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We made it to another week, kids. It’s probably cold as hell wherever you are (it certainly is where I am), so I hope you’re staying warm in some manner. And this week, we’ve got a fan-favorite goose to carve up: Steven Seagal.
You may remember the last time we took a look at the Aikido master in action. It didn’t go great. But maybe having a little fun by watching master Seagal at “work” can warm your heart in such frigid times. Oh, we’ve got some cool knockouts and other fun stuff as well.
Goliath beating that ass
This clip has been a favorite of mine for years now. Before he was a famous Hollywood action star, Seagal was an uncharismatic lump that had an Aikido studio in Los Angeles. He landed an appearance on the Merv Griffin show in 1982, well before he ever even set foot on a soundstage. Seagal was there to do a demonstration of his martial arts prowess, and ends up putting on the kind of show that was not uncommon for the era.
Unfortunately, it really — and I mean really — hasn’t aged well.
First thing to note here is that the typical martial arts exhibition of the time would have an instructor and training partner of as close to equal size as possible. In some instances, we’d see the instructor demonstrate on a larger person. This was more frequent in videos and tutorials for children in anti-bullying scenarios. If the instructors themselves didn’t do a demonstration against a larger partner, they’d bring a smaller student to demonstrate the techniques instead.
And that worked, because a longtime selling point for martial arts in the United States was to be able to defeat larger and stronger opponents. But Steven Seagal is 6’4. It’s tough to find someone taller than you to do demonstrations. But did he have to being a guy that looks like he’s 5ft even for this? Behold:
The message here isn’t “Optimal street self-defense“, but more along the lines of “Watch me shove this child into a locker.” For the first sequence, the training partner opens with a volley of strikes that no one in the real world would throw in a fight. At least not if they had a grasp and understanding of what the average street fight would look like. Seagal calmly and deftly parries and nails him with a lariat reminiscent of Stan Hansen in his Japan days.
“Sorry, kid. Let’s make that worse for you, but in a different way.”
Parry the kick, grab the wrist off the swat, turn and take down to a wristlock. That’s fine, and it looks great! Sure, nobody would be throwing those Kung Fu slappy hands in reality, but the technique was solid. But did he have to keep the guy pinned down like that? My man tapped a few times before the hold was released.
Buddy, you’re a martial arts guy on national television. Ease up a bit once your guy taps. But no, he goes harder.
Jesus, dude.
He moves on from there to do some pretty impressive stuff including some minor feats of strength and gets very weird with his knife disarms and defense.
There’s a fun little bit about how he’s got his opponent on the ground but isn’t keeping him down on the ground with his strength or weight. It’s about his chi holding him down. Did he just not use that special ability against Gene LeBell? Can’t tell, don’t care. But he also does an impressive demonstration with some Kendo sticks.
“No, I swear it’s not compliance, bro. It’s totally my spirit energy keeping him down.”
There’s not much to mock here. The man was spry, moved well, and looked very impressive. You have to give him his due. I’ve got plenty of criticisms regarding the advertising of the practicality of Aikido overall, but we don’t need to delve into that right now.
The fact that he later went on to be a terrible person and an unfathomably lazy performer not withstanding, it’s easy to see how this guy became the face of American martial arts cinema in the late 80s and early 90s. The guy was tall, kind of rugged, and was doing stuff that was dangerous without much flair or panache.
This was 1982. Bruce Lee had died close to a decade earlier, Chuck Norris was fading into the background a bit, Jean-Claude Van Damme was nowhere near hitting megastardom yet. Other performers hadn’t quite pushed through the upper crust and wouldn’t do so for a while. 1982 might as well been like living on another planet at the time when it came to a lot of aspects of martial arts, and Seagal had a different edge to him. Still… the chi stuff, the odd mismatch, the bit with the knife? It’s safe to say there wasn’t a time where he wasn’t being weird, impractical or both.
We throwing spinning s**t now? Why, yes.
Spinning attacks are often ill-advised in MMA, given their potential to go wrong. But you’ve been here before, so you know we’re only gonna show the good stuff. First off, a nice little collection courtesy of Lawrence Kenshin. It’s not just a highlight, he provides some really good insight into what goes right and wrong. Most importantly, why:
We’ve also got a collection courtesy of GLORY Kickboxing that’s straight highlights of spinning nuttery.
Art and movement
Here’s a lovely collection from the 2022 World Games Wushu exhibition. So much fluidity and discipline on display. It’s beautiful to see this level of artistry staying alive in this day and age.
Sweep the leg, Johnny…
This one comes courtesy of Sports ForEver, and features competitive Karate footage. But the catch is that it’s all successful sweeps. And not the kind you see in the older Mortal Kombat games. It’s all smooth action.
Go, Sammo, go!
I’ve loved Sammo Hung’s action sequences since childhood. While he mostly does fight choreography these days, he still does some fight scenes here and there. What might be lost on some people is just how agile and how funny he was back in the day.
Here’s a scene from 1985’s Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars. The film also features Andy Lau, Biao Yuen, and the incomparable Jackie Chan. Here’s Sammo duking it out with Richard Norton, who is still getting gigs to this day. Sammo’s physicality here is marvelous, and his ability to do physical comedy is extraordinary.
That’s all for this week, kids. Go check out this trailer for Stellar Blade or something. And remember – you might think you can fight, but there are many guys like you all over the world.