Actor and 7th degree aikido black belt Steven Seagal recently gave Russian MMA legend Aeksander Emelianenko (brother of Fedor) an Aikido masterclass. Aleksandr holds a master in Sambo degree.

Seagal was asked what he thought about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and its effectiveness.

He openly gave his opinion and had reservations about fighting on the ground:

“When people say “all fights end up on the ground” they are incorrect. 90 percent of the fights that I know end standing up with one person going horizontal. They (the samurai) knew if they went to the ground they were dead because they were on the battlefield. We don’t want to dive down on the ground and just as much time as those guys spend trying to dive in your legs and get you, we spend just as much time cutting your head off or knocking you out or ripping your eyes out or ripping your throat out or severing your brainstem when you go down there because your head and your neck will be vulnerable.”

“I don’t care who you are if you know what we know yeah and then i’ll show you.”

Rickson Gracie was once asked what he thought about Steven Seagal and if he is legit.

This was Rickson Gracie’s response:

“Definitely. [Seagal] has – based on his training – a deep understanding of the concepts. How good he is in real life, how he will display his effectiveness, I’m not sure. His philosophy is based on proven realities. He believes in technique, and the concepts within Martial Arts.”

So what does this mean exactly. For Rickson, Seagal has a deep understanding of Aikido’s fundamentals. When it comes to effectiveness, he believes that the only way to see how legit he is from  live training. This is why it is important to test your technique on resisting opponents in live sparring, to be able to see what truly works.

A martial art and martial artist that doesn’t actively train with his students to test and refine his techniques, cannot improve…

Now when BJJ and Taekwondo black belt Joe Rogan was asked about STeven Seagal, he went deeper questioning the effectiveness of the martial art of Aikido….

In the past, Joe Rogan welcomed an Aikido Master during his podcast and slowly broke Aikido down, calling it the most ineffective martial art ever.

When asked how he would deal with a wrestler, his guest answered:

“I’d just step to the side”