Steven Seagal's success in MMA

With Steven Seagals recent successes in training some top Mixed Martial Arts competitors there is a revived intrest in Aikido from these disciplines. For the MMA come Aikido Aspirant aikido offers the traditions of a battlefield art and an a chance to look at combat from a unique point of view. The challenge is the usual one though , putting aside ones own regular training and emptying the cup before stepping into the aikido dojo. The squaring off to fight, the will to dominate an opponent and the use of strength can all be a barrier to learning the subtly of the art. Once the basic skills of aikido are learnt it can then be applied to other these other arts and combined with other mind sets.

Steven Seagal is probably the guy that made Aikido famous, has very real aikido credentials, a career in film including a few A list films (and a few shockers too. Steven Seagal is never without controversy in and out of the Aikido community.  Read more about him here Steven Seagal

His Role in MMA has been revealed through the training of top fighters who credit their wins by knockout to Seagal. The fighters are  Anderson Silva

see Steven Seagal (video of training with Anderson Silva is here)

and Lyoto Machida

See Lyoto Machida

Well known British Aikido founding father Henry Ellis's son Rik now competes in MMA and has the following excellent commentary on the role of Aikido as he compete see Aikido in MMA

There is also nice thread going at the Aikiweb for the curious 

http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=282730#post282730