Does Steven Seagal really know karate?

There's a burning question that keeps coming up in internet communities https://www.reddit.com/r/stevenseagalfacts/, YouTube explainers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asFZusyWBKY&t=39s, and interviews with stunt people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1JqcAZ3mc&pp=ygUWc3RldmVuIHNlYWdhbCBzdHVudG1hbg%3D%3D from the film industry: does Steven Seagal actually know martial arts? In our current news environment, where conspiracy theories abound and the truth can feel elusive, this somewhat silly question keeps getting asked. But as we explore the answer, we find that perhaps the confusion about Steven Seagal's own personal story has relevance for how we navigate the year of 2025, whether or not we're talking about Hollywood action heroes.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

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• 0:33Speaker 02

  Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy, terms, and conditions.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Amory, do you know Kung Fu?

• 1:17Amory Sivertson?

  Nope.

• 1:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Karate?

• 1:19Amory Sivertson?

  Not a move, not a kick.

• 1:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Jiu-Jitsu?

• 1:23Amory Sivertson?

  Nope.

• 1:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Tai Chi?

• 1:25Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 1:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  Are you more of like a scratch and bop 'em on the nose approach?

• 1:30Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I took a boxing class for a while.

• 1:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 1:33Amory Sivertson?

  So I can sock 'em where it hurts.

• 1:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  You can sock 'em.

• 1:35Amory Sivertson?

  But not with any sort of prestige or real finesse.

• 1:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, so I'm going to ask you, have you seen any of these films? And I want you to say after each one whether you've seen it or not. Simple yes or no answer, okay?

• 1:48Amory Sivertson?

  Yep.

• 1:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hard to Kill?

• 1:50Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 1:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Marked for Death?

• 1:51Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 1:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Out for Justice?

• 1:53Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 1:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Above the Law?

• 1:55Amory Sivertson?

  Nope.

• 1:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Beyond the Law?

• 1:57Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 1:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  China Salesman?

• 2:00Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  On Deadly Ground?

• 2:03Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Exit Wounds?

• 2:05Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Under Siege?

• 2:07Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  End of a Gun?

• 2:08Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  A Dangerous Man?

• 2:11Amory Sivertson?

  That sounds familiar, but no.

• 2:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  A Good Man?

• 2:17Amory Sivertson?

  No.

• 2:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  How about this one? Sheep Impact.

• 2:21Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, no.

• 2:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Sheep Impact is a four minutes short about friends Craig and Paul, who are charged with bringing meat to the lovely Sarah's barbecue party, so that they can have a chance with her, and how they may have to resort to desperate measures. So Sheep Impact, you haven't seen that one?

• 2:38Amory Sivertson?

  All that in four minutes, huh? And a bag of chips. No.

• 2:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  These are all, as you may be able to guess.

• 2:45Amory Sivertson?

  Steven Seagal films?

• 2:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 2:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, when you, Amory, meditate upon the grandeur that is the actor, the blues guitar genius, the minor deity that is Steven Seagal, in your mind's eye, who do you see? Can you describe him to me?

• 3:06Amory Sivertson?

  In my mind, I'm seeing like a more, probably more of a present day Steven Seagal. So he's stocky. He looks like, like a stereotypical mob boss, maybe. I'm picturing him in like-

• 3:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  Ponytail, you see in the ponytail?

• 3:21Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, sure, sure, yeah.

• 3:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. Okay, you're seeing the leather. Okay, that's good. These, these all generally fit his description. So Steven Seagal is in some ways on this list of like huge action hero names from the 1990s, one might say. A decade when action heroes were kind of a big thing, that kind of bread and muscle bound butter of American cinema. I'm talking about people like Jean-Claude Van Damme.

• 3:50Speaker 06

  Don't even think about it.

• 3:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Chuck Norris.

• 3:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Arnold Schwarzenegger.

• 4:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Bruce Willey.

• 4:06Amory Sivertson?

  You are not on Bruce Willey terms with Bruce Willis. You and your dead self.

• 4:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  But I might be on Bruce Willey terms with Liam Neeson's? Anyway, okay. Steven Seagal is different. And he's different in a number of ways, not least of which is he is the only person on this list who has performed as the lead guitarist of a blues band called Thunderbox. Would you like to hear some Thunderbox?

• 4:31Amory Sivertson?

  Of course.

• 4:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right. What do you think?

• 4:44Amory Sivertson?

  It was your standard blues guitar fare.

• 4:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  As a fellow musician, you would say?

• 4:51Amory Sivertson?

  From what I heard thus far, it sounds like he is competently executing blues guitar in a way that is unremarkable, but tip a hat, too. Nothing wrong with it. No notes.

• 5:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, moving on. The reason we are talking about Steven Seagal today is that he really is a unique character in American culture, and he is the topic of much discussion on the internet. I noticed this about a year and a half ago, that there were some burgeoning and raging debates about Steven Seagal, about his ancestry.

• 5:23Speaker 07

  I'm Russian, Mongolian, and we don't really know which tribe it is.

• 5:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  About whether or not he is a good guy.

• 5:30Speaker 07

  He did exactly what I said, and exactly what I wanted to happen, happened.

• 5:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  About whether he is the worst host to ever host Saturday Night Live. And perhaps, Emery, the most important and crucial for Steven Seagal's personal brand, debates and conspiracy theories about this action hero's knowledge of martial arts.

• 5:52Speaker 07

  Many people consider me, you know, one of the great masters in my own field.

• 6:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Brock Johnson.

• 6:06Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Emery Sivertson, and you're listening to Endless Thread.

• 6:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're coming to you from Boston's dojo in the Buddhist enlightened astral plane, WBUR. Today's episode, Does Steven Seagal Know Karate?

• 6:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right. So as I mentioned, I was on this Steven Seagal conspiracy thing early. I swear to God, I was early. It was at least a year ago, maybe a year and a half. I saw conversations about him popping off on X and Reddit. And then I saw some things on YouTube, mostly revolving around this question of whether or not Seagal actually can perform martial arts, if he's the real deal. And I want to show you a little video and ask you to react to this, okay?

• 6:59Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 7:00Speaker 08

  You're about to witness the most lethal mixed martial artists in the world in action.

• 7:05Amory Sivertson?

  All right. Got Steven Seagal in the fighting square. He is kicking ass someone. Ooh, and then we got a young Steven Seagal. Looks very different, also kicking ass, but like not really kicking ass. He's just, this looks very staged. He's just kind of like, boop, throw you down, boop, throw you down, boop, throw you down. These people are, they're in on it. They're willingly being tossed to the ground with a gentle nudge from Steven Seagal.

• 7:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's a perfect description. So there's this raging debate online about Seagal's credentials and whether they're indeed legit. And I know very little about martial arts or the martial arts world. I know you've boxed, so you already know more than me. My sense is that in this world, credentials are extremely important, right? Like who you trained with, where you trained.

• 7:56Amory Sivertson?

  The belts.

• 7:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  How many belts, exactly.

• 7:58Amory Sivertson?

  What color?

• 7:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  What color the belts are. This stuff is important, right?

• 8:01Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 8:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I was curious about this. I wanted to know more, but I'm not going to lie. At the time, a year and a half ago, I kept scrolling without diving deep on Steven Seagal. And then, just before this holiday season,

• 8:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Steven Seagal, roundhouse kicked back into my feed.

• 8:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  There was a viral picture of him on a subreddit called Ukraine War Video Report, which is effectively a community where people post a lot of video and photos from the war in Ukraine. I'm going to show you this picture.

• 8:36Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 8:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  How would you describe his body type? And just looking at him right now, how would you, without...

• 8:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Creating too much shame, describe your impression of his level of fitness.

• 8:51Amory Sivertson?

  He's chillin'.

• 8:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  So not necessarily in fighting shape, as they say?

• 8:55Amory Sivertson?

  Nope. I mean, who knows? I'm not gonna underestimate him. But no, he looks like he's, he's been chillin'.

• 9:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  The top comment on this is, "That chair is the hardest fighter in all of Russia."

• 9:07Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, no.

• 9:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Holding up Steven Seagal, who seems to be pretty out of shape. Look, he doesn't look like an action hero in these photos. He's older now. I mean, he's 72 years old, according to the internet.

• 9:20Amory Sivertson?

  Wow.

• 9:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  I hedged that because Seagal's got a lot of suspicious information about him on the internet. What jumped out to me was that Seagal was apparently fighting, or at least sitting, on the side of Russia in this fight.

• 9:34Amory Sivertson?

  Why do I, why do I think he's Russian?

• 9:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is a great question. We're gonna get to that.

• 9:39Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 9:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  I want you to put your karate gi on. I want you to tighten that yellow belt. And come with me on this rabbit hole.

• 9:46Amory Sivertson?

  That's a really advanced one, right?

• 9:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, totally. I think mine's white still, so, you know. Let us start at Seagal's origins. So you asked if he was Russian or not. Wait, is he Russian?

• 9:59Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 9:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I wanna shout out a YouTuber here. His name is Patrick Gavia, who put together a real supercut of the Seagal mystery stew, comedic supercut, I should say. And this is from that supercut, and it's Steven Seagal talking about his own origins.

• 10:17Speaker 07

  I was born from a mother who was found in a shoebox when she was born. My mother was an American Indian. You have Italian. Yeah, I have some Italian on my mother's side and some French.

• 10:28Speaker 06

  My mother was a Mohawk.

• 10:30Speaker 07

  I think that my mother's side is probably Irish. My grandmother surely looks pure Mohawk, and I'm pretty sure she is. Grandmother in Yolani that is Mongolian? They look like Russian Mongols, but I don't know what they are, but they're something Asian. My father is a Russian Mongol. Part of his family are from Texas, so let's put it this way, I'm Russian. I'm a lot more Asian than I am American. I'm a Russian Mongol, and I'm Russian. Mongolian, and we don't really know which tribe it is, and all of those people are dead now, so I can't ask them. Asian, I don't know what the hell I am, but am I allowed to cuss on this show?

• 11:10Amory Sivertson?

  Wow. Wow.

• 11:17Amory Sivertson?

  Like when I saw this. He's a man of the people, Ben.

• 11:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Suffice it to say, even the beginnings of Steven Seagal are mysterious, perhaps even to him. Apparently, his dad was a math teacher, his mom was a medical technician, Irish and Jewish descent, according to a documentary from the Discovery Channel. I really became first aware of Seagal right after the time of his big Hollywood movie, which I described earlier, Under Siege. Maybe the only other thing I really knew about him at the time was that he was connected to Native American issues, and I think was outspoken about this. According to the stories he tells about himself, Seagal lives in California for a while as a teenager. He's born in Michigan, he moves to California. During Vietnam, Seagal apparently moves to Japan and marries a woman there to avoid

• 12:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  the Vietnam draft. Which is maybe strange behavior considering his action career. There, he apparently picks up a black belt in Aikido. According to Seagal himself, he trains the CIA in Japan to go after the Japanese mob, the Yakuza. There's not a lot of sources for that, beyond Seagal himself in interviews on David Letterman and elsewhere.

• 12:34Speaker 09

  Did you or did you not work with the CIA? Did I make that up, or people just saying that to be funny? Or did you actually have a job with the Central Intelligence Agency?

• 12:42Speaker 07

  I like the way you say that. Well, you know, it's kind of a personal thing, Dave. It's a little tough to talk about.

• 12:50Speaker 09

  You can't talk about it? So that means you were with the CIA. Because if you weren't, you could talk about anything you wanted.

• 12:58Speaker 07

  Well, if you want to put it that way. It's pretty embarrassing, and I wouldn't like to talk about it because it's kind of a painful memory, you know?

• 13:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Also, apparently, he's been interested in music since Jump. He has said, and I quote, "I've been playing since I was a baby."

• 13:14Amory Sivertson?

  A little baby blues guitar.

• 13:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  So he has also said, and I quote, "I don't know what color I am, but I was the only one who knew that wasn't black, who played exactly like them."

• 13:28Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, boy. Okay.

• 13:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  So what are you getting a sense of, you know, from Seagal's narration of his own life and how much we can depend on that?

• 13:39Amory Sivertson?

  He lives in a fantasy world. He's, he does not know fact from fiction anymore. And he is, he is constructing his personal narrative, brick by brick by the day and rearranging bricks along the way.

• 13:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's just a lot of strange narratives coming out of Steven Seagal. I think you're right. A lot of them don't make sense or they're in competition with each other. What we do have evidence of is that he returns from Japan eventually and begins to do combat choreography in Hollywood. He apparently breaks Sean Connery's wrist, showing him how to do Aikido.

• 14:15Speaker 10

  And he was really, very, very good and everything. And then I got a little cocky because I thought I knew what I was doing because, you know, the principle is it's defense. So it's a pyramid and I got a bit flash and I did that and he broke my wrist.

• 14:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow. And this is another whole strange narrative in the Seagal lore, by the way, that he hurts people he works with on screen. There's a compendium of complaints that stunt people have about how Seagal treats them on set, how he's dangerous in his fight scenes. It's a whole thing. And it's an important thing to say because it's part of the story that does not come directly from Seagal himself.

• 14:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  He starts crossing over from movie star, choreographer to an actual movie star. An eye-watering list of Seagal movies get made. Apparently, some of his movies get funded, in part, by the way, by the mob here in the US.

• 15:04Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, boy.

• 15:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's an extortion case involving the Genevieve C. crime family in New York. Did you expect the mob to be involved in Steven Seagal's story?

• 15:12Amory Sivertson?

  I mean, why not? Why not?

• 15:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Just toss it in there.

• 15:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, toss it in.

• 15:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, last insane thing to mention for now. Steven Seagal, at the height of his fame, gets to host SNL. This is a job, if you want to host SNL, you must be able to poke fun at yourself, right? And so we're going to give you a hint about whether or not Steven Seagal can laugh at himself, can take himself not seriously, from Rob Schneider, the actor.

• 15:40Speaker 06

  Finally, Steven Seagal emerges from one of the other anterooms in the mobile home. And he comes out and he said, "I just read the greatest script I've ever written in my life." Really? Who wrote it?

• 15:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  I did. So that clip from Rob Schneider should tell you about Steven Seagal's opinion of himself and also maybe give you a sense of whether or not Steven Seagal can poke fun at himself as the host of SNL. Spoiler alert for that episode of SNL, which came out over 30 years ago in 1991. I'm not sure the answer is yes here. According to reports of Steven Seagal's demands, most of his skits featured a lot of him just beating people up, including ExxonMobil executives. Oh. Who were. Plot twist.

• 16:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Who were in the news at the time.

• 16:43Speaker 11

  This is what happens when you pollute the planet.

• 16:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, I don't know if I hate the results, but I'm not sure it's that funny. Lorne Michaels had a jab at Seagal years later. Worst host by lapped every bad host. But whether or not he's a good actor isn't the question we are tackling here, right? What we're tackling is whether or not his martial arts are legit.

• 17:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  So we have to go to who we talked to first about this. Someone with their own fighting credentials. Uncle Ronnie. Oh. Uncle Ronnie, who is the uncle of producer Grace Tatter's boyfriend. Okay. I mean, that's how we source Endless Thread. Come on, guys. Sure. Uncle Ronnie was interviewed during the holidays by Grace's boyfriend because he used to be a bouncer. Uh, in Springfield, Massachusetts. I want to give you an impression of Ronnie's first impressions of Steven Seagal.

• 17:48Speaker 11

  He runs like a wounded giraffe. You ever see him run in his movies?

• 17:54Amory Sivertson?

  Can't say I know what a wounded giraffe runs like, but we'll go with it, Ronnie.

• 17:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, here's Ronnie in what I assume is a baby, which considering all the things Seagal accomplished as a baby, apparently, feels relevant, giving some more impressions of Steven Seagal.

• 18:13Speaker 11

  Steven Seagal has never had a real fight ever, not once. Well, I believe it, but the movies, he looks good in the movies. He looks good in the movies. The women love Steve Seagal. We could make a movie and have somebody show us the moves, we would look like Steven Seagal. They'd just swap me out. I'd just be standing over there. Not even that, they're just... You don't have the long legs from Ronnie. You don't need them. He looks good with those long legs.

• 18:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  He looks good with those long legs.

• 18:42Amory Sivertson?

  He looks good with those long legs, like a giraffe.

• 18:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Like a wounded giraffe. Okay, so let's get some more work experience, relevant takes from Uncle Ronnie here, who is talking about his work experience as a bouncer and DJ in Massachusetts.

• 19:01Speaker 11

  Yeah, and DJing in a bar, bouncing. Right. I'd kick more people, knock them out, punch them, one shot, took them out. Right. And I didn't even have a black belt. I had a belt to hold my pants up, but I still win because I'm street. Right. You learn how to fight in the street. Right. But I probably hit at least 25 people. Right. Took them out. Right. See, I wouldn't be scared of Steven Seagal. Right. Nobody's ever seen him fight. Right. I'd take a shot at him. And I'm 70 years old for crying out.

• 19:36Speaker 11

  It's amazing. Yeah. Michael J. White, you couldn't pay me to attempt to fight him. Right. Not, never, or John Claude Van Damme, or Chuck Norris, 80 something years old, I wouldn't punch him. Still pretty fit, right? Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 19:55Amory Sivertson?

  Is that Grace's boyfriend saying, right?

• 19:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Amory Sivertson?

  Right?

• 19:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Amory Sivertson?

  Okay. He is not getting a job as a journalist, I'm gonna say.

• 20:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, no.

• 20:02Amory Sivertson?

  Because he is just affirming.

• 20:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  But he did gather some amazing tape from Uncle Ronnie.

• 20:06Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, Ronnie. Ronnie sounds like a gem, and I wouldn't want to challenge him.

• 20:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  He's street.

• 20:12Amory Sivertson?

  He's street.

• 20:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  He's street.

• 20:14Amory Sivertson?

  You just learn it in the street.

• 20:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  You could be his 26th person.

• 20:16Amory Sivertson?

  I got it.

• 20:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  If you're not careful, coming at Uncle Ronnie. Okay, so we have now heard a lot from me, Emery, on Steven Seagal. We have heard from Uncle Ronnie. But I think we need to, like, actually get someone in here who knows what the heck they're talking about, uh, from a professional standpoint. And we are going to judge whether or not Steven Seagal actually knows karate after the break.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI?

• 21:04Speaker 12

  Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts. And stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.

• 22:00Speaker 13

  I have two text groups of just trading funny facts about Steven Seagal. What? Yeah, well, that's how this kind of came. I was talking to my buddy Jay, and then, you know, it's like the link up, cross friendships, whatever, and... He's like, I got just the guy that might be excited to do this. And I very much was. And we do like a trade. He's like, did you know he's a musician? And then the next thing from like under siege, like, do you know he's a big, like a pastry chef? Cause there's a scene.

• 22:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 13

  Yeah. What is it? It's like, you could bake a cake in a microwave, 15 minutes on high. I went to school for this. That's why I wanted to use that as a segment in.

• 22:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right. So we're trying to answer an important question. Does actor Steven Seagal actually know karate? Or martial arts in general? Sometimes karate is used as a sort of catch all term for martial arts. We asked a local expert to help us.

• 22:55Speaker 13

  I'm Scott Gagone and I'm from Shirley, Mass. And I work and train at Mass BJJ and that's an act in.

• 23:02Amory Sivertson?

  Mass BJJ or Mass Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Scott's a first degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He's been training for 16 years. He's the MMA coach, the head striking coach, and the less self-explanatory grappling coach.

• 23:19Speaker 13

  Grappling. It's like wrestling with submissions. So pick them up, put them down, hold them down and try to submit them.

• 23:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep. What about something like Aikido? Which like, as I understand it is, is like a martial art that has a lot to do with like throwing and sort of falling. And it's a sort of more of a tumbling martial art in some ways.

• 23:40Speaker 13

  Yeah, I see what you're saying.

• 23:43Speaker 13

  Just looking at it, you're like, oh, for what you're seeing, it's working.

• 23:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 13

  But there's a play. There's demonstration, right? Like when you're fighting, there's the fighter's chance. Anything could happen. Like, I'm not saying I would ever want to do this, but you and I fight and let's say it's just striking, there's a chance you clip my chin, I get knocked out. And I don't know how much training you have, but I think I lapse you a little bit. But it could happen. You could throw a fist, maybe I'm being lax, I'm not paying attention, you clip my jaw and it's over.

• 24:13Speaker 13

  Watching Steven Seagal doing his stuff, you know, it's demonstration. So the goal is to promote and show what he's doing and make it look good. If I said, "Hey, let me grab your wrist." "Okay, no, no, grab this wrist." "No, this part of my wrist." "Okay, now I'm gonna bend the holy hell out of it." "You're gonna make me look good." "And it's gonna hurt you and I get to demonstrate." "And when you're demonstrating, there's a little bit of that." "Now, how applicable is that live in a setting? Or how efficient can it be?" "It's tough to tell."

• 24:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  But are you gonna do like a forward flip in the air and fall on the ground and not get back up?

• 24:48Amory Sivertson?

  I bend your wrist and you go flying over your wrist.

• 24:51Speaker 13

  The idea of that is if you bend it hard enough, I have to unwind it. I can maybe spin or roll. And if, yes, if I flip, it looks even cooler, right? But yes, there's a way of falling, or you can fall that way. But is that gonna happen? I mean, I put a D1 wrestler in front of that guy. He's going up and over his head and hitting the ground. He's not bending anything.

• 25:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 13

  The joke on the internet's like, "Bolshido."

• 25:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Bolshido!

• 25:20Amory Sivertson?

  Scott told us that he watched Steven Seagal movies growing up, long before he himself started practicing martial arts. So I wondered, does he watch them with different eyes now, given his own expertise?

• 25:34Speaker 13

  Oh, yes. And honestly, it becomes more of a comedy. It's awesome.

• 25:37Amory Sivertson?

  Is it bolshido?

• 25:39Speaker 13

  A lot of it, yeah. I mean, I don't wanna discredit, like, every martial art has its moments and advantages. The question is how much?

• 25:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Fair. So let's, um, let's watch some video of him.

• 25:53Speaker 13

  I'm excited.

• 25:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, cool. This is a immediate result of, I think, a simple search, which was Steven Seagal kicking ass.

• 26:04Amory Sivertson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  And this, I think, was the top result.

• 26:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Can you describe what you're seeing, Scott?

• 26:13Speaker 13

  Yeah, so part of the Akito stuff is using their energy, which a lot of martial arts, absolutely, their momentum, use it against him, get them to fall. And yeah, he's passing the person through, passing their arm, getting their limb out of the way, so he can use their momentum to throw them. Obviously, if you hit someone in the throat, it's gonna be very effective. But yeah, that's all he's doing. He's just using their energy against them and then using that to flip them or trip them.

• 26:37Amory Sivertson?

  A lot of people flipping over seemingly at one point of contact from Steven Seagal on their body.

• 26:43Speaker 13

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:43Amory Sivertson?

  So like, he touches their throat and they throw themselves over a

• 26:48Speaker 13

  Yes.

• 26:48Amory Sivertson?

  display of wine.

• 26:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is definitely movie, TV show footage.

• 26:52Speaker 13

  It's good for movies, for sure. It's good for movies.

• 26:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Do you see anything in here of what you're watching that feels like an actual convincing move?

• 27:04Speaker 13

  When he, well, just that one little funny part, he had his wrist twisted, he brought it around his back, and yeah, it becomes like a wrist lock slash shoulder lock, and it hurts.

• 27:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, let's look at a quote-unquote "real-life" example of Steven Seagal doing his thing.

• 27:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  So can you describe what you're seeing?

• 27:23Speaker 13

  So he has his arm locked out, so therefore, when he turned his hips, it put pressure on his elbow, which means he's gonna have to go in that direction.

• 27:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  So is this a demon-- what would you describe this?

• 27:34Speaker 13

  It's a demonstration.

• 27:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is a martial arts demonstration?

• 27:36Speaker 13

  Definitely.

• 27:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's a bunch of people, there's like a ring and a bunch of people standing around the ring, they're all students presumably, or, you know?

• 27:43Speaker 13

  They're definitely demonstrating. I would not consider that them fighting.

• 27:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting. So, demonstration-wise, he's doing some stuff that is, that is legit, but your--

• 27:55Speaker 13

  In a sense, yeah.

• 27:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  But your suggestion here is that, again, it's a demonstration, in other words, the person who he's going up against--

• 28:03Speaker 13

  They're giving it to him. They're giving him the--

• 28:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  He's supposed to win.

• 28:06Speaker 13

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You can't make Steven Seagal look bad, he's a god.

• 28:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  How would this translate in a real-life fight, do you think?

• 28:13Speaker 13

  Um, in a real-life fight, if they were untrained, I think Steven Seagal will play the mountain and try to figure something out. I mean, if I grabbed your finger and just tried to bend the hell out of it, I'm sure I'm gonna make you move. Or if you did it to me, you're gonna make me move very weird.

• 28:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 13

  A trained guy, he's not gonna give him the chance to grab their arm like that. He's gonna, and if he does, then yeah, you might get a glimpse of a, oh, his arm looks like it's under stress.

• 28:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  So a question, I guess, is if you were to judge on a scale of like legit action star slash, you know, um, actual master, how strong is this martial arts one to 10? And is he legit or is he mostly faking it?

• 28:57Speaker 13

  When I watch him, I could just see maybe he was like, okay, in class, did all right, well enough. And then he got into movies and he's just how he is. So you're, you should be able to poke fun at yourself. And I mean, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live, but like, he is so serious and he is so like, you couldn't hurt me. It's like, come on, dude. Like, I think there's more to martial arts than just the physical stuff. Calm down. So I'm gonna give him a three. I'm gonna give him a three. I mean, honestly, you watch the comparison of his movies? You ever watch a John Wick movie?

• 29:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 13

  I'm like, I mean, that's like, it could be a whole.

• 29:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  You're saying Keanu is on another level?

• 29:35Speaker 13

  He trains and I've seen him train and like, he actually goes shooting. He's actually pretty damn good, too.

• 29:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Nice.

• 29:41Speaker 13

  I've seen like some of his like, I forget what it's called, but you, I think it's like rifle, shotgun, pistol, like.

• 29:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 13

  He seems pretty legit.

• 29:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 13

  Like, pretty legit. I think as far as Aikido goes, as far as like what you could do in a ring with Aikido, small percentage. Is he an Aikido master? Sure. He got his black belt. I'm sure he worked hard for it. I'm sure there's legitimacy there, but out of the whole thing we're talking about, I'd give him a three.

• 30:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, Scott, thank you so much for like seriously taking a look at Steven Seagal's skills.

• 30:17Speaker 13

  I hope I did all right for you guys.

• 30:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  You did great, man.

• 30:19Speaker 13

  That was funny.

• 30:20Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, you were awesome.

• 30:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, so Amory, I think we have kind of an answer for our question of whether or not Steven Seagal has martial arts creds.

• 30:32Amory Sivertson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  And I think where we've landed, tell me if this feels right to you, is that he did study Aikido heavily.

• 30:39Amory Sivertson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  He was a strong practitioner of that martial art back in the day, but maybe hasn't stayed in fighting shape, so to speak, or acting shape?

• 30:47Amory Sivertson?

  Who among us has stayed in fighting shape?

• 30:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Who among us? Exactly.

• 30:52Amory Sivertson?

  If it's 72, I'm in fighting shape. I'll be thrilled.

• 30:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Same. And perhaps, according to Scott's assessment, Seagal wouldn't do that well in the ring if it was a real fight and not a demonstration.

• 31:04Amory Sivertson?

  Hmm.

• 31:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Fair to say?

• 31:06Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. A three, yes.

• 31:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  But in the larger mystery of Steven Seagal's travels through the world and why he's currently living in Russia, why he has recently been pictured in part of, you know, the Russia-Ukraine battlefront, I want to go back to this question, or this long story of Steven Seagal, because it connects to something I haven't told you yet about Steven Seagal.

• 31:33Amory Sivertson?

  Oh.

• 31:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  The apparent reason why Steven Seagal is no longer an American action hero, according to some, or retired American action hero living in America, is potentially a more serious reason.

• 31:46Speaker 14

  There have been multiple allegations of sexual misconduct from several actresses, including Jenny McCarthy, Portia De Rossi, and now, as you said, there are two other women who are coming forward in the Hilton News conference this morning.

• 31:57Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, you hate to hear it.

• 32:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  You hate to hear it. Here is actor Regina Simons, who worked with Seagal in the movie On Deadly Ground. She was a teenager at the time of this thing that she says happened in 1993.

• 32:14Speaker 15

  He started kissing my neck and taking off my clothes.

• 32:20Speaker 15

  I was in shock.

• 32:23Speaker 16

  Whoa.

• 32:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, obviously, super messed up. A big part of the reason we don't hear about Steven Seagal much anymore, I think, is that he has effectively fled the country.

• 32:38Speaker 16

  Mm hmm.

• 32:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  This happened six years ago, back in like 2018, these allegations came out. I think this is a very important part of Steven Seagal's story because what we've learned over time is that the stories Seagal tells about himself are potentially suspect. But the stories other people tell about Seagal and working with Seagal as stunt people, as women who have been in his films, these are stories that are the stories we should perhaps believe a little bit more.

• 33:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I want to ask you a question.

• 33:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  When you think about Steven Seagal and how he's been dubbed a narcissist, a pathological liar, who's outsized stories about himself are not likely to be true in some cases, maybe many cases, someone who dodged the draft in Vietnam, who has cozied up to Vladimir Putin, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, who does this remind you of?

• 33:36Speaker 16

  Donald Trump.

• 33:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Donald Trump.

• 33:42Speaker 16

  Yeah.

• 33:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I know that this conversation started in a silly place, a funny place, and I understand that listeners come to us sometimes to escape the news. And yet, I think we're in this moment, as Donald Trump has become our new president, where I think it's important to think about how we deal with people who, no matter what your politics are, represent a lot of problematic behavior and complexity on screen and off.

• 34:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  How do we deal with someone whose statements don't necessarily represent observed reality and truth? How do we think about the systems and industries that gave them agency and power? How do we preserve our own sanity when it feels harder and harder to know what is real and what is, shall we say, a demonstration of an idea? And I guess like this is what had me thinking about Steven Seagal in some ways. Like, I was intrigued by the mystery of like, does he actually know karate? This is just like kind of a funny concept. But then like, the more I learned, the more I was like, wow, this is a person who actually, in some ways, really matches up with the person who is now

• 34:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  leading the country. In interesting ways. And I don't have any like answers or like deep wisdom to impart about this, but I think it makes sense to think carefully and intentionally about the world that we're entering into and like how we deal with that reality.

• 35:22Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I can't say I have a deep wisdom to offer myself on this, but I do think that it doesn't behoove us to discard people altogether, write them off altogether. I think that from having just worked on a series where truth and memory and the twisting of truth is very much at the center of it. I think that oftentimes, these things just snowball. You start with, with one fib and it turns into two and to three and to four, until you really do become detached from reality and truth. And

• 36:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  And you don't have consequences, right? You're sort of like, oh, this like, this is fine. I can just do this.

• 36:08Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. And, and you lose, you lose the plot yourself. So I guess my thought, my big question would be. What good, if any, is Steven Seagal doing in the world while all these other potential mistruths are floating around him and are being perpetuated by him potentially? Is there some good that he is doing despite it all so that you can say, yeah, there's this and this and this and this and this, but he started a foundation for blah, blah, blah, he's working with refugees and blah, blah, blah? None of that might exist, but I guess that's as much of a deep thought as I can offer

• 36:49Amory Sivertson?

  is that's how I think about people like that is people who get carried away, kind of like your ego just keeps like eating itself and growing and...

• 36:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  To say nothing of the accusations of misconduct.

• 37:03Amory Sivertson?

  Absolutely.

• 37:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  I see what you're saying.

• 37:04Amory Sivertson?

  It doesn't excuse it one bit.

• 37:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Right, right.

• 37:07Amory Sivertson?

  But is there, is there some good that he is already doing or?

• 37:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Right.

• 37:12Amory Sivertson?

  He can do and will he do?

• 37:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Amory Sivertson?

  That would be what I'd want to know.

• 37:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's a really good question and I don't have answers for that. The stuff that I have seen that he is supposedly doing great work on is like teaching people how to fight, which I don't know. I don't know how to feel about that.

• 37:29Amory Sivertson?

  How to touch them at one point of contact and make them fall to the ground?

• 37:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, and, and I think if anything to me, like the usefulness at this moment is like just a reminder that there are people in the world who are willing to say anything about themselves and their impact on the world. And thinking carefully about that as you come into contact with those stories that they're telling is really important in a world where you can't necessarily trust what people say.

• 38:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  So, check your facts, people.

• 38:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  I don't know. I don't know what to say to listeners other than thank you for coming on this wild ride and, you know, take care of yourselves and maybe learn some aikido, right?

• 38:33Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, or...

• 38:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  But don't break anybody's wrists.

• 38:36Amory Sivertson?

  No, don't go breaking wrists. Please stick to the...

• 38:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  We stick to the

• 38:44Amory Sivertson?

  Roundhouse kicks and jabs and uppercuts that you're used to.

• 38:52Amory Sivertson?

  That's my deep closing thought.

• 38:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, give yourself some TLC, as they say.

• 38:57Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, that's good. That's good.

• 39:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  This episode was produced by me, Ben Brock Johnson, and Roundhouse kicking in from the Mix booth, production manager Paul Vikes.

• 39:24Amory Sivertson?

  Who, it turns out, is not just a black belt in sound design, but also in finding legit martial arts mavens like Scott. This episode was co-hosted by me, Emery Sivertson, and sound designed by Paul.

• 39:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  The rest of our team is managing producer Sumit Ajoshi, Dean Russell, Franny Monahan, Grace Tatter, Caitlin Herup, and Emily Czankowski.

• 39:44Amory Sivertson?

  If you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or another wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. [email protected].

• 39:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between online communities and...

• 39:59Amory Sivertson?

  Jab, uppercut, hook.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts, and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, executive director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 40:41Speaker 17

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  And just to explain why you're excited about it.

• 40:48Speaker 17

  Oh, my gosh, individualized support, right? Personalization, and to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages. There are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context. And age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 41:38Speaker 02

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