Episode 631 - How To Fight Steven Seagal as Nico in Above The Law (1988)

In this episode, Jeremy and co-host Andrew Adams give us a new episode of How To Fight and they are joined by Matt King.

How To Fight Steven Seagal as Nico in Above The Law (1988) - Episode 631

The 1988 film Above The Law is the movie debut of Steven Seagal where he was joined by Pam Grier, Sharon Stone, Daniel Faraldo, and Henry Silva. Seagal plays Nico Toscani, an ex-CIA agent, Aikido specialist, and a Chicago policeman who discovers a conspiracy upon investigating the mysterious shipment of military explosives seized from a narcotics dealer. Jeremy, Andrew, and Matt discuss how are they going to fight Nico by analyzing his stance, style, and moves. Listen and join this fun conversation!

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of How to fight. You all seem to have been enjoying these. We're back with a third one and today it's How to Fight Steven Seagal. His character, oh shoot, what's his name? Andrew, this is the part where you help me out every time.

Andrew Adams:

His name is Nico, Nico Toscani, I believe.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Toscani in Above the Law. I think we've all had this conversation almost exactly as is. But this time, you're going to listen to three others talk about it because who hasn't talked about fighting Steven Seagal? And so, I'm joined by Andrew. Andrew, you're back.

Andrew Adams:

Here I am.

Jeremy Lesniak:

We recorded this morning. We're recording again. Thank you for being back. And also, back from Episode 602. Matt King. Matt, you must have had a good time talking or at least didn't hate me. So, because you're back, Andrew invited you back and you came back.

Matt King:

But yeah, I mean try something twice. Just to make sure. Yes, yes.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Awesome. Well, you pick this movie. You wanted to talk about this movie? And of course, this character because who else are you going to talk about fighting in Above the Law, but this movie? Why? Why did you want to do this movie?

Matt King:

I was talking with Andrew and I really enjoyed the first episode you guys did for the perfect weapon, talking about previous episode. And it just seemed like, to me it was one of the very iconic martial arts movies that if you didn't see when you were younger, you definitely saw at some point and you whenever you saw it, you have an opinion. That opinion is good, bad, ugly, whatever. It's important because it's one of those movies that when you have a conversation about martial arts flicks, it's going to come up.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, Andrew was that....

Matt King:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those were the only two options I had to start out with. So, I got to come back for another episode.

Jeremy Lesniak:

We might get so much hate if we talked about How to Fight literally any of the Ninja Turtles. Yeah. My mind is racing. All right, pulling it back, Jeremy. Andrew, when did you first see Above the Law?

Andrew Adams:

So, it came out in, was it 1988? I think I saw that. It would have been the year before started training. So, I would have seen it in high school as most of these 80s martial arts movies. So, it would have been you know that I would have rented it at the local video store when those things existed, but that's when I would have seen it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Nice. Nice. All right. What I'm attempting to ask, Matt, is your feelings on Steven Seagal. But I'm trying to do it in a kind, respectful, diplomatic way because he's become a bit of a polarizing figure within the martial arts.

Matt King:

Completely could not agree more. I think that it's also important. Like in movies like this, in particular. There's a lot of like death of the artist that gets brought up that like this movie can be viewed or loved, hated, however you feel about it independent from, you know, now 30 years later, what a person may have become. And I think that, you know, when you have a figure like this, who certainly not single handedly, certainly not without the help of some incredible other people. Seagal, someone who brought Aikido to the masses, and it's one of their most popular martial arts in the world, so many people practice it. And you know, O sensei in his, you know, brilliance kind of took the idea of martial art, you know, post war time and was able to take kind of [00:04:21-00:04:24] Jiujitsu and Kenjutsu and swordsmanship. And kind of translate that into an art that could be done by the masses for a million different reasons. There are some people who practice Aikido with no intention to ever fight, and that's perfectly fine. And there are some people who practice Aikido with the intention to have a rigorous self-defense regimen. And in some way, especially if you're American, but in a lot of ways if you've ever seen movies are part of a culture that's been touched by cinema, like you got to give a nod of the hat to Seagal.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. He came through and he started doing things differently. The fight scenes in this movie are transitional because of their speed. It's the first time to my knowledge, Aikido was on screen. And this was if I remember correctly, his first movie, correct first movie. Okay, now one of the newest. Now, we did two other episodes these viewers or listeners may want to check out Episode 97, where I did a profile of Seagal. I remember sitting at this desk, way too late at night, because for some reason had to put it off. I don't know maybe because it was Seagal maybe because I was just putting it off. And just digging in and putting together a script. And then on episode 458, Professor David Meyer came on. And he'd actually met Seagal before he was an actor. He stepped into his dojo, and we got a little bit of behind the scenes. So, if anybody wants to go deeper on the subject of today's conversation, I would encourage you to check out those two episodes. The one other thing I think that's important to mention before we move forward and talk about the movie, what we like and don't like etc., is that Steven Seagal is a legitimate Aikido practitioner. He was the first Aikido instructor in Japan of American descent. Right? He was the first one and if I'm remembering and of course, you know, Episode 97, I didn't really listen to it or anything, but I want to say, even back then, he was a [00:06:32-00:06:33]. Like, guys got some legit credit.

Matt King:

Yeah, he has a four, whatever it is you want to take from current events or other decisions or his movie career. And he's a fully three-dimensional person. You know, people can do all sorts of stuff with their life, their career, their skills, that guy had talent. And when you're, you know, six and a half feet tall, and rather, you know, live and athletic, and you have a lot of rigorous training. That guy was no joke, right? Right.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Andrew, do you like this movie?

Andrew Adams:

It was just an okay movie for me. Okay, it was not what I would call a good movie.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Okay, why do you say that? Um, what is it lacking? Other than poor Taekwondo skill expressed poorly with poor acting?

Andrew Adams:

I just felt like a lot of the movie wasn't believable. Just the plot, the story. I don't think the acting was particularly good.

Jeremy Lesniak:

You're expecting good acting and a martial arts flip from the 80s?

Andrew Adams:

I know. But I mean, it just wasn't one that I was like. I just didn't love it. I don't know.

Jeremy Lesniak:

It just despite you having watched it around a similar time as others that you hold dear. This one just didn't do anything for you, then or now?

Andrew Adams:

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I get that. Matt, how about you?

Matt King:

It's a movie that I enjoy watching once every five years. Just for... And I mean this in kind of an endearing way. I've got friends that I watch movies with that. We go out of our way to find like schlock horror, or B list movies or like we go out of our way to find movies that may not be perfect or we may have issues with we compared it to a major blockbuster or something else, which this movie is not. It has plot holes in it like the entire believability of going from, you know, foreign national to CIA up to, a spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't watched the movie yet. Like it's just you can tell that someone and it is the case with this movie that Seagal had the ability to and was with the director like they rewrote the movie, to take it from LA they put it in Chicago, they changed some things around. But it’s the one thing that I think it's really missing, and this is something that I think is always present in martial arts movies, and it's almost like it's like a Chekhov's gun type of thing for me in martial arts movies, it does not have the conservation of Ninjutsu, where there is not a scene where anyone ones posing any threat to him ever and like 15 guys come in and he knocks down 14 of them. And now you've got a fight scene. He walked through everyone. So easy. It was just not endearing. Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak:

You know, you point out the fun of some of these bad movies, sometimes movies are enjoyable or worthwhile, not because what they are because what they provide and this conversation is a good example. You know, you think about your cheesy horror movies or, you know, any movie where you watch it and you think, Mystery Science Theater could have done this film, you know, that sort of thing that there's value there, and I completely get it. And I just have to say, if you have the opportunity to kiss Sharon Stone. And you lay down, was one of the weakest onscreen kisses I've ever seen in my life. I mean, that was the part I was kind of reeling from. I had not seen this movie, at least not for a very long time. I don't remember I'm sure I did. Because I remember my mother having a crush on Steven Seagal when I was a kid. So, I know, we watched Above the Law. I know we watched under siege, like I remember these things. But they were in bed and lay there and he kisses her. And I'm just like, oh, like, let's go down there. Now, we're not going to unpack that, because that's not what we're here for. What we're here for is to talk about the fights. So, Matt, what was the first relevant thing that you saw as we started to see Nico, the characters skill unfolds? That's relevant to this conversation.

Matt King:

I think one of the whenever I think of this movie, I immediately go to and I almost stay in the opening scene when he's teaching in the dojo in Japan. And he's giving instruction in Japanese and why we always think about it, because the pants he's wearing the Hakama. in Aikido, you wear like a GI pant underneath your camo, which is one way to wear those pants. But the way he sits down kind of slapping the Hakama out of the way. It's just a bold statement to do that. So, it's when you know, when I'm training, and we're teaching people to move the Hakama out of the way in a different way, we will often reference art. That's completely, besides the question, it's just my favorite part of the movie. And it's what gets referenced most often to me. But it's when he's trying to explain what's the goal, his character, Nico is explaining to people and showing them the technique. And I've taken Aikido, before. And it was when you see it, it's just kind of like, “oh, yeah, that just feels like a dojo”.

And an instructor is up there with one of the senior students and they're running through a technique and they kind of just clap their hands. And now it's your turn, don't throw anybody and anybody else. And you go from there. But I remember the first the first real demonstration where it looks like there's something going on he is right before he does a knife disarm. And I thought one of the most iconic things about this movie, you know, seeing it with eyes now is everything. Everything used to be so fast. Oh my god, it was so quick. It was so tight and precise a technique. Now whenever I think I kiddo, I think these big sweeping motions and this big circular motion stealing someone's momentum to create the impetus for another technique. But in this movie, everything's in this tiny little box that right in front of like a strike zone from like nose to the bottom of his chest and took someone's knife away. And that knife becomes a very important part and the rest of the movie does.

Jeremy Lesniak:

It does. Yeah, that first scene, or that first, let's call it fight, not that it was much of a fight really does set the tone. Because it's just, it's so abrupt. It's so bam, he's just, it's there. It's over. It's done with. And I don't have anything to go on with this. But my suspicion is that knowing the little bits that I picked up about Seagal from doing episodes of the show with people who knew him or knew of him, new people, mutual friends, he wanted to step in and change things. He wanted to leave a mark. And so that scene and really the rest of the scenes, they're quick, they're not the standard fight scenes that we see in martial arts films that are dragged out, you know that the 15/14 of the henchmen are, you know, reduced to a pile and then you get 20 minutes of back and forth. And the last moment when it looks like it's all over, he's victorious. Definitely. So, Andrew, anything to add there early on, because we really, from my notes we have like, like four fight scenes.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah, basically, there weren't a lot of fight scenes in the movie, as you mentioned, that opening scene and actually, I would say probably throughout the thing that I noticed is that Nico really loves to close line people. That is his without a doubt, that's his go to move, like, in that opening sequence where he, you know, he took down, I don't know, I didn't count, but roughly seven or eight. You know, he did seven or eight techniques on different people. There were six of them were, quote, were ended with a clothesline, I mean, he would do some sort of technique beforehand. But it ended with a clothesline, so it was something that, that he really loves his clothes line.

Jeremy Lesniak:

He enjoyed those. I wonder how much of that is because of Aikido technique. And how much of that is because it's a safe way to finish a movement with a load of moderately trained actor without really injuring them. Pretty much anybody that's bigger than you can throw it arm across your chest, and fairly believably put you down.

Matt King:

That do Irimi Nage technique where he's throwing Japanese terms in. Alright, I'm feeling schooled up that [00:16:32-00:16:33] technique is usually a technique where you see there being like a tension, like there's a pivot then the person who's throwing is doing and you're entering in behind them and kind of raising the head and offsetting their balance. And from this movie, if we could take this as like the first video representation of Seagal doing this, too, when you watch him when videos of him come out now in 2021, he does that technique the exact same way off of a reverse punch someone stepping straight in and he Perry's out of the way. And he does not care about lifting your head up and breathing in and then exhaling and dropping the back of your head over your heels, it just straight up, pops you with a bicep and you're falling down. There's no real way to absorb that it very well. And also, he's always taller than everyone he fights in every move. And that's a really easy technique to do if you're taller than someone. Yeah, I don't think I'm pulling that off. But if you can be epic, I've trained with people who are a foot shorter than I am and when the techniques are there it is so, God awful disruptive. But if you're that much taller and have that much more reach on someone, especially when it's in a stuntman to actor relationship. He's just dropping people left and right.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. Andrew?

Andrew Adams:

Yeah, I mean, I don't... There's not much else to say. That's just how he did it. I mean, it's tough to find. It is definitely easier to do those types of techniques when you are so much taller than then the other people around you. So, it makes sense.

Jeremy Lesniak:

How did you feel about Nico as a character played by someone who, intentionally or not, is kind of representing Aikido, which has a bit of an ethos that we all tend to think about? Did you feel like that was consistent? Was Nico an Aikido practitioner? Philosophically?

Andrew Adams:

You asking me?

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yes. Yeah.

Andrew Adams:

I didn't, I didn't... I haven't studied Aikido enough to know of the know much of the philosophy. I do know that he seemed very quick to be angry. He got angry very quickly, although I noticed that he unlike Jeff Speakman’s character from the movie, Perfect Weapon. When Nico got angry, he still was very calm, which was something that you don't necessarily often see. You could tell he was angry. Yeah. And it didn't take much to get in there. But he kept an even keel. As he was dealing with his anger.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I had some pretty strong reactions to him just getting angry. And I spent some time thinking about it actually pause the movie at one point to think about it. And what I got to was I don't know how much of it is anger and how much was calculated and decisive action that he felt needed to be taken.

Interesting. Yeah.

 And the other note I had next to that, well, what's with all the revolvers? Why was everyone in this movie carrying a revolver.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah. And they were all apparently, Steven Seagal insisted on teaching all of the actors to draw the correct way. Like the way that like the best way apparently.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What was the one? Where was it? I've got a note. It was at the end, we'll cut this in here. Just after the hour mark, at an hour and a minute. A guy walks in and I'm not going to put a gun on YouTube. But he was like, holding it like muscling on like, he had like a finger through the trigger guard. And he's got his hand, just like wow, like you know what it looks like. It looked like the claw machine game. Yeah, it looks like he did that with his gun. And I just stared at it, it was terrible. Alright, so we're unpacking who Nico is and is fighting stuff. What did you guys notice about? Matt, we'll start with you. What did you notice about Nico and how he fought? That's relevant to this conversation of how to fight him.

Matt King:

I think that it's maybe a misnomer about Aikido. Also, maybe part of that that ethos mentality that in the what you that I would consider the fight scenes when there's actually fighting that is around for a purpose. I think with the exception of like, one punch that he threw at some guy and hit him in the stomach and knocked the guy that he just happened to be a very big guy on set. And you know, yeah, that was just they dwarfed that guy to show just how powerful Seagal is and Nico wasn't really any attacking that he did to start the fight. It was either someone was just extending hand towards him and he was attacking off of that. Or it was someone recklessly with absolute abandon trying to attack Seagal and it didn't ever work out. Go figure. There was a lot of posturing. There was a lot of waiting around. But then when things started happening, there was like you were saying there's a lot of decisive motion, nothing was drawn out. Everything was meant to immediately cripple subdue and put someone down which not a bad way to go. Probably techniques that police officers would use.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Ironic statement given that Mr. Seagal is... I forgot what county in Louisiana sheriff.

Andrew Adams:

I don't remember what county but he is.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I don't remember. But there's a whole series. There are three seasons of that series that you can go watch. But if you want to watch something, that's better. It's who's the comedian that does the impression and talks about it?

Matt King:

Tom Segura...?

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. Tom. Tom Segura, Tom Segura does this absolutely phenomenal impression if anyone wants to watch that. Make sure you've visited the bathroom recently, because you'll need it. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Andrew Adams:

It would be hard not to pee your pants while watching it. It's so funny.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Andrew would give me some stuff that you're up to that we need to watch out for.

Andrew Adams:

As Matt mentioned, you know, 98% of his stuff was all parry counter, parry counter, but it wasn't like, counter with a punch. It was definitely a throw of some sort. And every technique that I saw that came at him to attack him, was from his belly to his head. Like every single attack was in this little window right here. That was it. And it was always parry, do some sort of technique to get the opponent off balance. And then 90% of the time hit him with a clothesline.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And it was straight on every time he was all facing him. There was nothing... There were several points in the movie where something was going on behind him and it all just stopped and waited for him turn around.

Andrew Adams:

And then they would attack it. They'd wait, absolutely. Yep.

Jeremy Lesniak:

You know that square up, you know, one thing I saw that if I were going to see this you know, let's say I'm going to fight. I'm going to have like a fight with Nico and this is part of...this is my tape that I have to watch and prepare for the scene where he punched through the car window with no impact to his head like no blood nothing and then managed to grab the guy around the neck from that awkward terrible shoulder rendering angle and just choke him out and lift him up. Because we have to suspend disbelief with our format here on how to fight. We have to take that is canon that this character is capable of doing that I would imagine then its Steven Seagal could chokeslam me in a way that the Undertaker and Kane from professional wrestling would find very envious.

Andrew Adams:

Not Steven Seagal, Nico Toscani. Nico could certainly do that.

Matt King:

Nico can, Seagal can’t. hidden powers of Aikido. CIA tactics.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I noted that cars from the late 80s are very boring.

Andrew Adams:

You know, and at least with The Karate Kid, when Mr. Miyagi broke the window like he had tons of room. He had enough room to get power get force behind it. Like I legitimately believe someone could break a side window with a punch. I think that's... Mr. Miyagi didn't do it. Sorry. Martin Cove character did it, right. But Nico Toscani, he only had about what a foot of yank. Just a break. So, for sure, superhuman, in terms of...

Jeremy Lesniak:

He is.

Andrew Adams:

That's for sure.

Jeremy Lesniak:

It's not looking good for any of us.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah, that's fair.

Matt King:

No. Now, with that right hand.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Not too long after we end up with this sequence where we learn he knows swords. He has no problem standing in between two people. And he's an immensely fast runner. Yeah, I mean, he was chasing down that guy. I mean, the stamina. I mean...

Andrew Adams:

He is tall though, that helps. It does. But he was running fast for a while.

Matt King:

I mean, that was one of the only scenes that had like a lot of cuts in it, too. Like they weren't too liberal with the number of cuts, they did in the movie, but those running the scenes had plenty. And I was wondering, I'm like, are they just like sprinting for like 50 feet? And then they're just like, okay, cut. Well, we'll go back tomorrow. Or, you know, I mean, Seagal at the time, like he was in pretty good physical shape. So, it's very possible that he was all out sprinting after another human being trying to get away from him completely possible. The last weapons fight scene has like the best moment in the film, when the car full of bad guys rolls up on him. And they're like, oh, we know where your friend is. And they pull out a gun and pointed at him. And he's like, six or eight feet away from the car. And it's the truest reaction of someone it's like, okay, roll credits. Like this is where the movie ends. And instead, they do the typical, we're not going to shoot you. We're going to beat you to get out of the car with numerous weapons that now you just know how this is going to go. What a good time.

Jeremy Lesniak:

What a great time that was. Did you notice that he didn't miss with a firearm? He was absolutely flawless. Flawless with a gun. I mean, there was some stuff in the parking garage where, you know, he wasn't quite on target with some, but earlier just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, you know, it's like he was having target practice while LEDs flying around and missing him.

Matt King:

I didn't even think about it until you just said that. The scene that he ends... The scene right before he ends up on the car that he one hand just like baby smacks through and breaks. He got hit by the car. That's how he ended up on top of the car. Like he is super human.

Jeremy Lesniak:

He's fine.

Matt King:

Oh my God.

Jeremy Lesniak:

He's fine. I don't have anything else in my notes that's relevant to how to fight him. It's all jokes. I've got a lot of jokes here.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah. And but that's my job that you know, like my way for fighting him. Like are we getting into that now? Because like....

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, let's go there. Like what would your strategy be, Andrew?

Andrew Adams:

I'm running at him like this. But for those that are only listening, my hands are up blocking my head so that he can't clothesline me. That's it. Cause otherwise, you know, I just got to be able to block the clothesline. That's all. That would be my job.

Jeremy Lesniak:

That's pretty simple.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Okay, Matt, how would you fight Nico?

Matt King:

I'm not going to go the [00:30:15-00:30:17] method that Andrew was choosing, I would go more complicated. And I think boxing him would actually be more significant way or kickboxing because whenever he is attacking, or whenever he's being attacked, it is someone who is unapologetically entering his range. And there is never any tentative feeling out, there's never any gauging of range. And like, Andrew was saying, it's just parry counter, parry counter, parry counter. Pairing a jab is fine. Countering a jab and trying to throw off a job is incredibly difficult. It's if you're not really throwing your lead hand to make contact. As soon as you touch it. Now I know where you are. And now something else can turn around. And I mean, I'll join Andrew and eventually you get close enough that it can become more difficult or it can become a more, what would you consider a more of a legitimate grappling or wrestling situation?

Jeremy Lesniak:

Now, I'm not sure what you guys would think of this, you know, I'm the smallest of the three of us, you know, he's got close to a foot on me. We didn't see how he dealt with any kind of thrown weapons. So, I would, because I wouldn't want to get close to him. I would try to throw irregular objects at him, you know, how does he handle throwing a rock at him? How does he handle you know, having whatever hurled at him? I would definitely not square up with him. We saw how that worked out. I'm done. So, it's about angles, it's about the side it's about getting to the back. And it's about staying out of arm's reach. His arms are probably about as long as my legs so that's not really going to work out well for me, I'm going to need the element of surprise or I'm going to have to charge in with some kind of slipping you know, step behind, step-up sidekick to the nice or to deal and hope that I buckle his leg enough that he's not so interested in grabbing me with his ultra-strong Thor-like-hands.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah, my real answer would have been some stuff that has to do more with the legs. Like I think Matt's idea of boxing is a smart one you know keeping your guard up because this does no joke aside like this does help you know stop that short clothesline but like you know we never saw him defend his legs at all like just taking out the those you know treat hit those tree trunks super hard. I'd be interested to see how that would work on him. But you're right staying out of his reach would be good as well.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I would really more than, you know, the others other two episodes that we've done I would be looking for some kind of ranged implement, you know, broom handle something to attack his legs at a distance because I don't know what else I would do.

Andrew Adams:

Yeah. My wife's...

Jeremy Lesniak:

Guy’s a monster. He somehow backed a car through a wall at the perfect balance point that the guy fell off but the car didn't I mean it's

Andrew Adams:

Almost magic. My wife often what she always watches these movies with me and she enjoys it. She's not a martial artist herself per se. She's you know, she does some cardio kickboxing stuff but you know, she enjoys the thought process of breaking down and watching what these people do and her response to how she would find them as she's like, I can't figure anything out because I can't get past the hair. The hair and the sideburns and everyone's mullet. She's like I just can't find them. I can't get over it.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Yeah, it's a great point. And maybe that's what was going on. Maybe everyone that faced it. Maybe that's why he turned to face everyone. Oh, he was just it maybe there was something that couldn't quite be captured on film. You know just kind of radiated, that could be and they were transfixed, captivating stare. Medusa for the modern times.

Matt King:

Very high-level Aikido technique. Captivating stare.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I love it. Anything else that we should add anything? Anything from anybody's notes, anything that fleshes out this conversation more before we wrap it up?

Andrew Adams:

The only thing I would say is this movie was filmed in entirety in two months. That long. Yep.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Oh, I had one more thing here that I didn't say. Because everything we saw of him was defense. One of the best strategies would involve unexpected attacks, non-traditional or non-squared, you know, weird angles, you know, think about those techniques that we train where you're like, it's not a bad technique, but when I don't know when I would ever use that. Those are the ones that you want to use. Your cup of water would probably be great for this. Jenga one, Jenga two, Jenga three, bam, and he's like, what just happened? You just have to have enough weight behind it, to overpower him.

Andrew Adams:

I'm good with that.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Well, you've got a little more balanced than I do, my friend.

Matt King:

I think it's awesome to think to that for anything you can say about Seagal in this movie, filming the final scene. When he got punched across his face. His nose actually broke. Oh, yeah. And they cut, they rushed to the hospital. And they said it. And he spent all night with an ice pack on his face. So, they could finish filming the scene The next day, and he wouldn't have to black eyes, oh my god, the guy can take a punch, even if it also broke his nose. But it was worth doing. I thought one of the things that Andrew was saying was actually very interesting. The transitions and if you weren't able to change levels on him, or like you were saying, Jeremy, if you could get in and actually take someone down, you know, type A like shoot a leg, pick an angle, something like that, something that would arrest his ability to, you know, change the distance on you. It's interesting, because I don't think it's a topic that usually gets brought up in Aikido, or in a lot of it not necessarily maybe in a lot of more traditional arts that don't focus or have more of an MMA type approach. But the majority the techniques you can do standing, you could do on a knee, of course, you can put them on a knee, you should probably be able to do them or at least, figure out a way to do them. In some regard, from prone position, or at least on the back. There's an Aikido-to-Aikido teachers that I've been fortunate enough to train with who actually wrote a book called Aikido and Ground Fighting. And it focuses a lot on this transition of distance and how to use the bait use the principles and the ideas that you're learning and Aikido to generate your force and keep momentum going keep an opponent off balance and transition into different distances and ranges. And it dawned on me when you were saying that there are people who maybe had an idea and were like that's how I would have fought like they don't have his powerful right hand they to figure out how to grapple.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Not that it's relevant in our format here but he also always attacks where attackers came out in one at a time. I don't think he would do so well at simultaneous combat. You know, simultaneous combat really does offer or give preference just logistically to striking and his propensity to lean from striking too. You know, more grappling Jiu jitsu, manipulative bodyweight, whatever you want to call it, collectively, which is Aikido. There's probably an Aikido book on that too.

Matt King:

I wish that we had seen more. And all of the scenes where there were fights in them, it was bars, it was the little like bodega corner market. When you watch some people do like Aikido Ron Dori with multiple attackers like he did in that opening scene in the dojo, where he's having different people come in attack on them. One of the tactics you try and learn is if you have two people coming at you on 245-degree angles, you try and move in a position where one would have to cross the other person's path with the fact that there were many scenes with many different attackers. I wish they had incorporated that dynamic. Because it was very stack short.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Well, there was the one scene where he was in between two people. So, the one time we saw anything close to it, he did not do that though.

Matt King:

So, you need a friend. You got a friend. You need to find Nico Toscani.

Jeremy Lesniak:

I don't think Nico had any friends. Even his partner and his wife didn't seem to be as friends.

Matt King:

Yeah, which let's just talk about Pam [00:40:03-00:40:06]. She knocked it out of the park. Did she win an award for that? Yeah, she was a Best Supporting Actress for and she was great. She was amazing. And she still talks about it. It was one of her favorite roles because it showed a range of acting that in previous roles, she had never been showcasing.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Alright, gentlemen, any final thoughts as we wrap up here anything for the audience to consider?

Matt King:

Aikido is awesome. Like, you know, is fun. Yeah, I would highly recommend to anybody I came from a very kempo, New England kenpo, which is kind of an offshoot of karate, a shoulder new, a very kind of linear-ish mindset. And when I started training, Aikido, it threw me. It didn't make sense. I was ordinated. But I had a teacher that we shared training sword together, and I got to train with him so much. And for me, the most important thing was I just that willful suspension of disbelief that I'm in this pedagogy. Now, I'm going to move like this, I'm going to think like this, I'm going to breathe like this. It made all of my training better. It made understanding motion and the concept of motion and movement with another body in space and timing, so much better. And then you try and take what you can and learn to fight with it or learn to use it. But if people can do it, I mean, especially people who grapple or just kickbox or anything. It is such a cool art to learn and learn it and then use it to fight Steven Seagal.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Cool, Andrew?

Andrew Adams:

My final words would be just like in the perfect weapon. If Steven Seagal watches this and would like to come on and talk about Nico Toscani, I would more than encouraged him to do so. I think that would be great.

Jeremy Lesniak:

And we would gladly do a follow up with Mr. Seagal if he was interested.

Andrew Adams:

Absolutely.

Matt King:

Do it on Russia's time because that's where he currently lives. You know what?

Jeremy Lesniak:

There are very few people for whom I would open up the schedule timewise and record at weird times. He is one of them.

Matt King:

You're an angel.

Jeremy Lesniak:

Matt, thanks for being here. Appreciate you coming on. So, to the audience you know what did you think? Did we miss something? Do you have a completely different strategy? We will entertain any and all conversation other than anything that is disrespectful or derogatory towards either Mr. Seagal or Aikido because you know what we've heard it all before and it's not worth hearing anymore. Okay, if you got something new to say to attack Mr. Seagal or Aikido? I’ll listen to that at least for novelty's sake. If you want to go deeper on this or any episodes, go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Subscribe this stuff. Give us feedback. If you've got suggestions on the next movie, we should do. You know drop it in the comments or you can always email me at Jeremy@whistlekick.com until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.