# Shotokan and Van Damme



## matt.m (Mar 12, 2008)

I saw Bloodsport in High School, thought it was great stuff.  Van Damme was good for the Martial Art business.  He is also a bonafide champion in full contact.  Personally, I like the guy........what is the consensus of everyone else on the board?


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## terryl965 (Mar 12, 2008)

matt.m said:


> I saw Bloodsport in High School, thought it was great stuff. Van Damme was good for the Martial Art business. He is also a bonafide champion in full contact. Personally, I like the guy........what is the consensus of everyone else on the board?


 
I have never had a reason not to like him, his movie are pretty good and he is a fair Martial Artist.


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## Sukerkin (Mar 12, 2008)

I concur with Terry - then again I think that the younger Seagal was okay too, so what does that say about my judgement ?


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## Bobby135 (Mar 12, 2008)

I would have to say that I like his old stuff (Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Lionheart) but some of his new stuff is pretty bad.  So bad in fact that I dont remember the movie names hehehe.  He appears to be very showy with his signature spinning jump kick, not sure about his skills outside of the movies

Bobby


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## Grenadier (Mar 12, 2008)

Van Damme has seen better days...  Still in pretty darn good condition, considering that he put his body through an 8,000 dollar / week cocaine habit.  If any of us went on that type of a habit, we would have been stone cold dead.  

Out of all of his movies, I can still remember No Retreat, No Surrender, where he played the role of the bad guy, Ivan.  I always thought this was one of his better roles.  

Bloodsport was quite entertaining, since it also brought exposure to various other martial arts (Sumo, Muay Thai, Capoeira, Gung Fu, Freestyle, Aikido, etc), even if some of them were portrayed very poorly.  

I actually liked "The Quest," since the fight scenes were better, and the Capoeira practitioner was excellent.


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## Skip Cooper (Mar 12, 2008)

Not a big fan of Van Damme...I lean toward the stiff acting of Steven Segal, _"I'm just a cook."_ 

BTW, what do shotokan and Van Damme have in common? Is that his original martial art style? I had always assumed it was taekwondo...never really put much thought into it, until now.


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## agemechanic03 (Mar 12, 2008)

Not sure about his everyday stuff, and wasn't too happy when I heard about his coke addiction back in the day. As for his movies, I'm a big fan of, even tho I haven't seen them all. As a matter of fact, I have Bloodsport with me here in Korea!


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## twendkata71 (Mar 13, 2008)

Van Damme did study Shotokan in Brussels when he was younger. Won some traditional tournaments. He added the taekwondo and muy thai later for the movies.  He was not a full contact fighter.


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## matt.m (Mar 13, 2008)

If he wasn't a full contact fighter then how was he part of the European Gold Medal Team?  He is a European Champ.......Same kind of thing as Best of the Best I.  Yes Shotokan Karate is his "Base" art.  His style of footwork is more Japanese than Korean too.


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## matt.m (Mar 13, 2008)

Skip Cooper said:


> Not a big fan of Van Damme...I lean toward the stiff acting of Steven Segal, _"I'm just a cook."_
> 
> BTW, what do shotokan and Van Damme have in common? Is that his original martial art style? I had always assumed it was taekwondo...never really put much thought into it, until now.


 

Skip, Under Siege is a good movie.  However, to me Seagal doesn't "Look" that good technique wise.  I know I am a hapkidoan, but there is not a big difference from the two.  Plus Van Damme has better 1 liners.  Just an opinion.


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## jim777 (Mar 13, 2008)

Seagal movies are the best. I love the one where he blows up an oil refinery in Alaska to protect the environement. :lol:


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## Wild Bill (Mar 13, 2008)

His next movie looks good.

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2008/03/jcvd_trailer_is_pretty_good.php


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## Bodhisattva (Mar 13, 2008)

matt.m said:


> I saw Bloodsport in High School, thought it was great stuff.  Van Damme was good for the Martial Art business.  He is also a bonafide champion in full contact.  Personally, I like the guy........what is the consensus of everyone else on the board?



WHERE is there any proof he is a full contact champion?

I have heard that fact disputed a lot.

He looks like a sissy boy, to me.


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## matt.m (Mar 13, 2008)

Wild Bill said:


> His next movie looks good.
> 
> http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2008/03/jcvd_trailer_is_pretty_good.php


 

I have the entire dvd library.  You cant get Sinav, Black Eagle, or No Retreat No Surrender.

But I will see this


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## twendkata71 (Mar 13, 2008)

I don't of any proof that he was on any full contact team, champion team, or otherwise.  The only thing I remeber about his record was that he won at some European (Wuko/WKF) type tournaments. The last I heard he was actually working with a Goju ryu stylist. Who know? The only karate ka/ actor that I know for sure was a full contact karate(Kyokushinkai) champion was Dolf lungren he is a 4th or 5th dan in Kyokushinkai.


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## Flying Crane (Mar 13, 2008)

When I saw Bloodsport in High School, I liked it.  Looking back as an adult, I think he is an absolutely lousey actor, and his fight choreography is terrible.

The Quest is another showcase of horrible acting and gawd-awful fight choreography on his part.  Boy, there is just nothing like standing nose-to-nose with a beefy bruiser, trading body shots with neither making any effort to block or evade in the mean time.  Just dish out and take an equal amount of punishment.  Stupid.


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## thetruth (Mar 14, 2008)

Sukerkin said:


> I concur with Terry - then again I think that the younger Seagal was okay too, so what does that say about my judgement ?



That younger Seagal was good as were his films.  He then started to believe he was better than he was and took to preaching in his films

Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## thetruth (Mar 14, 2008)

He did do some kickboxing apparently nearly severed a guys nose clean off with his big toe nail to win some obscure European 'world' title.  Opinions vary on his ability.   Dennis Alexio thought Van Damme ws pretty average yet former WKA world kickboxing champion Dida Diafat said Van Damme has some of the best legs he has ever seen.  

I don't have the publication where i read the above info and don't really care enough to find out where it came from so it is up to you guys to either believe it or not.

Cheers
Sam:asian:


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## Topeng (Mar 14, 2008)

His fight record is 15-1 and all 15 wins were by knockout. He went by the name Jean Claude Van Varenberg at the time (his birthname). 
I liked his earlier movies but the newer ones don't do it for me though I can't say I have seen many of the recent ones. Its the same with Seagal but thats just me. Maybe I'm just guilty of jumping on the Jet Li / Tony Jaa train.
As a person my opinion is torn. He's a smart guy - A successful business owner in the past and is fluent in 5 languages. The blemish is in his history of domestic violence though that could be attributed to his bipolar disorder. All in all, who am I to judge? I've never even seen the guy let alone know him.
A sidenote: He'll never recover from that dance scene in Kickboxer. He makes ME feel embarrased during that one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_damme


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## twendkata71 (Mar 14, 2008)

Ok, I stand corrected.


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## matt.m (Mar 14, 2008)

Flying Crane said:


> When I saw Bloodsport in High School, I liked it. Looking back as an adult, I think he is an absolutely lousey actor, and his fight choreography is terrible.
> 
> The Quest is another showcase of horrible acting and gawd-awful fight choreography on his part. Boy, there is just nothing like standing nose-to-nose with a beefy bruiser, trading body shots with neither making any effort to block or evade in the mean time. Just dish out and take an equal amount of punishment. Stupid.


 
Wow, you must absolutely love the Rocky movies.  I have seen all six countless times and he was the absolute worst at blocking I have ever seen.

I know I am not a Seagal fan at all, after Above the Law, I never watched another film.  With his Aikido he never puts space between himself and other attackers.  It is just ridiculous, I mean the roots of Aikido and Hapkido come from the same place.  Now, remember I love flow drills against multiple attackers so using an aggressor to separate myself from another is just my favorite strategy.  Actually, Shotokan is a very straight forward art, he did use parries to make attacking blows.

Plus, every block is a strike and every strike is a crippling technique.  Shotokan and Tae Kwon Do as arts, not playful sparring as they have become, do share those commonalities.


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## matt.m (Mar 14, 2008)

Oh and by the way, we have a new student in Tae Kwon Do and my Yudo class.  Jeff, a brown belt in Shotokan made the comment to me in class Thursday Night.  "Van Damme is a great champion and has a handful of movies I like."  So I suppose that is saying something.


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