he is legit, or at least was, before he made a career in acting

Aikido is a philosophical martial art, pacifist type of self-defense, mostly spiritual but when it comes to physical contact, Seagal being 6'4 means he could topple most people rather easily by redirecting their own force

It's not an offensive and agressive martial art at all, it's quite the opposite and it's designed to neutralize any aggresion towards you and everything must be done in harmony

imagine being 6'4 in the 60s-70s, when normie pipul especially Asians with their diet at the time are still smol smol like average 5'5 lol

back then not a lot of pipul are trained in any form of combat skills, it's extremely rare in the 60s
Seagal was already a youngling at 3th Dan

a lot of other forms of martial arts like Karate etc were introduced in the USA in the 40-50's, but it's only in the mid 60s they gained some sort of official form and popularity and it's not until 2 decades more in the 70-80s do they become a household name and McDojos started popping up in every street blocks and everyone wanted to be Bruce Lee

so imagine only a handful of these Blackbelts exists in the early 60s, one of the few in the first wave of Muricans

just a handful vs the entire nation of normies who doesn't really know how to fight and has no combat training

in the normies' perspective, seeing Karate Taekwondo etc being agressive and offensive and all was cool and shiet, and it makes sense seeing fists landing on aggressor's head would knock'em out cold

Aikido on the other hand was revered and almost seemed mystical bikos there's no aggression or offensive attacks, normies would see practitioners simply waving their hands about and aggressors topples down with ease, so the legends and myth was born

Also mind this, it's the fucking 60s, when substance abuse was prevalent across the States. Normies were less violent during the Hippie era. Protests excluded lol.

It's a Psyop by the CIA obscurely releasing mind-altering agents like LSD and DMT into public in a mass experiment trying to see how it affects the human mind in the wild, in more numbers, so quicker results as compared to testing a few lab rats in hidden institution lol. There's many downside still todei, but it actually worked. There's a sudden upshift in the way humans think, the spiritual experience somehow opened a gate to something more, and it's like a paradigm shift or spiritual awakening, and you see a sudden upsurge of creativity, spiritual and critical thinking and innovation all across the board - industrial and scientific application, all form of art - visual, auditory and literary, and even performance art, all across the world. People suddenly was able to tap into some sort of otherworldly pool of knowledge in their spiritual walks when they were high lol.

So there weren't alot of people who could fight back then. These martial artists are legit as legit comes and they were even hired to trained the military

Seagal during this era is super legit. His way is the spiritual and harmonious way to neutralize threats.
Threats that weren't much for that era lol, everybody was either high or hippies were just as harmonious as his Aikido or just simply nobody knows how to fight. So he really was legendary figure.

Nobody knows how to deal with Aikido the same way nobody knows how to deal with Royce Gracie when he entered the early days of the UFC. Nobody knows how to deal with BJJ when UFC first started, heck it's what popularized and kickstarted the UFC, Gracie
using BJJ and toppling and grappling and turtling on the back of everyone on the mat lol. Nobody knows how to deal with BJJ, yet, back then. So it has that mythical legendary status to it then.

So much that Seagal still clings to his former days BEFORE he was an actor. He wasn't an actor unfil he's almost 40 in the 80s.
By then it seemed cool at first seeing muh Aikido used in movies, but by the 90s and entering the 2000's it just looks so goofy and out of place, or severely exaggerated.

2000's, Aikido in movies is simply laughable especially seeing how normies would compare Aikido to friggin Muay Thai etc.
Extreme opposites of principle and philosophy lol.

Ever since the 2000s Seagal has this wall put up around him, like a self-defense mechanism, from being laughed at by the normies I suppose. So even to this day he's still living in his illusion, still clinging to his past, like he has the magical powers to wave his hands and people would roll to the ground TODAY the way he could BACK THEN.

The problem with Seagal is now he's just living in his fantasies basking in his own memes in his head.