The Glade 4.0

Argh! I forgot this was on last night.

Yea, it definitely was basically just Cops + Seagal.

Once you get past Seagal's ego, it's pretty cool to see the approach he brings to policing.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

As I've stated, not what I've understood from those within the Aikido community and those in other martial arts. His skill was supposed to be fairly ok, but not amazing. He got of lot mileage in Japan because he was 50% bigger than most everyone he was training with. Dude is a big guy.

There's a story around the Judo community that he had a match with one of the better Judo competitors at the time (I'm blanking out on his name) and Seagal got his *** handed to him. Apparently he hadn't had much exposure to chokes prior to that.

I could never stand Seagal movies. His best movie IMO was Executive Decision, because he died in the first half hour.

And everyone I've ever spoken to in martial arts indicates that he earned all of his dan rankings, that he's quite skilled, and that his size in combination with his choice of style makes him particularly dangerous.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Yup. The Martial Arts world is full of dick waving and back stabbing comments. I've never trained with him so I can't really comment too much. The stuff he does in movies is all crap, but they are movies so that's not surprising.

The telling thing about Aikido is how soft it is on the practitioner. Compare the physical health of Seagal to Norris, for example. I wish someplace local taught Aikido, although I still loves my Okinawan karate.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm not sure what your getting at by your first 2 sentences.

As for Aikido being soft on the practitioner, I have pictures I could show you of my buddy who trained in Japan for 4 years and went through the Tokyo Police year long Aikido training school. The first day was 8 solid hours of back breakfalls. His shoulder blades were bleeding through his Gi.

What I'm getting at is that karate is extremely hard on you. Your hands, feet, knees, etc. Aikido is must less so.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I only caught one full episode last night and part of the other.

I really do like this show. It goes beyond Cops in many ways.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

How so?

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The Dude abides.

Well the two biggest things I can think of off the top of my head are:

1) Unlike cops, this show has a recurring cast, so you begin to empathy with them.

2) Unlike cops, this show has elements in it besides merely arresting people.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Aikido *kicks* your ***. Perhaps not on a cardio level, but on a "sweet jebus my body hurts" level. As you get better, it doesnt hurt so much. And yeah, that can lead to "softness". Then again, Rondori was brutal.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I watched the first epsidode on On-Demand.

It's definitely got more to it than Cops.

For Example:
They spent some time at the firing range prepping a guy for is annual marksmanship eval, then showed him (barely) passing the test.

I thought defensiveness softness was the primary technique? It's required, like in small circles jujutsu. Judo is quite a bit more "violent". Randori and competition is pretty severe on the body.

Also, I have yet to see how Aikido could defend against very fast, precise shots like the jab. Rarely do you see a person with enough natural speed, agility and reaction to slip a jab, but the ones that are, are boxers.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Like everything, it all depends on how you train.

I really haven't see any Aikido that I would feel comfortable with using in a real world fight today. That being said, there is a lot of REALLY good movement exercises and physiology that is learned from it. I just haven't seen much of it that is practical, as trained, in the real world.

If you're looking for real world usefulness and reality, I'd probably lean towards Judo or some of the various Juijutsu schools.

I think Aikido is the most pratical. I just don't see the drilling or randori as being tough or realistic enough. The guy who teaches it at a school near me (John Goss Jr.) claims that the sparring doesn't require a mouthguard or protective cup even.

I want to get my *** beat in Randori, I want to see everything I would see being attacked and be left short of getting bones broken in practice. I think that's the only useful way to learn.

That's part of why I feel Gracie Jiu Jitsu/BJJ has been so successful: one, it had an inventive use of LOWER body techniques on the mat to create more leverage and angles from various positions (the closed guard and guard variations are so incredibly powerful) and two, the randori and sparring are very tough and focus on learning reactivity simultaneous to strategic thinking.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

What makes you say that?



Judo is very similar from a practice standpoint to GJJ/BJJ (not surprising considering that it's origin is Judo), although Judo usually has more emphasis on standing techniques.

Because Aikido is specifically built for self defense and not very adaptable to "competition". Its roots are in self defense and remain there; you will never see Aikido in MMA (save for maybe a few techniques) or in other competitions or demonstrations because many of the techniques do great damage (finger breaks and other small join manipulation locks, head stomps etc.) and they aren't geared towards winning "points".

You have to remember, when Maeda taught Gastao Gracie's sons (Helio, Carlos), he was teaching them self-defense, not Sport Judo. Much like the WTF has completely **** up Tae Kwon Do (bringing about more interest in Judo or Hapkido), and fracturing of Karate into hundreds of bickering sub-disciplines (save for Kyokushin and maybe Shotokan), Sport Judo has wrecked the image of Judo and jujutsu. Judo has an association with throws and takedown because of Judo being a sport (and a big one, in the Olympics). Judo as a self defense art (same as Gracie JJ) has no real need for takedowns; if you are defending yourself, there are very few times when you need to proactively work for a takedown. That's why the Gracies emphasized the guard position so strongly; it's one a defensive person will naturally find himself in. Thus, if you look at old Judo, you will see lots of the same things in Aikido and jujutsu - the small circle techniques, the small joint locks, lots of very painful, non-comopetition usable blows, etc.

However, as BJJ found itself being used in competition and MMA evolved away from the UFC1 days where there were no weight classes, time limits, and very few rules (to simulate a real self-defense situations) Gracie JJ had to adapt. You see the sons of Carlo's' side of the family (Renzo, Rolls, and especially Ralph) are more aggressive and sport oriented, cross training in other specialties like traditional Judo, Wrestling, Sambo and even Boxing. The Helio side (Royce, Rickson to a degree and Royler) concentrated on self-defense. That is why you don't see Royce dominating like he used to - he'd lose decision fights too much because they don't focus on competition.

Regardless, that is where a lot of the takedown empahsis in Judo comes from - not that it's innate in Judo, but Sport Judo needs it because competition rewards agression and defense whereas self-defense only should proactively pursue takedowns in very certain scenarios. Many Jiu Jitsu academies now incorporate cross-training techniques, especially from Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling because of the strong throws and takedowns.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Enjoyed the show. Added to my list of "stuff on ONDemand that I need to catch up with"

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.