plus, when am I ever going to get a chance to post about my two loves, Martial Arts and Cryptocurrency in the same post. I couldn't resist.