# Steven Seagal & The Knife.



## Littledragon

For those who have seen Steven Seagal's Under Siege and Under Siege 2 at the end knife fight scenes were taken place. Does anybody know if Steven Seagal studied any knife martial arts or kali. The knife fight scenes displayed in those two movies looks like Seagal is familular with the knife arts.

It does not look like he does not know about the knife arts and he was just focusing on choreaography but really it looks like he has had experience with some knife arts.

Anybody know if Seagal has stuided the knife arts or kali?


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## Kevin Walker

Littledragon said:
			
		

> For those who have seen Steven Seagal's Under Siege and Under Siege 2 at the end knife fight scenes were taken place. Does anybody know if Steven Seagal studied any knife martial arts or kali. The knife fight scenes displayed in those two movies looks like Seagal is familular with the knife arts.
> 
> It does not look like he does not know about the knife arts and he was just focusing on choreaography but really it looks like he has had experience with some knife arts.
> 
> Anybody know if Seagal has stuided the knife arts or kali?



From what I understand, Steven Seagal had earned a 7th degree black belt (Hachi-dan) in Aikido, and at that level severe knife fighting skills have been learned along with the sword and stick (jo).  Aikido incorporates the stick, knife, and sword into its training just as some styles of Karate incorporate the sai and bo, or Tonfa and Nunjukus, etc.  So I believe Steven Seagal was thoroughly trained in the knife arts already established in Aikido.


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## Flatlander

Welcome aboard Kevin Walker!  Good first post.


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## Josh

good stuff. actually, well yea, ya'll are right, but Steven Segal has done more than Aikido, he's done Karate, Kendo, Judo and i believe something else as well. he's very well rounded. lots of folks love his fight scenes.


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## Flatlander

Segal's fight scenes rock.  He's a good choreographer.  I like how direct he does it, rather than being overly flashy and drawn out.  Makes it look more 'real', in my opinion.


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## Kevin Walker

Josh said:
			
		

> good stuff. actually, well yea, ya'll are right, but Steven Segal has done more than Aikido, he's done Karate, Kendo, Judo and i believe something else as well. he's very well rounded. lots of folks love his fight scenes.



I've seen all the Steve Seagall's three worded movies ('Above the Law', 'Marked for Death', etc.) yet I haven't recognized anything he does except very good Aikido technique.  Steven Seagall uses Aikido's 'atemi waza' striking techniques; and he demonstrated Aikido's defenses against karate in Above the Law; but if he used any non-Aikido methods, it got by me.

I'm sure he studied other styles, but I didn't recognize them in any of his movies, except when he used Aikido to defend against boxing, karate, wrestling, etc.


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## Littledragon

Thank you for the response.


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## Stick Dummy

Having observed both Dan Inosanto, and Jeff Imada playing "heavies" in the earliers genre flicks, I'd speculate they may have had a bit of an influence on Mr. Seagals choreography.

Scene with heavies in badguys Senators recreation room - Imada

Scene from Brooklyn Bar fight pool cue stick fight,  Inosanto

Probably more that i don't recognize in there as well.............


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## OULobo

Aikido doesn't really teach knife fighting. It does have a good chunk of sword and jo (short staff) work, but all the knife work is disarm technique, nothing really offensive. The sword and jo (and somewhat spear) work are shown at higher levels, but I don't ever remember hearing about knife work. 

I love watching Seagal's early movies (it's a guilty pleasure), but I have to agree about only really seeing Seagal do very good Aikido and not much else. He has been associated with Guru Inosanto and Jeff Imada, but it's always someone else doing the attacking. The knife scenes in Under Seige, especially the last one with Tommy Lee were horrendous. No technique, no application, just a bunch of offcenter figure 8s.


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## Kevin Walker

OULobo said:
			
		

> Aikido doesn't really teach knife fighting. It does have a good chunk of sword and jo (short staff) work, but all the knife work is disarm technique, nothing really offensive. The sword and jo (and somewhat spear) work are shown at higher levels, but I don't ever remember hearing about knife work.
> 
> I love watching Seagal's early movies (it's a guilty pleasure), but I have to agree about only really seeing Seagal do very good Aikido and not much else. He has been associated with Guru Inosanto and Jeff Imada, but it's always someone else doing the attacking. The knife scenes in Under Seige, especially the last one with Tommy Lee were horrendous. No technique, no application, just a bunch of offcenter figure 8s.


Hi,

Thanks for your interesting insight.  I have never seen the yari (spear) used in Aikido, and I guess it depends on what Hombu schism style is teaching.  I never new Aikido taught or anyway used the spear.  I had many hours of practice with defense against the knife techniques (along with jo and kantana) and recognized what Steven Seagall was doing with his knife techniques.  Though Hakko-ryu ju jitsu is my primary style (over 10 years), I took Aikido when my Hakko-ryu dojo shihan got out of the business (more annoying martial arts politics).

Thanks!


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## OULobo

Kevin Walker said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for your interesting insight.  I have never seen the yari (spear) used in Aikido, and I guess it depends on what Hombu schism style is teaching.  I never new Aikido taught or anyway used the spear.  I had many hours of practice with defense against the knife techniques (along with jo and kantana) and recognized what Steven Seagall was doing with his knife techniques.  Though Hakko-ryu ju jitsu is my primary style (over 10 years), I took Aikido when my Hakko-ryu dojo shihan got out of the business (more annoying martial arts politics).
> 
> Thanks!



I've never trained the spear in Aikido, as it isn't in the traditional or federated syllibus, but it was included in the group of weapons that O Sensei initially taught his students, from his Aiki-Jujutsu. I hear that some schools in Japan still teach it. That is why I only included it in parenthesis. I would be interested to see if anyone has seen it taught in their Aikido dojo.


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## Kevin Walker

OULobo said:
			
		

> I've never trained the spear in Aikido, as it isn't in the traditional or federated syllibus, but it was included in the group of weapons that O Sensei initially taught his students, from his Aiki-Jujutsu. I hear that some schools in Japan still teach it. That is why I only included it in parenthesis. I would be interested to see if anyone has seen it taught in their Aikido dojo.


 
One of my fellow Aikido students said that Seagall was doing more aikjitsu than aikido in his movies.  I didn't know either that Morihei Ueshiba practiced yari waza, spear techniques.  I read that in his Daito-ryu akijitsu days Ueshiba was one tough s.o.b., and that he studied a broad range of weaponry, but the spear got past me.  In my readings and studying of martial art history, I haven't come across spear techniques in aikido, so that is interesting.

But I've observed the higher ranking aikidoists in my dojo practicing some severe knife (tanto) fighting skills.  And again, recognized some of those techniques in Steven Seagall's movies.  He seemed to have kept his aikido techniques fairly pure, unlike the Tomiki style.  Thanks.


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## Cthulhu

Littledragon said:
			
		

> For those who have seen Steven Seagal's Under Siege and Under Siege 2 at the end knife fight scenes were taken place. Does anybody know if Steven Seagal studied any knife martial arts or kali. The knife fight scenes displayed in those two movies looks like Seagal is familular with the knife arts.
> 
> It does not look like he does not know about the knife arts and he was just focusing on choreaography but really it looks like he has had experience with some knife arts.
> 
> Anybody know if Seagal has stuided the knife arts or kali?



I hope you don't think that sissy slap fight in Under Seige was knife fighting.

Cthulhu


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## arnisador

I thought the Under Siege knife fight was pretty poor from a knife-fighting point of view.


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## kilo

Kevin Walker said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for your interesting insight.  I have never seen the yari (spear) used in Aikido,
> 
> Thanks!



In the Koryu no Kata's of Tomiki Aikido the Jo represents a yari.


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## Ninway J

Which martial art does Seagal use in the movie, "Belly of the Beast?"  To me, it looks like Tai Ji Quan.


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## Handgrape

Cthulhu said:
			
		

> I hope you don't think that sissy slap fight in Under Seige was knife fighting.
> 
> Cthulhu



Hey now...It was his answer to the U.F.C's mounted position at hte time.
Actually I think he may have been inspired by Felix Valencia.

They are repeating that kind of crap with the Bourne "???" movies. Slow it down and there is nothing really going on.

c


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## OULobo

Handgrape said:
			
		

> They are repeating that kind of crap with the Bourne "???" movies. Slow it down and there is nothing really going on.
> 
> c



Kind of like a real fight, hectic, disorganized, fast paced, chaos.


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## BlackCatBonz

ive got this great documentary on steven seagal and it shows lots of dojo footage, with interviews from quite a range of students. ive been to a few aikido classes at a dojo where my friend trained, and it was quite fluffy and flashy compared to what seagal teaches. seagal's method tends to be brutal with his higher ranking students, focusing more on a real combative approach like aikijutsu.....i thought it was great. it also showed some of his training with kenjutsu, using a bokken......also excellent.
i was really impressed at his level of skill ....it wasnt showy or flashy at all.

shawn


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