The year 1984 As of late I have been sharing with you all some stories from my past let me know if you like them or not and wish me to continue. I used to be a part of the Aiki Kempo Karate Do demo team and we traveled to a martial arts event at least I think it was in the year of 1984 to Vestal New York and I remember my parents driving me and it was about an 8 hour drive from where we live. Our team put on our demonstration and then it was time for another team to get up in front of the huge audience and put on their display of their arts. I saw the leader of the group and he was a huge man standing at least in my opinion 64-65 and he was wearing a white dogi top and a black hakama and he had black gelled haired and he was accompanied by numerous Japanese men who were dressed in the same attire all of a sudden they all rushed him and were being thrown around like rag dolls and were also put in excruciating joint locks. I had never ever seen anything like this outside of the Aiki Jiu Jutsu but this man was out of this world talented and did it with such ease almost seeming like he had the ability to tell what attack was going to come next from his assailant. After his students had been whipped around he asked if any other martial artist would like to attack him, a couple of us thought we were all that and volunteered we were whipped around and did not know how to do jumping break falls but we certainly knew how to tap and say uncle. This man manhandled us like we were nothing to him but an annoyance. I later found out that the man was Steven Seagal and he was famous with the Aiki Kai and I believe he was ranked at the time 5th dan ready to test for his 6th dan under Doshu. He was not famous as a celebrity though so we did not ask for his autograph but were amazed by his skill. All the Karate we had learned and the Kempo seemed useless against this man. I then saw the Merv Griffin Show in syndication and it was footage from 1982 of Steven working with Haruo Matuoka and I was like wait a minute that is the guy who demonstrated on us. I was honored to have been thrown around by a martial artist who starred on television. Then the movie Above the law came out in 1988 and then I wished that I had got an autograph. Shihan Seagal would never know who I am since we only met once and I was the kid he was whipping around. Now having studied the arts for almost 4 decades I understand how deadly all the arts are and how devastating the techniques of Japanese Karate and American Kempo Karate truly are and once you understand the footwork and body movements they are just as fluid as Aikido. I have only felt such pain from joint locks three times in my life 1. being from the Black Dragon Aiki Jiu Jutsu group. 2. from Shihan Seagal and 3. from Shihan Michael Lamonica of Hakko Ryu Jiu Jutsu. As for pain from finger locks my Sensei putting me in finger locks which had he had learned from the late founder of Small Circle Jiu Jutsu Wally Jay. People call me master and I hate that term I just want to be a student for the rest of my life. I can honestly say from my experience that day with Shihan Seagal that he is the real deal and one tough individual not to be messed with. Cheers Rick.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 00:18:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015