DEPRIVATION AND DISTRACTION : The Japan-to-Hollywood Saga of Aikido (and Film?) Master Steven Seagal

For 15 years, until he returned to the United States in 1984, Steven Seagal lived in Japan, spoke the language, studied the martial arts and became a master of aikido. Not only did he have a rare inside look at the Japanese martial arts establishment, but he penetrated it as few outsiders had ever done. He was a disciple of aikido’s head master, he said, and also became a Shinto priest and the first Westerner to own and operate his own dojo (school) in Japan.

As a graduate of the old school, Seagal sees himself as a spokesman for traditional martial arts, the way things were and should be, and he resents the commercialization of something that was at one time a pure and spiritual undertaking taught by people like Morihei Ueshiba. In the 1930s, Ueshiba created aikido, which is based on love and harmony, its power derived not from sheer physical strength but from what its practitioners regard as a oneness with the universe.

“The martial arts have to be an endeavor in which you’re trying to develop the physical man and perfect the spiritual self at the same time,” Seagal said. “If what you’re doing is devoid of the spiritual essence, it’s nothing but street fighting.”

When Seagal returned home, he became infuriated by what he considered a fast-food approach to martial arts. Seemingly, anybody who could break a brick could open a shopping-center dojo. And most Americans, says Seagal, have formed distorted impressions of the martial arts by watching too many Hollywood chop movies or cable television’s mutant form of kick boxing, called full-contact karate.

The state of martial arts here, he said, “is deplorable,” his normally serene, soft voice becoming agitated, his inner calm disappearing.

“There are great martial artists in this town,” he said angrily, “and there are imposters in this town. The imposters are the majority. They call themselves masters and have bogus credentials. God knows where they came from or where they studied. When I ask them who their teacher was, they make up some name I’ve never heard of.

“They’re the guys who were in the military and studied tae kwon do in Korea for six months and then came back here as a sixth-degree black belt. It’s like the joke that every Korean who gets off the plane here is a seventh dan. Don’t believe it just because they’re Oriental.”

Chuck Norris? Seagal frowned.

“I can’t stand his movies,” he said. “I can’t watch them. Just because he’s a movie star doesn’t mean he’s a great martial artist.”

Television’s full-contact karate? He shook his head. “I don’t consider it karate or even Thai kick boxing, which I respect very much,” he said. “It’s become something else.”

The latest Japanese import is the ninja, that mythical, black-clad assassin from ancient Japan. There are some people today who claim to be ninja, schooled at secret enclaves by wizened priests who probably called them “grasshopper.” Seagal gets even more upset by the notion that ninja still exist.

“There is no such thing as a ninja,” he said. “Anyone who says he’s one is scamming you. It’d be like some jerk going to London and coming back to America and saying, ‘I’m going to teach the secrets of knighthood.’ If you want to learn the ways of an assassin, become an agent of the CIA or KGB.”

To Seagal, 35, his is the only true path to perfection in the martial arts, and most Americans, he says, don’t have the mentality or temperament for it. But not many Americans know at age 5, as Seagal did, that they want to become martial arts experts. Nor do they begin studying martial arts at 7. Seagal’s vision was clear. In high school in Fullerton, he played very little football and baseball, even though he was 6-4, preferring to practice the solitary discipline of martial arts. At 18, he moved to Japan and began training eight hours a day for two years.

At first, the Japanese didn’t take him seriously. “Some teachers won’t even accept an American,” he said, “because there are so many Westerners who think they can pay someone money, learn a few moves, go back to America and teach.”

The Japanese don’t believe, Seagal says, that Westerners have the inner strength to accept and endure the deprivation that’s at the center of the training regimen.

“An American will say, ‘He’s having you scrub the toilet every day for two years before he teaches you anything? I can pay $50 and learn martial arts in two weeks and be better than you,’ ” Seagal said.

“But you have to understand that the way to enlightenment is through deprivation. They create an environment where you’re not getting any approval for all the work you’re putting in, you’re not getting any sleep or love or attention, you’re getting your butt kicked, and you’re up before anyone fixing meals and cleaning.

“Then one day a teacher says, ‘Yeah, you’re doing a good job. I’m going to start teaching you.’

“They push you to your limit and when you are so deprived and so hungry for everything, a little window opens up in your mind that when they do give you something you’re going to get it, understand it, appreciate it and you’ll understand some of the mystical deeper meaning that starts to become available to you.”

But why did he put himself through it? What possessed him to live in monasteries in a foreign land, far from family and friends? Seagal laughed. “I’m a stubborn, maniacal idiot,” he said, “and when I decide to do something, I want to be the best there ever was.”

To learn the martial arts in Japan, Seagal had to first understand the Japanese mind. He wasn’t always successful. When he decided to study the sword, he went to a sword master who lived in a monastery. The sword master wouldn’t even meet with him.

Seagal says he visited the monastery every day for six months until he finally saw the sword master in a garden and was able to ask him to teach him. The sword master said no.

“Finally, after a year of me being turned down, he told me, ‘We don’t have any space here for students, but if you’d like to come into the monastery as a dog, we have space,’ ” Seagal said. “Now, I’m thinking, ‘Does that mean I have to get down on all fours and crawl in here?’ It was like a Zen riddle, a test. If I fail, I’m out. So I bowed real low and sort of crept in.”

The sword master began teaching him. One day, the sword master explained something and Seagal said, “Yes, I know.” That was a mistake. The sword master took it to mean that Seagal already knew the lesson. He was asked to leave the monastery.

“I blew it,” Seagal said. “Protocol is a great beginning step in the Orient, and learning how to begin is everything.”

When the head aikido master sent Seagal to northern Japan to spread the word and open a dojo, Seagal experienced something that wasn’t limited to the Orient prejudice.

“My first two years,” Seagal said, “people--from your average hood to the martial arts community--were constantly trying to kick my butt or burn down my dojo or discredit and shame me. Then I established a reputation and nobody wanted to try anything. But all that went with the territory. I knew that if I wasn’t as severe as the land, that would be it for me. So I wasn’t at all sweet or understanding or gentle. It was a matter of life and death and that’s how I treated it.”

The way to enlightenment seems to have its ironies. Although he handled the hoods, he was swept off his feet by a woman. Kelly LeBrock, an actress who has starred in “Weird Science” and “The Woman in Red,” apparently was his reward for years of self denial. They met in Tokyo, where she was modeling for Vogue magazine. When Seagal returned to the U. S., he and LeBrock moved in together. They share a house in the Hollywood Hills with a Rottweiler named Rumble.

Seagal may be turned off by Hollywood’s version of the martial arts, but it seems that Hollywood is turned on by him. With his dark hair slicked back and a powerful presence, Seagal has the kind of leading-man good looks that are tailor made for the big screen. He has attracted the attention of Tri-Star Pictures, a major Hollywood studio, and seems to have picked up show business faster than kung fu. No more deprivation for him. The Hollywood good life is beckoning.

“Tri-Star asked me if there were any good martial arts films,” said Seagal, whose own life seems stranger than fiction, “and I told them there weren’t, with the exception of Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Red Beard,’ ‘Seven Samurai’ and ‘Yojimbo.’ They said, ‘What if we remake one of them with you starring in it.’ And I said, ‘You bet.’ There are writers working on scripts right now.”

There’s also a possibility that Seagal and LeBrock will star in the same movie. “A lot of people are telling me they’re very excited to get us together because of the way we look together and our chemistry,” Seagal said. “In the last year, Kelly and I have been offered the moon, but we’ve been waiting for the right stuff. We want to do good film, good art.”

Seagal sees his future clearly. His first love is his Aikido Tenshin Dojo in North Hollywood, but he figures he makes “about 50 cents an hour teaching. So I’ll probably do one or two films a year for my income, and the rest of the time I’ll be teaching the martial arts. That way, I’ll have my cake and eat it, too.”