Teamworking Day: Muryo Waza 🌭

Seanbaby: “Sometimes from madness comes masterpiece,” is not our website’s slogan, but it should be. I think our actual slogan is “101 hamburger jokes.” And today, the slogan that isn’t ours has never been more true. We are talking about Eddie Vuittonet, an artist and scholar who does everything and can’t do any of it. He accidentally hit print on a book about Prehistoric Birds in Modern Times. He performs karaoke to himself and calls it “a band.” He is a rabbit meater, comicman, carnivalist, animation fighter, and badgemonger. But the most thing he is, is a Frank Dux.

Using only two years of swamp education, the library computer, and a fake backstory of underground karate tournaments, Eddie Vuittonet has written the ultimate karate manual: MURYO WAZA: THE WAY OF UNLIMITED TECHNIQUES, “THE DEADLIEST SELF-DEFENSE SYSTEM IN HISTORY”.

Seanbaby: MURYO WAZA is the size of a midsized city phone book, is in full color, and uses computer generated lady commandos to demonstrate the moves. It cost me the best $39.95 I ever spent and immediately became my most prized possession. It incorporates the make believe of a violent child with the graphic design of a child he bit the fingers from. And right now, Brockway and I are going to use it to battle to the death.

Brockway: Oh shit, it’s a Guarded- Exclusive & Confidential Course. I think that’s how a maniac whose brain is being eaten by snakes says “NDA.” You are fucking up so bad right now. If there’s one thing I know about Eddie Vuittonet, it’s that he’s every profession and skillset. He’s definitely some kind of space lawyer.

Seanbaby: You’re close. This is not a joke: he was actually a justice of the peace!

Brockway: This instantly became the darkest article we’ve ever written.

Seanbaby: They forced him to resign for, among other things, “failure to comply with mandatory judicial educational requirements for fiscal year 2003.” And this is not foreshadowing: we are not going to get distracted by any side madness of Eddie Vuittonet today, like his marketing company or his comedy movies or the rap video he made for himself in 2013. Muryo Waza book battle only!

Seanbaby: Let’s go over the Muryo Waza basics. Most importantly, as you can see, Eddie is a proper madman. And idiot. He will do things that won’t make sense. Eddie will invent things we already have and uninvent science we’ve already settled on. His system is sometimes called Aboreal Locomotive Hands, and no he can’t spell, but yes, he does mean it has something to do with trees. Eddie is also a scholar of nonverbal communication, which he calls Body Language Projections, and it gets incorporated into the eye gouges (sometimes). He is concerned about the laws surrounding karate murder, but extremely confused about them, and he loves badges. They rarely mean what he intends, or much of anything, and won’t be useful or consistent. I have, in no fucking way, prepared you for Muryo Waza: The Way of Unlimited Techniques.

Brockway: T-tree train hands?? Listen, I obviously have a lot of questions about this Dr. Bronner’s Karate Syrup label. Or possibly no questions and just a few very strong impulses like flee and destroy. But what could tree train hands possibly mean? Why do we have to know the biohazard symbol AND the library sign to use it? This reads like an emoji text trying to warn me about 18 different serial killers. I don’t think we can do this, I’ll never understand any part of it.

Seanbaby: You’re right again! And now we will select random pages from this deadly manual and use them against each other until one of us has been destroyed. Muryo Waza is a disorganized pile of untested kung fu moves by a very, very bullied lunatic, but all the moves get their own page, making it perfect for our mock battle.

Brockway: I call Horse Technique. Sorry, that was reflexive. I don’t even know if there is a Horse Technique. Please go ahead.

Seanbaby: First, we obviously need to pick a fighting style. Muryowaza means “boundless technique” which Eddie adapted from Yubiwaza, or “finger technique.” He took a style of martial arts sold only to children in the 1950s and said, “what if instead of only a finger, I used my everything.” I can’t fault him for that since they’re the same words I whispered during every 8th grade slow dance. Those words are what I said to a beautiful sherpa to survive a snowstorm. They’re also unrelated to Eddie’s karate which is based mostly around animal styles. Any kind of animal. He throws out kung fu animal styles like he’s in a MAD TV writer’s room. Pointlessly. After this chapter about the half-baked idea of them, where each is given a page dedicated to their moves and “history,” they are not brought up again. These are nothing– character classes from a disgraced zookeeper’s unfinished RPG. Let’s each decide on one.

Brockway: I call Horse Technique! Sorry, last time. I’ll let you get to the techniques.

Seanbaby: The horse would make a great choice. It has chewing bites and loves to flee. It’s perfect for power bottoms and groin swatters, preferably in a large space where a warrior can run free. Its ideal vital points include “all of upper body” and “all of lower bo–

Brockway: I CALL HORSE TECHNIQUE.

Seanbaby: The ape might also be a good pick. It has arm bites and can attack the groin when drunk. I might go with this one, let’s see if there’s more information on it…

Seanbaby: No, this is the same text with better spelling and no chimpanzee clipart. If I wanted to read that, I’d open the envelope Jane Goodall’s lawyers sent in response to my love letters. So I’m still undecided.

Brockway: I’ll tell you which one you’re not picking, and it’s Horse Technique, motherfucker. You will learn to fear my gentle swats toward ears, my constant fleeing, my flailing arms and headbutts when cornered. It’s kind of like a weaponized seizure, but with less dignity. Also I fucking eat you at the end. How are you countering that?

Seanbaby: The Bear might be good. It has regular stabs and deadly hugs. Its main move, BEAR’S PAWS AT HIVE, strikes the Castor Clock 12, which is either the ear holes or eye balls. It is not the testicles, which are located at Pollux Clock 12, a common mistake. I don’t think this one’s for me, though. Eddie never finishes the sentence “The Bear’s shoulder are used for” and I’d hate to find out in the middle of a battle that “The Bear’s shoulder are used for” non-deadly hugs with best frien– hold on, what am I doing? This raw maniac has designed an ear hole-slapping system around the movements of a honey bear and I’m making fun of his typos?

Brockway: Good luck hugging my nostrils while I hop, spin, and flail. Idiot.

Seanbaby: Dragon seems pretty powerful. It has eat, plus the wheel kicks and fire punches you should already be using during fights. Plus, it has (dragon pulls you only to vanish) so it’s useful for groping dads at the park. Maybe only? I don’t get how pulling someone and leaving helps me in a fight. And it looks like the description for that move is “CASTOR CLOCK,” which as far as I can tell means everything except balls. I don’t say this often, but I refuse to battle you using dragon style kung fu.

Brockway: That’s probably good. That witch we hit with our speedboat did curse us to die eating one another, we should probably be careful of that.

Brockway: Oh fuck, oh no. So many of these styles involve eating your enemy. The witch was right.

Seanbaby: Oh, hell yeah. I’m Crab, I’m here to grab, and read the fucking clock: it’s ten to crab. So now that we have our styles locked in, and they will mean very little, let’s fight. Since I am a crab, and because I’m a crab, I go second. Turn to a random page and attack me!

Brockway: I choose Tree Train Hand Technique: Snake Hypnosis! I mesmerize you with my sultry little hand waves – what do they mean? Am I saying hello to somebody on my left? Am I saying watch out, something’s smelly? Or am I BREAKING YOUR KNECK. The extra K is for DANGER Keep Off My Tits, Krab!

Seanbaby: Impressive form, horse. I counter with the same aboreal locomotive stance, but I am crab, so instead of HEAD PROTECTION, my left hand is labeled WARNING KNIFE. Also, the snake has crawled onto my face where I’ve met it with the gaping, inviting mouth of a sex doll. What’s your answer to that, horse?

Brockway: I choose, holy shit. What have I just chosen. Am I directing scorpion traffic? Am I trying to say call for help, because 4:11 is scorpion time? This is a visual word problem by an AI trained on CHiPS transcripts. I don’t actually know how you lose to this.

Seanbaby: I… what the fuck. It looks like I got a list of armored car robbery headli– what? What!?

Brockway: Hey, you figured out how to lose to Scorpion Traffic.

Seanbaby: I’m worried you’re right again. Okay, this comes from a chapter called “ARMORED CAR SECURITY OFFICER PERILS,” and it is, no bullshit, nothing other than 49 pages of this. I’m not sure what he wants us to do with this. Are we meant to figure out which karate works best against “2 Injured In Somerset Mall Robbery”? Is Eddie giving us crimes to solve with crab and horse kung fu? We don’t need that. That’s already seven different Jackie Chan movies. “Pinch Hero” and “Robbery the Horse Nibbles” are different international titles for The Tuxedo. And yet as a crab, I refuse to take mulligans, so it looks like I’m stopping our fight to recite every single armored car heist. What’s your answer to that?

Brockway: I would like for it to be “lie down for a while, and think about the American judicial system.” But here’s my page!

Brockway: Fuck yeah, I understand this. I piston jab your skull straight out of your mouth! I found a real move, what are the odds? In this Da share z0ne-ass book about workplace safety CG models attacking each other with toes and ribcages, I found Normal Punch! This must be what it feels like to win the lottery or hold a normal job.

Seanbaby: Holy shit. I can’t defend against this. What a glorious death. But oh, what’s this? What’s this I’ve found? Horse! I see your solar punch and raise you …

… the lunar punch of the sheep! Behold the moon! Behold the sheep I mentioned!

Brockway: Of course, the natural foil of the sun piston – the moon sheep. This has become an Elden Ring guide.

Seanbaby: Let me go into all the details of this technique. I am throwing a soft and hard lunar punch, sometimes known as a “regular fist punch”, from the hand/arm attacks category, and it’s targeting your upper high level 12, commonly known as “face region.” I guess I am punching you in the face.

Brockway: There’s a Whale Style! Fight like the mighty whale, with lots of leaping up and landing on your belly. Opening your mouth and running toward your opponent, hoping they get in! Haha, I forgot I was a horse. What the fuck is happening.

Seanbaby: Whales are the size of twenty men, and that’s where you made your fatal mistake, whale, for I have trained to battle twenty men. Step 5 and maybe 6 is to measure my distance from the crowd with my leg. Step next is to find the mob’s leader and eliminate them, elbows and legs first. With leg-measured precision, I shall breach all airways and seek all wall! I don’t even care if this move works. Look at this! Look at my little kick! This mob will know they killed a champion! What possible answer could you have to me when I “Unleash twenty animals into the crowd”!?

Brockway: Easy! I counter with-

Brockway: What? I guess I counter with a fortune cookie sign?

Seanbaby: Very nice. Powerful. Thoughtful. Double kick.

Brockway: Fuck!

Seanbaby: Again, you’re right! DOUBLE KICK! This rules so hard. Seventy percent of Double Kick’s page is spent telling you to not do Double Kick, and I’m including the rendering of Double Kick in that because it looks stupid as shit. He only had three nice things to say about his own move and one of them was GREAT WAY TO “SEE THE VIEW – NOT AS GOOD AS WITH A DRONE. Even for Eddie, that is impenetrable nonsense. If I came at you with this kick, and I am, all you can do is hope it misses. And it always double misses.

Brockway: This is the only move with cons. This is the only move in the book he’s worried might have weaknesses. Eddie has cannibalism in here eight times, and my horse style features prominent fleeing alongside “flailing arms and headbutt.” There’s just one conclusion: This is the only move Eddie Vuittonet tried on another human and he got instantly destroyed by a confused Chipotle scooper with no fight training. He was forced to conclude this one move doesn’t work, but in the absence of further proof, all others must. Like-

Brockway: The wrist, notoriously the most resilient and impact resistant point of the human body. Take the one place you constantly hurt just by leaning on it weird, and hurl it through a slutty SWAT cop’s spinal cord! It’s the deadliest move in the whole book, never use it. Look at my clock. It’s ten minutes past Happy Army Guy. A terrible omen for you.

Seanbaby: Sorry for this, but I counter your WRIST STUMP STRIKE with NOT A WRIST STUMP STRIKE, giving it an advantage over any wrist stump strike.

Brockway: Did that army guy come out of my sub-clock to hop in your main clock and try a worse version of my limp-wristed throat whop? Look at your tiny clock now, it’s full of dragons and chaos. Is logic coming to an end, is this how it happens?

Seanbaby: It’s a mantis style attack called BACK OF HAND WHIPPING SLAP, and as you might expect, it works best on lips and groins. America used to make soldiers! Now, thanks to woke, our armed forces are delivering temporary, safe, non lethal slaps to men’s testicles. Which means I have gently tapped your crotch, you’re welcome, and left myself open to any counterattack. This will be an inglorious, humiliating death unfit for crab.

Brockway: Oops, I huffed you. I’m really sorry about this, I made our game weird. I made our game of Horse v. Crab Army Guy Clock Strikes into a weird thing, and I wish I could take it back.

Seanbaby: The crab senses weakness! During a moment of regret, you got a page about nostrils and a pep talk about not cowering! In horse terms, you’re horsedead! All I need to do is draw one non-slap karate move and it’s over.

Seanbaby: Holy crap. I hit a section called C.IVILIAN A.NTI-VICTIMOLOGY S.URVIVAL S.CALE. Think of it like mind karate, only by someone who is confused by either. Try to imagine what goes through the mind of a yellow belt watching Fox News, only they were declared “too stupid to be a judge” by the state of Texas during the fiscal year of 2003. For remember, students of Muryo Waza, Muryowazans as they are known to soaked panties, are not invincible or neither invisable. I’ll let Eddie explain:

Now back to the move I got– CLIPBOARD “GUN SHOT SOUND” TRICK. It’s instructions on how to make a gunshot sound from a clipboard, tape, and gunshot sounds. Why? If you’re in Texas, you know what you’re more likely to find lying around than a clipboard, a cap gun, and a roll of scotch tape? A fucking regular gun! And aside from it being stupid, Eddie admits it’s a bad idea because police will never believe you weren’t firing a real gun! I don’t have any idea how or when I would use this. I’m supposed to carry around a clipboard to scare people away from me? What am I, doing observational ’90s comedy? Kill me, Brockway!

Brockway: Eddie discovered the very first special effect I ever made for my GI Joes, and he thought “this is an unstoppable weapon whose existence must be guarded behind a Karate NDA and OH NO, BRAIN SNAKES!”

You have humiliated yourself by bringing office pranks to a crab battle. All that’s left is to end you with a brutal fatality. I choose-

Playground push? Unbraced playground push. Unless there’s a Yard Duty Technique in this book, you’re fucking dead!

Welp, time to eat my comedy partner like a witch prophesied. Damn these Tree Train Hands, which have cost me everything. Skull. Skull emoji. Snake snake stop sign. Library sign. Library sign forever. Thanks, Horse Clock!

Seanbaby: Not so fast, horse. All crabs live a second time, in the hearts of dreamers. And as I take my final dozing I respond with BLACK CRAB 2X RIDGE BLOW BLACK MANTIS 2X INVERTED STRIKE BLACK CRANE 2X WING ATTACK.

Seanbaby: In other words, a round the clock double motorcycle cop chop. The book says this should only be used in a life and death situation, and as a mostly dead crab, this is both. It causes death, stroke, death, possible sleep, and absolute localized bruising at ear areas.

Brockway: Jesus Christ, you just pulled off the Golden Fringe Conspiracist Shun Goku Satsu.

Brockway: Fuck you, then. I pepper spray you. No karate, no ancient mystical secret. Pepper spray. I have chosen Human Style Technique and my dim mak is “Gun.”

Seanbaby: Argh! The accelerated saliva drooling!!! I guess I’m dead again. Unless…

… I use TWIN MANTIS STRIKE on myself to remove my own eyes and counter your pepper spray. And to a blind crab, pepper spray is merely seasoning. All you have done is made a more delicious opponent, horse.

Brockway: Hold on. No, stop the article. Did this kung fu manifesto seriously just tell you to duplicate yourself for an attack? There’s a fucking Shadow Clone Jutsu for COVID deniers? I realize one of my choices earlier was a traffic cop harnessing the power of time to master scorpions, but this is the craziest thing in this book.

Brockway: I counter with my own duplication technique. You can tell which moves have duplication modifiers by the tiny double skulls next to the ordinary skulls. We have formed emoji hearts with our hands like Japanese middle school girls, and I do believe we’re using the power of love to harness an Ultimate Flower Fawn Romance Beam Attack. We’re aiming it at your fucking throat.

Seanbaby: Read the fine print: you are forbidden by karate book to use this grasp against my throat area in “any way shape or form.” Like it or not, this is an eye claw, horse. Of which I have none! Oh, what’s this? My eyeless crab stalks can’t read it, but something tells me it might be… PUNCK STRIKE!

Seanbaby: PUNCK STRIKE is the very first ‘karate type’ punch every Muryowazan learns, as demonstrated here by Cool Sex Sergeant 2000. I’m not supposed to use it on your Upper High-Level area because of its extreme deadliness, but I guess I’m feeling…

…

…

Brockw–

Seanbaby: Don’t interrupt, I wasn’t done!

…

…

Crabby.

Brockway: I’m actually looking forward to that witch’s curse now.

Brockway: I fingerbang you? Hold on, let me double check I’m reading this right. Yes, I fingerbang you.

Seanbaby: In a world of eye pokes, the blind crab is king crab! Removing my eyeballs has made me immune to all of what Eddie Vuittonet imagines to be fighting, and I pray Eddie Vuittonet never realizes the same thing. Speaking of praying…

… THE PRAYING” MANTIS DOUBLE SPEAR HAND ATTACK! This move “can be easily construed as deadly,” but only because it can cause “Infection, or disability or death.” I am now in my element– a spider on my face and pointing a prayer attack directly at God, threatening Him with at least bruising and temporary soreness. Let’s see how you answer that, horse!

Brockway: The infection part tells me we should’ve been doing all of these without washing our hands. That really changes the danger level of my fingerbang move. I’d like that reflected in the court transcripts of Judge Eddie Vuittonet, which are- let me read back. Yeah, these are just phonetic screaming and a list of armored car robberies.

Brockway: I eat your eyes! There is very little info in this book about what happens after you use one of the 36 eyeball devouring techniques. I’m waiting for one with a list of cons to see if Eddie ever tried to Event Horizon a surly fast food worker. “Highly athletic, great view – though better done with a drone.”

Seanbaby: Kitty cat paw to the leg! Tiny, orange, little house cat, kitty cat paw to the leg!!! You thought I wasn’t adorable, but surprise: mrrowr. I’m starting to worry we’re not going to be able to hurt each other with this book. Go ahead and hit me with another move.

Brockway: Aw, that’s a cute one for the kids. The first dim mak tie-in to the Garfield movie. All I need is one single karate move that’s not an eye gouge and you’re-

Brockway: Fuck.

Seanbaby: Once again, you’re using a “Journey” eye gouge against a “The Jeff Healey Band” crab. Which leaves you wide open to… oh, Jesus. What the fuck is this.

Seanbaby: What animal? It looks like I got part of a chapter review quiz, but it’s also a dick joke? What animal? The bad news is I’ve left myself open to another counter attack. The good news is head-to-head Cock pushes. What animal?

Brockway: I kneebang you! I KNEEBANG YOU! I flee! I flail! I headbutt your vulva, like a horse! Like horses do!

Seanbaby: Of all my weaknesses, well-placed vulva slamming is not among them. Crabs. So with the last of my crab fluid, I hit you with my dying blow:

Seanbaby: NECK ASSIST SOLAR DEATH PUNCH. By the solar rays of crab, I’ve never seen anyone so devastated. You were coming at me with a middle school report on vulva trauma and taint facts, and I hit you with a NECK ASSIST SOLAR DEATH PUNCH. Look at the bullet. Look at the piston! Look at the hammer!! Look at the sheep!!! What animal? What! Fucking!! Animal!!

Brockway: This whole thing would’ve gone down way different if you told me Cock Style was an option.