Topless aikido

Mark mentioned a couple of months ago the expression 'topless aikido' and its appearance in web search queries. I started thinking about why people would search for these keywords and what they would expect from the results. I'm sorry to dissappoint you if are looking for some juicy pictures and risque material but I'm trying to capture the useful and meaningful aspects of topless aikido. (I'm also wondering how frequently visited this page will be after attempting to use words indicating adult rating. Occupational hazard...)

Let's suppose you enter 'topless aikido' into your favourite search engine. I guess most of the people submitting this query expect some sexy aikido girls in gi bottom only or girls in hakama only. In the aikiweb addiction forum, I even read that one of the signs of aikido addiction is that you imagine how your potential girlfriend/boyfriend would look in gi. I guess they meant 'in full gi' because otherwise it wouldn't have been aikido addiction but, possibly, sex addiction with a bit of aikido fetish. Maybe I'm a bit unimaginative but it never occured to me to imagine topless aikido girls (or even if I do it now for the sake of research :) it doesn't turn me on). When I enter the dojo, that's a different world, you are supposed to leave your civil thoughts (and imaginations) behind. Ok, I admit that I wasn't completely untouched when I was training with my wife but that was a couple of hidden kisses and hugs only, otherwise we would throw each other hard (as a sign of aiki love :)).

I also found an online shop when I was searching for my hakama where hakamas were advertised with photos of men wearing hakama only. Maybe they thought 'sex sells', nevertheless, I found it odd (and funny, have a closer look at the picture below to see how the hakama is being worn). Girls can tell if it was a good marketing trick but I'm not sure the pictures suggest the right message. So if anyone knows about a martial art or style of a martial art that uses 'hakama only' trainings, my apologies, please let me know about it.

Let's have a look at another topless martial arts and artists. The first topless martial artist coming to my mind is, quite obviously, Bruce Lee. I'm not sure though if his films (and being topless) were stictly related to his trainings. Maybe he looked sexy to women, something to achieve (muscles) to men but it definitely worked. I saw a video of the young Bruce Lee who demonstrated his martial techniques to a bunch of TV producers. He wasn't topless but was wearing a suit, my point being that those people knew so little about martial arts that when Lee's first movies were made, anything could be sold as martial art to the unsuspecting western public. And then came The Way of the Dragon with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris fighting each other. Their toplessness was probably the top visual effect of that time :). 

Another film star martial artist half naked is Van Damme. Although he could demonstrate kicking-punching at an incredible level, his films are, in my opinion, as much about martial arts as the Rambo movies: killing plus kicking everyone else's ass half naked.

On the other hand, I saw a film (probably by National Geographic) about shaolin monks. They were topless and not just because they were being filmed. It was part of their training and to get tougher to strip down almost completely and start 'punching water' in a bucket, in the middle of winter.
Professional boxers are also half-naked. I'm not sure why this is so, maybe they just didn't want blood on their shirts in the early days of boxing :). I don't consider that a martial art anyway, at least not in the Japanese do (way/path) sense as there isn't much deep philosophy behind it as far as I know (although it seems to work in keeping some young agressive youth from drugs and gangs).

Steven Seagal is never half naked in his movies as far as I remember. Maybe it's because he is a great martial artist. Judged by the quality of his 'sex' and kissing scenes and other 'close' relationships with women in his movies, I guess the martial astist thing can be the case. So he can be regarded as a hero and role model because he managed to make a martial art, aikido, popular without stripping down for fights. Even if all of his facial expressions are the same (see at the bottom of this post), he achieved something without having to take off most of his cloths. However, he had to use a topless Erika Eleniak in Under Siege to become famous enough so he's not completely innocent either. Sharon Stone was another lucky choice for him in Above the Law (aka. Nico) although she wasn't a top actress at that time yet (four years before Basic Instinct). 

Another point about being topless: we say an aikidoka must be relaxed. So if you are half naked you (or someone else) can watch whether your muscles are relaxed (for counter example, see the above fighters demonstrating how strong they are by posing as if they were body builders, it always reminds me of another National Geographic programme, about gorillas). If you roll up the sleeve of your gi (or take it off) you can touch one of your arms with the other and see if your tegatana is good and your arm muscles are relaxed. Same applies to the shoulders and other important body parts used in a training. Gi bottom and hakama should stay on as they look much nicer when someone rolls, steps or flies.