Reddit reviews Aikido in America

You mean the way that Kazuo Chiba injured people? :)

> "So I arranged for [Steve Seagal] to give a workshop. As I say, Richard and George were out of town so I was the only teacher there. During the seminar he'd go around throwing people. He has great throws. Very energetic, very fast, very powerful. He would throw me -- bam! -- I'd hit the mat; the spit would fly out of my mouth, that kind of thing, just very powerful.
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> "As I said, Steve had a dojo in Japan. And I think that that's why he had to develop that tough attitude and that tough front. It would almost be like a Japanese trying to teach baseball in this country -- you had to be good and you had to be tough, although to be honest with you I never thought Steve was a particularly tough guy. I thought he was very arrogant, but you know, he had very good aikido. He really did. He threw me very energetically. At that time, he was not particularly muscled. He was strong, aiki-strong, but he didn't have a kind of gym-muscle body at all. His throws were very fast, very energetic. You never knew what happened. He could do the art. His irimi nages were atemi iriminages, but I never felt like he was particularly physically aggressive. He just did it the way he did it.
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> "His body knows some principles. He threw me nice and strong, real powerful and did not hurt me. He didn't damage me, put it that way. I've been thrown that way, strongly, by Hiroshi [Ikeda], Saotome Sensei, Bob Nadeau. I've been hammered by those guys. Steven hammered me real fast, real clean, real good, and didn't torque my elbow. I didn't get any strains or anything, it was more like seeing stars. I'll take that any day over tendonitis, which you can get from some of these other guys that look so nice."

Aikido in America, by John Stone and Ron Meyer

Granted, he's got his faults, but so do a lot of Aikido folks out there who don't nearly as much grief.