If thereâs one thing Iâve picked up from reading this fine website, itâs that thereâs an ideal medium for learning the ancient science of self-defense: words and still photographs. However, I recently discovered on a trip to my local record store/drug front that I could find equally effective teaching tools there. Today Iâm gonna crown the best people-kicking tutorial done through music. If you want to learn the five finger death punch without having to listen to Five Finger Death Punch, you need the 1985 vinyl LP KARATE MOVES: The mystical world of karate Narrated by Mike Faure featuring the Music of Steve Linnegarâs SNAKESHED.
Look at that cover. Every moment you’ve spent not buying KARATE MOVES: The mystical world of karate Narrated by Mike Faure featuring the Music of Steve Linnegar’s SNAKESHED was wasted.
The record claims to be, and I quote, âa vivid audio documentary on the mystical world of karate. It is a revelation to the layman and a great motivating vehicle for the karate student!â In other words, this is going to blow ordinary minds and give karate minds a reason to keep going. And it would be delivered by someone with firsthand knowledge of the kick secrets of the Orient– Steve Linnegar, who dedicated his entire music career to psychedelic/prog rock albums about Eastern philosophy and history. He surely studied with the masters, or at least has some Asian background⊠haha just kidding, itâs a white dude who was known as âthe Hippie King of Cape Town.â Unfortunately, being known as the Hippie King of Cape Town in 1985 was like being known as Giggles & The Rodney King Dancers in 1992.
Well, maybe Sensei Segregation has some genuine wisdom to share with us, aside from how to make “mustache” your only physical quality. And he does! He starts off strong! After a kick-ass snippet of the title song that makes use of the finest synthesizer and slap bass available in a country cut off by international sanctions, we hear a narrator doing a Richard Burton impression in five-minute breaks between benders:
âIn the mysterious world of karate, and Eastern martial arts, power and softness and extreme understanding are the qualities of the Masters. We are all learning her beauty and secrets. Karate takes years to master and its practice will change the trainee and make him more relaxed and in control of his emotions. It will also give him extraordinary powers, almost supernatural powers, these must not be abused.â
Extraordinary, almost supernatural powers! And you donât even have to spin the record backwards and pledge your soul to luaP yentraCcM. Tell us more about these powers over some sweet psych rock jams, Afrikaner Chuck Norris.
âFirst secret revealed: you can learn to immobilize your opponent by the use of the KIA. The KIA is the karate scream. The force of the KIA scream is generated from the stomach and snaps the whole force of the person using it.â
So this karate shout doesnât just âamplifyâ your power, itâs also a banshee-like screech that casts Hold Person on any deadly enemy or argumentative spouse nearby. And remember, this record doesn’t teach you how to do it, only that someone other than the speaker or the listener could. He’s risking a lot revealing this to you, but maybe sonic attacks exist. So move over, ninjutsu, thereâs a new magical martial art in tow-
Whatâs this? Four black-clad strangers appear in a puff of smoke to defend the honor of the ninja! What do these dark avengers call themselves? The only thing that makes sense: THE NINJA. And theyâve brought a rebuttal called The Ninja WarrĂŻors of Rock.
If Snakeshed sound like an eighties band that belonged in the seventies, The Ninja sound like a 1985 band that belonged in 1985 and no other year. They sound like the opening act on a seven band pay-to-play bill at The Cathouse headlined by Bang Tango. They sound like the kind of group that would play in the background of a bar in a zero-budget action flick called Sword of Heaven during a scene where a yuppie douchebag mistakes the Asian lead for a woman because he has long hair. Thatâs the most 1985 thing that could happen, because it did.
But who are they underneath those masks? Surely they would never reveal their closely-held secret identities on the back of an LP sleeveâŠ
No wonder they took the costumes off. I thought that face-broom on Steve Linnegar was manly but just look at those manes! Those are the kind of feathered mullets that leave a river full of high-waisted panties stretching from the Rainbow to the Whiskey. By the time your eye travels from the outside of their hair to the tiny face in the center, you’re not the same person you were when you started. If The Ninja WarrĂŻors of Rock ever encounter an enemy they can’t defeat, they simply sink into their hair and escape through a different cave in their bangs. And as masters of both rock and the martial arts, they thank their sensei right on the cover:
Hmm. Maybe Casamassa is his fatherâs name and heâs descended from â
Nope, itâs the white dude from Pennsylvania who wrote 1900HOTDOG classic, RAPIST BEWARE! Oh shit, the Internet says his brother Chris played Scorpion in Mortal Kombat. NO! Stay strong, we’re not here to go down a– whoa, he was Red Dragon on WMAC Maste— no. NO!
Back to The Ninja. Oh sweet, they have a fan club! And not just a fan club â a secret society.
And itâs in LA! Iâm in LA! Letâs take a gander at what a real ninja lair looks like:
Hmm. Extremely ninja of them to hide their headquarters in an unassuming house under the 101 freeway. Every one of those people on the billboard? Ninjas in expert camouflage. The dirty benches? Ninjas. The streetlight? Just a streetlight. But behind it? Three skinny ninjas stacked one atop another, just waiting for you to turn your back while muttering âI think thereâs something wrong with that benchâŠâ
The point is: If youâre gonna reveal ancient mysteries in a private press record release, you need to be ready to defend yourself from your assassination. Secrets likeâŠ
Hmm. Thatâs about ninjas in the same way that American Ninja parts 1-4 are. It is ninja-adjacent at best. It would be absurd for these men to just be nerds cosplaying as glam rockers cosplaying as ninjas. There must be hidden knowledge in here somewhereâŠ
A ninja worried about love is either a ninja about to die to the rival ninja clans he should be worrying about, or a ninja who has destroyed all of their rival ninja clans and now has some well-earned downtime. Either way, I was expecting more mystical combat and fewer cranky ex-girlfriends.
Panicking because there’s blood on your ninja sword? I canât think of anything less ninja than this. This might as well be a song protesting the flea market’s throwing star return policies.
Ninja songs about⊠notable figures of the American Civil War getting dismembered? No one could have expected this, making it very ninja. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY LEGS? WHY DID YOU CUT OFF MY ARMS, MY LEGS! WHY ME?” Sorry, it’s just really stuck in my head. I love it. Nothing could get me to turn on my favorite new ba–
This is a nightmare, but I finally learned something! The age of consent in California in 1985 was 18! Now thatâs in my search history forever, and this article will not help explain it.
How the fuck does a band called The Ninja have as many songs about ninjas as Blue Oyster Cult, a band that put a space station on the cover of their record called Club Ninja? Iâm starting to think The Ninja are just posers, which again, is actually a very ninja thing to be.
Letâs check back in with Karate Moves and see what lessons the smoldering gaze of an outlet mall sensei can teach me.
Secret Number Two is âknow your enemy and know yourself.â Secret Three is⊠punching. Iâm starting to think the fourteen tax-deductible dollars I spent on a sealed copy of this may have been a rip-off. Then, at the end of side one, Secret Number Four… the supernatural sorcery I was waiting for: THE KIA SCREAM.
Which wasâŠalready Secret Number One? God damn it, karate. You’re worse than a ninja.
But who cares! Itâs what we all came here for. The terrifying technique that can freeze your opponent in their tracks, allowing you to manually adjust them into humiliating poses before exploding their heart. Okay, this is really it! I’m going to listen! We’re all about to learn the secret of karate screech!
âŠ
I’m back.
It was just a guy shouting âKIYAAAAH!â with an echo effect on it.
I remain entirely mobilized. Maybe it doesnât work when itâs just a recording? Is it possible the ki force doesnât transfer through speakers? Nay, unthinkable. There must be an explanation in Secret Number Five:
âThe defender learns to watch the attackerâs eyes, not his body, as the eyes will telegraph his decision to move. The defender learns to react with split second timing, blocking and counter attacking either with a kick or a punch. This type of training is done many thousands of times and is the next step to kumite ââ
He said the magic word, everybody SCREAM-
Fifth Secret: if someone attacks you with a knife, wrap your jacket around their arm. That sounds familiar. Sixth Secret: the karate chop. No one should need any at this point since all our opponents are paralyzed and split in half, but there’s more! Maybe the Seventh Secret will be an ultimate technique too deadly for smaller numbers? Nope, itâs a book recommendation!
At least the one actual song on here, âKarate Moves,â whips â itâs like Goblin for martial arts instead of artsy horror. Maybe you don’t understand what I mean by that, but I assure you it’s a compliment. But to be honest, my journey into the educational world of the mid-80sâ finest martial arts-themed rock albums turned out to be kinda disappointing. The Ninja had killer aesthetics but not much actual ninjutsu and Karate Moves had a lot to say but ultimately only taught me how to get a cat to leave the room. Maybe static images are the best way to learn martial arts after all.
âŠ
When heâs not spending way too much money on novelty records or corrupting the nationâs youth, Jeff Treppel writes about music offline for Decibel Magazine and online for Bandcamp, Invisible Oranges, and The Shfl. Insert joke about Twitter here.
Hello, and ninja attack. That’s how suddenly it can happen. Here at 1900đ, we are proud to have created a place in our desperate media landscape for the unimportant and frivolous. That’s not what’s happening here. Today we are doing something vital– something everyone can use and needs to know. This is. . .
THE GODFREY HO NINJA AWARD MATCHING GAME.
The rules are simple, but like the ninja, mostly unknowable secrets. Seanbaby has created a series of Ninja Awards, like you’d find at any local ninja lodge, using clips from real Godfrey Ho ’80s ninja movies. Using only instinct and the untrustworthy memories of a 7-year-old, Brockway must match each award to the correct Godfrey Ho VHS box cover. Some of them will be obvious. Some of them will be obvious traps. And now unexpected throwing star, back handspring vanis– wait. Before that, you should see the awards. Commit all 16 of them to memory then destroy them if you’d like to play along at home.
Seanbaby: A Robocop Plaque of Roboparticipation is clearly not a ninja film’s highest honor, but spreading Robocop awareness is far from nothing. In a small way, it’s how we can all be heroes in our everyday lives. This should be an easy one for Brockway to match, due to the nature of this poor man being a Robocop, but I am an impish trickster and Godfrey Ho is the type of director to hire a Robocop for a birthday and splice footage of it into five different kung fu movies. Brockway knows both of these things.
Seanbaby: Look at this fucking asshole ninja. Brockway is going to be trying to find a movie called Ninja Ski Bullies, but it won’t be that simple, you bastard! Cartwheel escape.
Seanbaby: If you’re not familiar with Godfrey Ho, you’re probably starting to get it. He has the instincts of a child playing ninja, and in fact, most children playing Ninja are specifically playing Godfrey Ho Movie Ninja. Godfrey, which isn’t usually his name, directs movies where a businessman might drop a smoke bomb and transform into a ninja clown after 50 minutes of an unrelated Singaporean police drama. The end result is functionally the same as unethical insanity, but he’s the only one of us brave enough to look at reality and say, “There are no rules to goddamn anything.”
Seanbaby: The good guy in a Godfrey Ho movie might fight a man who can create ninja duplicates of himself, kill all of them but one, and then whip him in front of his girlfriend for dozens, maybe hundreds of minutes. All this really happened in a movie if Brockway wants to use it as a clue. It won’t help, backflip vanish!
Seanbaby: There is a second part to this award because the good ninja puts down the whip to light the guy’s dick on fire. If you want to train ninjutsu at home, most books call this move “Mischievous Zookeeper Has The Cigarette.”
Seanbaby: There is also a third part to this plaque because the good guy lights his prisoner’s dick on fire a second time and starts drowning him. If Brockway thinks it will help, I couldn’t tell why this character did any of this. It could be a clue!
Seanbaby: The ninja parts of Godfrey Ho movies don’t usually have guns because of Ninja Honor, and also because a gun turns “Hey, you kids can’t make a karate movie here without a permit” into “Three Amateur Filmmakers Shot by Police in Vista Hermosa Park.” Anyway, the ninja parts of Godfrey Ho movies usually have guns because of Ninja Betrayal.
Seanbaby: A ninja honors all traditions of the Orient, including the hating of Mondays. The đŒLifetime Achivement in Ninja Phone Call honors that honor.
Seanbaby: Most films end with some kind of conclusion. Not a Godfrey Ho film. After 85 minutes, it stops wherever the fuck it is. The ending to this high stakes adventure confusedly spliced together from two existing movies and 8 minutes of ninja fights was simply “I am Hat Commando. Pull your coward gun on Hat Commando and see what happens, goodbye, THE END.”
Seanbaby: This is such a perfect place to stop a movie. And I would know becau
Seanbaby: With all of these adult men in embarrassing children’s costumes, Brockway could not have been expecting horny. Add it to the list of his fatal mistakes, spin spin vanish!
Seanbaby: Most directors looking at this footage would say, “Cut! I thought that would look cooler, ha ha we can’t use any of this.” Not Godfrey Ho. He gave that stunt dog a six dental bone raise, twice the salary of human lead actor Richard Harrison.
Seanbaby: “The previous plaque was probably right. I, Richard Harrison, the ninja who has killed you, was paid nearly three dental dog snacks for my performance. And because you fought well, I give you this dying gift. . . of my face, backflip vanish!”
Seanbaby: I understand this game is impossible. Even Richard Harrison couldn’t tell you where these clips came from because Godfrey Ho filmed him doing stupid shit in his pajamas one afternoon and spliced the footage into 75 movies with 9,032 different names. This should be an easy one, though; because if you pay close attention, right after Richard rollerskates a man down, the actual title of the movie appears. It’s subtle, but you can see the words “MAJESTIC THUNDERBOLT” show up over the naked woman power bottoming the dick off a ninja. Brockway will probably spot it, but definitely assume it’s a trick.
Seanbaby: Like all his movies, Godfrey Ho cast this one by writing his personal number on the wall of a YMCA bathroom. Will Brockway decide that’s a cheap insult or a valuable clue?
Seanbaby: A canary yellow ninja costume just looks great on anyone. Even Chancre Vanfart, the man somewhere behind this Ninja headband.
Seanbaby: I love this scene because Godfrey Ho characters exist in a world of childlike special effects, and this character somehow figured it out and used it against the others. He dropped a homemade dummy off a cliff and the enemy ninjas thought, “This is perfectly normal for our world; we got him!” It’s a scheme that shows an absolute contempt for ninja intelligence. This is some shit Superman would do to trick Lois Lane in 1951.
Seanbaby: Oh fuck yes. That’s the last one, let’s start the game!
Brockway: This wasnât a setup, or at least not one I spotted in time. I did not see any of Seanbabyâs explanations above before writing in my guesses below. He literally just sent me a list of exploding ninjas followed by a list of Richard Harrison. That I reflexively began sorting them can only speak to the Godfrey Ho in me. Iâm going to be so fucking good at this game.
To Majestic Thunderbolt. Every Godfrey Ho movie is named eight things. The same movie will be Ninja the Doctor, Drunk Dragon Ninja Doctor, Ninjant the Insect Dominance, Richard Harrison in Ninjant the Insect Doctor, Richard Harrison is Ninjant in Richard Ho presents Harrison Ninja Disaster, and Snake Destruction 4. Thereâs absolutely no way to track what movie Twinkle Ninja Fantasy actually was, so itâs this one.
Seanbaby: Wrong. But only probably because you’re right about everything else.
Brockway: The trailer below tells me itâs from Majestic Thunderbolt, but weâve established that all titles are at best a suggestion, and at worst a trap.
Brockway: We all know that Majestic Thunderbolt was renamed Godfather the Master after they made the trailer, but before release, and while the Richard Harrison parts were being spliced in without his permission. It was then renamed Ninja Exploitation 6 for North American markets. There were no parts 1-5, and Ninja Exploitation 7 was an unrelated movie, named for the team of seven ninjas it starred. (There were only ever four ninjas.)
Seanbaby: No. I included many tricks, yet this was not one of them. Or maybe it was. If so, it would be perfectly ninja legal because there is no such thing as NINJA LAW.
Seanbaby: Even what I said about NINJA LAW was a deception! SUFFER NINJA JUSTICE!
Brockway: Seanbaby gave me a three part award and all three of them are very clearly starring the same actors from the same scene. Ninja Kill gets only part 1 of-
Brockway: Youâll never fool me like this, Sean. Theyâre from three different movies.
Seanbaby: You have good instincts, but only for being wrong.
Brockway: I know enough about Godfrey Ho to know that one Ho lies and the other Ho tells the truth and theyâre both Godfrey Ho on every movie poster. Thunder of Gigantic Serpent of course gets-
Brockway: Now, I know Robocop is right there on the cover of Robo Vampire. Iâm saying no, heâs not in Robo Vampire. Heâs in this movie, and whatâs more Thunder of Gigantic Serpent earns-
Brockway: Iâm also giving it-
Brockway: I think this dog does a backflip and then turns into that clown ninja.
Seanbaby: “Hi, I’m Robert Brockway, and despite training my whole life for this, I stand before you wrong about Robocop, clown stabbing, and competitive ballroom dog dancing.” – Robert Brockway
Brockway: Iâm slowly learning to speak Godfrey Ho, and I think itâs less that he lies on every movie poster, and more that heâs got a kind of ninjutsu synesthesia, where many things are ninja, or at least closely associated with ninja. The scent of extinguished matches is ninja, windchimes are ninja, the texture of a terracotta pot is definitely ninja, ninja isnât often but not never ninja, and I think speedboats are very gun.
Seanbaby: You’re not right, again, but it’s a very Godfrey Ho kind of wrong.
Brockway: I sense tragedy in this poster. The heartbroken look on the white boyâs face, his seated flopsweat. Itâs like heâs contemplating the death of his best friend and master, or regretting hitting up the all night ninja chili contest, not to be confused with Godfrey Hoâs All Night Ninja Chili Contest, which was renamed Commando Ninja for American audiences. I donât know. Thereâs a vibe I canât pin down here. Maybe itâs because heâs not just pointing a flintlock pistol into his own crotch, heâs really jamming it in there, and his finger is already on the trigger. Maybe itâs because I canât tell if his greasy hair is doing something weird or if his headband says âMr. Ninja.â Thereâs just something in this poster thatâs trying to warn me about tragedy but it only speaks Ninjese run through Google Ho translator.
Seanbaby: The vibe you can’t pin down is “adult yellow belt watching his ex wife walk past his karate class with her new lover.” You also can’t match award plaques to ninja movies. Wrong!
Brockway: I donât think this movie exists. No prizes awarded.
Seanbaby: You’re absolutely wrong, but I’ll give partial credit for this answer because you should be right.
Brockway: This movie is called HONDA BORGE OF ASSASSINB. The poster makes it look like it takes place in New York City, which means it actually takes place in California, but was actually filmed in the part of China that looks exactly like California. Now, you think Iâm going to award it-
Brockway: But really it gets the Garfield phone again, because it stars Jim Davis.
Seanbaby: “Brockway’s wrong again,” says the voice on the other end of my line. “I fucking know,” I tell Jim Davis as I hang up my Garfield telephone. That was an unrelated call about something else you’re wrong about. Which brings me to the important news: you’re wrong.
Brockway: If you rent a Godfrey Ho movie from the VHS racks in the back of the Asian fish store, you need to be aware of the Godfrey Ho Inverse. If the cover has six ninjas joined together like Ninja Voltron riding a flaming lion through the White House, 100% of that movie takes place in a rented poolhouse and itâs mostly B-plot about a Mexican cartel, played by Asians, smuggling cocaine inside Cabbage Patch dolls. If the cover has Richard Harrison holding a gun and no other things, the movie has 4,000 ninjas in it and it ends with two white men turning into hawks wearing little ninja masks and having a blurry jumpcut sky battle before one of them explodes for reasons youâre not sure of. Hitman the Cobra looks boring as shit. So I know it needs-
Seanbaby: You’re right! You’re not, but this plaque puts me in such a good mood I couldn’t share the bad news.
Brockway: I donât know anything about this movie, but I know it fucks. I know it fucks hard and weird, and I know itâs confused about what that means. I know if it sees an ass it wants that ass, but maybe gets things muddled when it catches that ass. I know one thing for sure: There are no motorcycles.
Seanbaby: Godfrey Ho is many things, but mostly he is confused about fucking. That’s because ninjas reproduce by revealing their full face to the clutch of a green ninja’s eggs. Speaking of terribly wrong, you are.
Brockway: Look at this poster. Itâs magnificent. Robocop is taking a vampire hostage and the other vampires are like âoh shit! Donât hurt him, Robocop!â My focus is drawn to Robocop first, vampires second, and hats never. Thatâs why Iâm sure this is mostly about hats. Perhaps the Bolivians, still played by Chinese, are smuggling cocaine in the hats. This earns-
Brockway: Oh and if theyâre going to drown a ninja in a flowerpot in any of these movies â and they are in at least three of them â this is one. It also gets-
Seanbaby: Almost! The correct match for this Robocop one was the Robocop one!
Brockway: Thereâs only one award for Ninja in Action.
Brockway: I know this fucking guyâs on the cover of Thunder Fox. He looks like an anthropomorphic baseball warning kids about bonk injuries. You canât miss him. But Godfrey Ho is like the band Girl Talk: thereâs a little bit of something heâs done in everything heâs done, plus six other things that donât belong to him. Iâm looking at this guy, Iâm looking at the poster for Ninja in Action, and Iâm telling you: Thereâs no way his name isnât Kent Poon.
Seanbaby: Kent Poon’s number is what a Garfield phone dials when you hold its eyes shut. “Tell Brockway, *cough*, *cough*, that he’s wrong again, baby,” is what he just told me.
Brockway: Iâm absolutely fluent in Godfrey Ho now. In order to speak it, I had to forget word-to-object association, coherence, chronology, object word, chronology, speak order and chronology. Iâll tell you whatâs going on here: Flame Dragon Ninja Serpent Destruction. Sorry, let me try that again in English: In this movie a ninja takes a Bic to the nutsack.
Seanbaby: “I don’t know anything!” – This ninja getting his dick burned off and Robert Brockway, who is wrong again
Brockway: This is the invitation to the gay marriage all conservatives fear. This is how you remember Ninja Prom, specifically why you canât ever hold another one. This is the Senior Picture of two best friends who had a rough time in high school. I think the Godfrey Ho synesthesia is trying to tell us that there is wardrobe confusion in this movie, and that Richard Harrison isnât in this one. Letâs give it the-
Seanbaby: This is a movie about a Spokane, Washington figure skating club honoring the culture of Japan. They called it “A Salute to Ninja: The 14 Failures of Robert Brockway.”
Brockway: The lowest ninja in a Godfrey Ho movie is dressed all in black. Thatâs how you can quickly visually separate which ninjas psychically control tanks and which are machine gun fodder. If a ninja was actually about to kick ass in a Godfrey Ho movie, heâd be dressed in neon paisley beach towels and old Reeboks. The guy on the ground protectively soiling himself on the cover of Challenge of the Ninja has soft black ninja energy. This is definitely-
Seanbaby: Hey, ninja! If Brockway is wrong, look like a fucking dick! Oh no. I’m sorry, Robert.
Brockway: I give Zodiac America 2: Evil Destroyer–
Brockway: This just feels like a Kent Poon flick, I donât know what to tell you.
Seanbaby: That was the last one, so after 16 rounds of The Godfrey Ho Ninja Award Matching Game, I’ll tell you the same thing Kent Poon’s parole officer told him: “Robert Brockway is always wrong.” You matched nothing correctly and laughed in the face of reason– a perfect Godfrey Ho performance! Did you, the reader, match Brockway’s excellence? Answers below:
In the 1980s anybody who could snap kick was called âGrandmaster,â and you had to pay $15 a month plus belt fees to listen to a man who lost a fight to every cheesesteak he ever met talk about discipline. Grandmaster John McSweeney is exactly that man. He was an early adopter of American Kenpo, the most hilarious of martial arts. Heâs known as âthe man who brought karate to Ireland!â by anybody in earshot when he shouts it. If thereâs one thing you think about when you think about Ireland, itâs karate. He wrote an entire book and released a feature length video about his passion: Street Karate. Fuck yes. Fucking fuck yes letâs talk about Total Self Defense with Grandmaster John McSweeney!
Brockway: We build wishes in our hearts and the world knocks them down. You heard âstreet karate by Grandmaster John McSweeney, Irish karate lordâ and you thought the video would whip ass â all synth intros and jump cuts, karate death chops and prowling tigers, but deep down inside you knew the world wouldnât allow that.
Today, perhaps for the only time in your life, you get exactly what you want.
Seanbaby: This video fucking rules, and I’m so happy.
Brockway: Thereâs no better way to open a karate video than this. You could jumpkick through a burning Soviet flag and Iâd ask you where the fucking tiger was, loser. This theme song was made with the âKarate Mamboâ preset that came on every 1988 Casio, and youâll never forget it. It will roar in your ears every time a bar pervert disrespects the woman who doesnât know sheâs your girlfriend.
Seanbaby: Karate, gun, karate, gun, tiger is the cheat code for making the perfect video. I’ve never seen a more beautiful series of editing decisions. If you told me, “This is a magical tape where each person sees exactly what they want,” I’d believe you.
Brockway: Sean, this is a magical tape where each person sees exactly what they want. Weâre only seeing the exact same thing because our hearts are in sync.
Grandmaster John McSweeney begins his presentation like all women will end his presentation: completely wet.
Brockway: He wants you to know that âMcSweeneyâs Self Defense is designed for police and security professionals as well as the ordinary citizen.â Itâs tough to imagine now, but this was from a time when we thought we should respect police. We were so brain-poisoned that Paul Verhoeven released a two-hour biting satire about corrupt, incompetent law enforcement stealing our civil rights, and our national response was to cheer when Robocop shot a guy in the nuts. With that in mind, I want you to picture 1980s policemen, direly serious and fully mustached, attempting each of these techniques in pitched battles with cartel hitmen.
Seanbaby: I know enough about bad karate to know that suggesting this karate should count as attempted murder. If you showed this karate to my hero, Robocop, he’d say, “Nice try, creep,” and punch through your dick with a far more effective type of blow.
Brockway: In every way Grandmaster John McSweeney fails karate, he succeeds at karate catchphrases.
Brockway: That may not sound like much, but you need context. Cool karate sayings are hard. Basic karate maniac Richard Fike inspired his students by saying that âsloppy practice makes sloppy joes.â Thatâs how you inspire karate mutiny, Sloppy Dick. McSweeney ends his introduction with âSelf defense means meeting violence, with violence!â Followed by âATTACK THE ATTACKER!â That is a fucking mutineer deterrent. I donât know how you keelhaul a man on a stripmall dojo, but all of his students are terrified of it.
Seanbaby: It’s sort of suspicious that John seems to have put no effort into cardio, weight training, or karate, but has hundreds of carefully rehearsed excuses for murder.
Brockway: Itâs not his fault. Grandmaster John McSweeney is a powerhouse of a man, a human tiger. Death doesnât follow in his wake, itâs running from him. And I get what youâre really asking by bringing up his cardio and weight training â donât worry, heâll teach you how he stays in such great shape by channeling great cats later â but first, killing a man instantly. Eight ways.
Brockway: No games, no coy hints or delayed promises. You want to know how to do the death touch? Sweet, weâll get to eight of them right away, first thing, before you learn how to stretch. McSweeney boasts âthe unarmed portion contains powerful strikes which are designed to drop assailants instantly.â Instantly. Every strike. He has no use for blows that do not maim and destroy. Heâs a karate Midas. Grandmaster John McSweeney canât pet any dog he loves, thatâs the price he paid for this power.
Now to properly death touch you will need to be able to channel âexplosive hitting powerâ which sounds like a lifelong quest full of training, but no, that section takes 30 seconds and itâs 50% this:
And 50% this:
Brockway: As a little bonus, you are now immune to all attacks. âThis covers the full range of protection,â McSweeney says, windmilling. âThey canât even hurt your feelings, and they will try,â he probably adds. Windmilling.
Seanbaby: I think I could punch him if I timed it juuuuuuuust ri– no, he’s right. It’s impenetrable.
Brockway: Thereâs no crack in the armor, you can fend off every attack by waving hello at 100% enthusiasm. But you saw The Karate Kid five years earlier, you knew that. What Mr. Miyagi never told Daniel-san is that you can also use these circles to destroy. McSweeney says âI believe that these two movements are the primary moves of karate, from these moves come all the strikes.â Maybe that seems a little simplistic, but like all karate grifts this whole thing hinges on pretend math breathlessly rambled by a maniac twirling his arms in a middle school gymnasium. You see, a circle strike has more than triple the force of an uppercut because itâs more than double the speed. Thatâs karate math, junior! You bring your teacher out here and weâll see how his algebra matches up with my geometry. CIRCLE! CIRCLE! CIRCLE!
Seanbaby: The only issue I have with this attack is the lack of mobility. You could really only use this to kill an elevator or defend your purse in a nightclub. Unless… yes. Yes. Hold on, let me draw up my plans for a combat platform.
Brockway: Weâll probably have to pull this for liability purposes. If youâre reading this and thereâs just a gif of Steven Seagal solemnly accepting melons up there, itâs because some sick son of a bitch used this idea to murder a mall.
Grandmaster McSweeney tells us a story about a woman with a black belt in karate who was mugged and raped, and the 1980s wondered âwhy did that happen? She knew karate!â The world was so close to realizing the truth about karate, but no. McSweeney knows that the lady just froze, and thatâs the fault of sport karate. Bullshit sport karate. His worst enemy! With its sparring and its trophies. This is street karate, dirty street karate – out here âsparringâ is the sound a man makes when you rip out his throat and your trophy is his ripped out throat. That idiot woman with her vanity karate was missing two things: spontaneous reaction, and knockout power!
Which, again, looks like your dad losing his temper with a non-starting lawn mower.
Brockway: Right about here is where you picture police officers doing this to cartel assassins.
Seanbaby: “I thought you were going to teach me how to fight! I haven’t learned a thing,” complained the karate student.
“Show me air guitar,” replied the wise master.
“W-what?” said the karate student, still somehow not seeing where this is going.
“Show me. Air the guitar,” the wise master repeated.
The student reluctantly obeyed, knocking the head off one man and ripping the penis off another. When their bodies were found, the lead investigator said, “Cause of death: rock and roll. We can’t make an arrest for this. We can’t do shit about this.” And it was then the karate student understood he had learned much.
Brockway: The destructive potential is limitless. Grandmaster McSweeney says if you hit a man in the eye socket with that windmill it bounces his eyeball off his brain. Thatâs an instant knockout! Sport karate wonât teach you how to dribble a manâs eyeball! You want a special achievement patch in McSweeneyâs class, itâs called eyeball juice on your tucked-in polo.
Brockway: What about high kicks? Iâm glad you asked: Fuck you. Can you kick a man if youâre both trapped in a phone booth? No? Itâs useless, then. Shutup and learn to circle or get groped to death by marauding reeferheads, you sportsman.
Seanbaby: Kicks are the ballerina’s air guitar. The aspiring sommelier’s eye socket chop. Anyone who tells you there’s a fighting style more powerful than fast pitch softball is trying to sell you nunchucks.
Brockway: Really, this is all you need to know. You can windmill any man into easily disposable pieces. If you hit him in the chin with that, it will break his neck. The nose? Right into his brain. Anywhere you strike on a face will explode it, human beings are grenades and Grandmaster John McSweeney is going to teach you where the pins are.
Seanbaby: Most cowards don’t know this, but the human hand is a wrecking ball of unbreakable bones and the human head is a cream puff baked around soft teeth. If you’re doing it right, a fight should look like a child falling down a ferris wheel. It should look like a chimpanzee not comprehending a shirt. It should look like Def Leppard’s drummer saying good night to an above average crowd.
Brockway: Just in case you meet a man with an unexplodable head, some kind of junkie reverse-Robocop immune to skull shatters, you can use a flying knee. Now, a fool will go for the genitals. A street karatist will destroy the pubic bone. âItâll break just like an eggshell!â McSweeney crows. You know, those fragile load-bearing human bones.
Donât worry if you miss, youâll hit the bladder ⊠⊠⊠rupturing the bladder!
You can miss completely but so long as you full-circle, the consolation prize is your foe in a colostomy bag. After all, a bladderâs just a meat balloon filled with your favorite trophy: the urine of your enemies.
Brockway: Every strike is like this – every single little movement collapses a head, bounces an eyeball, breaks a pubis, it turns out that this whole time undisciplined playground flailing was the secret to dismantling a human like a Costco chicken.
Seanbaby: Does that say “KEY TARGETS: PUBIC BONE”? That means Grandmaster McSweeney was so focused on his karate he forgot to change the default title settings on his camcorder.
Brockway: Iâm glad you brought up the Key Targets in Grandmaster McSweeneyâs Terminator-vision. See, the human body is almost entirely unstable joints ready to be twirled apart.But if youâre a woman, and therefore unable to windmill at the proper speeds to scatter a man, what do you do? You eye gouge. Make no mistake – itâs for the feeble and cowardly. Which all females are, so gouge away ladies.
Women, youâve been here: youâre out running when suddenly itâs a jog-by molesting.
Seanbaby: This lady has a decent double eye socket strike, but she can’t sell a rock bottom for shit.
Brockway: This seems like one of those invented scenarios I go to mock, thinking itâs the fearmongering of an insecure brain, only to have 18 women come forward and explain this happens so often they weave needles into their sports bras. Letâs focus instead on McSweeneyâs karate math: âA ÂŒ inch push to the eyeball is all it takes to trigger a catatonic fit! Theyâll drop to the ground instantly.â Every martial arts lunatic spouts these numbers as proof, as though they are relentlessly testing eyeball gouges on captive rapists in karate labs.
Already youâre a justice propeller spinning your way through evil, the only downside to encountering a drug-user now is how hard they are to wash out of your boots. What youâre worried about now, 15 minutes into this video, is: Am I going to get in trouble for blowing a man apart like he was made of Legos? Iâm glad you asked: No! Not if you do your Irish Manslaughter Calculus: Itâs all about assessing the threat posed to you, and matching that number up to its partner on a handy graph of destroyed body parts. For example: If a man gets you in a bear hug, he could break your spine in a second, so you are justified in collapsing his eyeballs but not murdering him, unless heâs fifty or more pounds heavier than you. This is what you really need to practice, the death blows are easy. The legal murder math is pretty tough.
Seanbaby: If your plan is to fight off your attacker with a dance routine, I’d say you can go ahead and not worry about what happens if you win the fight too illegally hard. This is like rehearsing your Grammy speech when you’re Corey Feldman. It is like ordering 40 lb. dumbbells when you’re Corey Feldman. It’s like planning to eat your unlabeled yogurt when you’re in a sex cult with Corey Feldman.
Brockway: Somehow weâre not done exploring eyeball destruction. âTwo fingers, four fingers, you can use one finger!â McSweeney proudly shouts. Any number of fingers is enough to kill a man, itâs crazy we even invented knives when every human being has ten on them at all times. But I know what youâre saying, and so does McSweeney: âItâs very hard to hit the eye, because people will close them.â Cowards! What do you do then? Leave the area? Develop a passion for knitting? Start some kind of knitting club? No! Just use-
Brockway: Itâs a little known fact that tigers are natureâs answer to the intact eyeball. The Tigerâs Claw is not a death touch, and therefore we donât respect it, but it is great for blinding an opponent. Which is what women do when menstrual anemia prevents them from windmilling. Of course this is also a circular strike. Only an idiot would scratch down – youâll get trapped in the eyebrows! Natureâs tiger pit. What if theyâre wearing glasses? As karate science shows 90% of rapists are? The circle will knock the glasses off at the start, and then continue through to gouge! Is there anything a circle canât do? Yes: Unrupture a molestorâs eyeball.
Seanbaby: This motherfucker created a move that waves goodbye to your face as it removes your face and he calls it a “MINOR STRIKE.” He is already crawl-stroking through your remains and he hasn’t even finished his opening combo.
Brockway: Youâre right, weâre getting bogged down in blinding strikes for children and the terminally ill. We only know four surefire kill moves, thatâs not enough. Letâs get back to the death touches.
Brockway: See that little fragile bone at the end of your wrist, you know, the human wrist – the most durable and shock absorbing of all joints? Thatâs natureâs most powerful weapon. Hitting the base of a junkieâs skull with it pops him like a can of snakes.
Seanbaby: In volleyball, you call this attack a “serve.” You can also use it to tell your Nintendo controller it was wrong. The point is, casual athletes or the very cranky may already be a master of Leopard Palm.
Brockway: âThe Chinese knew about the circle!â McSweeney yells to his traumatized son and cameraman. âJapanese? Korean? Linear stuff! Terrible stuff!â The circle has no weaknesses. Donât worry if thereâs not enough space for a full windmill â you can do it wide or short. Tuck your arm in like a T-rex and spin it, thatâs a death blow. You only need 7 inches of arc to wristblast a speedhead straight to the devil. Thatâs karate science!
Seanbaby: “There were 152 inches between my forehead and his wrist, but that was 145 more inches than he needed.” – THE HEADSTONES OF MY ENEMIES
Brockway: This passes the McSweeney Test, you could use it to cave in a manâs memory box if you were both in a phone booth for non-erotic reasons. Like, say you dropped a quarter and it rolled into a phone booth, and you both went for it at the same time. What cop or wife would question that?
I know what youâre worried about, and so does McSweeney: âYou wouldnât think destroying the skull would give you a knockout, but it does!â Most people donât think youâll aim for their skull!â You laugh, but this is actually when we invented head punching, in 1988. Before that we just blasted the knees and every fight took sixteen hours. Itâs why in those old home videos every man walked like they were riding an invisible horse.
âRocky Marciano used this strike,â McSweeney tells us for four straight minutes. You didnât know Rocky studied leopard style huh? Guess what he used it for? To disrespect skulls. âRocky cracked brains with his leopard style, that ainât no sport karate!â is what the nursing home workers hear in the background as his weeping son makes the toughest call of his life.
Seanbaby: You act like he’s thought of everything, but let’s say I’m fighting an enemy without a head.
Brockway: Iâm glad you asked: Yes, this can also be used to destroy a bladder.
Brockway: What good is it if you leave your attacker with an intact pissbag? You need to see that piss, thatâs how you know you win.
Seanbaby: It’s suspicious that his assistant is acting like he was accidentally leopard pawed in the junk on many previous takes.
Brockway: Has this ever happened to you: you just took a parking space from a van, and now you also want to destroy its driver physically? You need Chop.
Seanbaby: Fuck. Fuck!
Brockway: The only problem with the classic karate chop – another instant kill move – is that chumps and sport karatists aim it all wrong. They chop at their attackerâs hair, their cars, nearby dogs. Itâs like a gun, you gotta aim it at the thing you want to die! And of course, you need the circle if you want to develop enough power to separate a man from the rest of himself.
Brockway: Next youâll learn the Brainstem Chop. Itâs a chopâŠ
To the brainstem.
Simply chop through their neck, straight to the brainstem. Itâs that easy! âItâs in all three brains,â McSweeney says, madly. âIt controls heart rate, blood pressure, breathing – you hit that with a chop, a nice big circle! He ainât gettinâ up!â
âCircle a manâs brainstem, all three brains, no breath!â Grandmaster John McSweeney screeches, losing total control of his arms, wondering why his class is taking notes on this aneurysm.
Seanbaby: This seems stupid, but Grandmaster McSweeney is undefeated in over 300 imaginary neck battles, with only seven losses by way of bookshelf or lamp.
Brockway: I mean, yeah. Thereâs a reason this video is filmed in an empty warehouse. Pick any part of this and itâs like watching a guy lose a fight to imaginary birds in a 7-11 parking lot.
Letâs learn about the upswing. It looks like a dyslexic punch but this, like every blow, murders a man.
Brockway: âThe full 360, thatâs where power comes from!â McSweeney says, fighting ghosts only he remembers. What, you can only make 295 degrees? Say hello to your mother in hell, because your father also couldnât circle hard enough to save the ones he loved. And she was a filthy papist.
Seanbaby: This is how a four-year-old fucks up throwing a frisbee. This is the sign language word for “Philadelphia Eagles fan.”
Brockway: Hereâs the trick to the Upswing: Like with all great strikes, you canât get this even slightly wrong or youâll break every bone in your hand. If you hit flat, youâre done for. You can only strike with your totally isolated middle knuckle, which is invincible, and will instantly split a jawbone. Frankly itâs insane that God designed every inch of man so poorly, but weâre not here to question His way, only to de-joint His creations.
Seanbaby: I’m glad you said it because in my notes I put “with every twirl of his mighty arm, Grandmaster McSweeney proves God to be a fool.”
Brockway: For all its blasphemy, the Upswing is actually really easy to execute. Just think of it like a weaponized Three Stooges, and obviously you want to also destroy the bladder. Always destroy the bladder.
Seanbaby: I honestly think this man got trapped in a dryer when he was a child and it’s still the only thing he sees when he closes his eyes.
Brockway: Next itâs the Eagleâs Claw, which employs devastating crushing strength using only two fingers. Not the whole hand, you dolt, you sportmonkey, you 180 degree son of a bitch. The best destructive power comes from battle pinching.
Brockway: Now, you are going to have to train every day of your life, several hours a day in pinching for this to be effective.
Seanbaby: There is nothing better than this video.
Seanbaby: McSweeney Total Self Defense Fitness Tip: You can train for this with two upside down cows or two right side up hunks.
Brockway: God, what a training montage.
You already knew this, but letâs establish our key targets for pinching a man into a coma.
Seanbaby: I already know. The blad–
Brockway: This is not a bladder strike! Itâs only for destroying balls. Well, I guess also-
Brockway: Man, McSweeney Jr. is so unhappy to be playing karate Shutter Island for his demented father.
Seanbaby: Grabbing nuts and choking necks are pretty natural instincts. I feel like the only reason you’d train for them specifically would be if you were trying to get a karate orgy going. There are only two levels of testicle pinching expertise: regular and ejaculating.
Brockway: Can a throat ejaculate? I retract my question. It will be answered shortly by McSweeney himself. The Eagleâs Claw is, of course, a lethal strike. Now that youâve learned to pinch a windpipe, itâs a simple matter of taking it home with you. As Grandmaster John McSweeney explains using his PhD in Karate Biology: âYou donât have to be an expert to know that a man needs his windpipe to live!â
Brockway: The side fist, or heartstop punch! POWER STRIKE. Thatâs just a name, it doesnât actually stop your heart. It explodes it. Grandmaster McSweeney calls it âa death shot.â Now, this may look like first round handshake trials at Boston Dynamics, but if you simply donât turn your wrist when striking, you can punch a man through time. Heâll meet Thomas Jefferson and heâll tell him âdying gurgle.â Itâs what inspires the Declaration of Independence – you owe it to America to stop turning your wrist like a nancy sport karatist. Children might mock this, they might call you the choo choo man – but if you use it to punch their daddy you can watch them fade from the timeline without risking an awkward confrontation with mall security.
Seanbaby: I just told my phone, “Siri, set a reminder every 15 seconds for the rest of my life: SIDE-FIST (HEART STOP) (POWER STRIKE).”
Brockway: You want to explode the sternum â itâs easy, god rigged that sucker to fly apart on impact like a popsicle frisbee â allowing you to punch unfettered at the heart itself. You donât even need a lot of lead up. Itâs like Grandmaster McSweeney told your mother, âI only need six inches to take your heart!â âŠbefore caving in your fatherâs chest and laughing as you Marty McFlyâed out of her memories.
Seanbaby: This punch doesn’t have its own circle, so you need to twirl your penis as you attack. I normally would have taken the time to construct a real joke, but I am way too busy practicing these moves. Forehead slap. Chest jostle. Bladder jab. I fucking dare anyone to be behind me with a skull, in front of me with a groin, or to the side of me with an unstopped heart.
Brockway: Oh we definitely need to string these death blows into a combo. McSweeney is way ahead of you. Letâs say youâre in a bar and youâre attacked by a mustache. Now, weâve established that a coward or woman (same thing) gouges, and a sport dope punches, but a true karate master circle slaps until he sees the obituary.
Brockway: That man died three times. After that series of flailing wild slaps, his entire head exploded in piss. 7 inches of arc is all you need to knock out a man with a circle! Six inches, four times the power. 360 degrees! Itâs the circle! CIRCLE! Itâs the Chinese Circle, get off me – I donât wanna go back to the home, they donât have enough blankets and I hate the pudding selection. EAT CIRCLE!
Seanbaby: “I know this guy. Willie Fragile, local pussy. By the look of things, he must have really pissed off his 70 pound wife,” said the crime scene investigator.
Brockway: But what if youâre weak and feeble? If youâre crippled and facing a gang? Those, and only those, are scenarios appropriate for armed self defense.
Seanbaby: Jesus fuck, there’s a part where we just shoot people? This is the milksop’s karate.
Brockway: Letâs be quick on this section. We donât need to watch a guy named Grandmaster John play with pistols. If you want to watch a white guy with a weird fantasy title play with guns, just protest for civil rights in Mississippi.
Brockway: Long story short: He thinks shooting with two hands is for chumps, and aiming is for sissies. What you want to do is wildly spin around with the gun in one hand at hip height, pointing it at things you wish were quieter. Also you want to start pulling the trigger while itâs still in the holster so you can be quicker off the draw. That doesnât seem right to me based on everything everyone else has ever said about guns and the place where human beings keep their feet, but Iâm also not interested in the right answer. The only worthwhile part of this section is Mirror Shooting Training, in which Grandmaster John McSweeney faces his greatest enemy.
Seanbaby: This looks like a scene from You’re Not Man Enough to Stab Me, Charlie Brown.
Brockway: Hey, speaking of: Thereâs one main secret to deadly knife fighting, I bet you canât guess what it is.
Seanbaby: This looks like a scene from You Wake Up Every Night Still Thinking You’re in Vietnam, Charlie Brown.
Brockway: Donât want to kill a man with a blade? Iâll let Grandmaster McSweeney answer that one. âWhat are you gonna do, turn the other cheek? If you wanna turn the other cheek, youâll die! ATTACK THE ATTACKER.â
Brockway: Yeah, they redacted the part in the bible where Jesus Christ says that cheek bullshit and the original Grandmaster John circle-slaps his ass right into the Sea of Galilee.
Seanbaby: This looks like a scene from You’re a Good Knife Lawyer, Charlie Brown, If You Or Someone You Know Wants to Turn a Legal Problem Into a Knife Problem Call 1-800-KNIIIIFE.
Brockway: We all know what youâre really here for. Total Self Defense⊠After Dark. Youâve learned how to completely destroy a man, now itâs time to learn how to completely destroy a woman.
Seanbaby: Gasp
Brockway: The voiceover for this is Grandmaster John McSweeney crooning âsavage beauty. Look at that powerful body, strength, grace, magnificent form.â You know heâs not talking about the tiger, right? Look at that prowling predator dissolving into a high school gym teacher, naked save for karate panties, athletic socks, and loafers. The intent here is unmistakable. This is how you signal to a karate woman to put away her gougers, youâre here for a different kind of pubis destruction.
Seanbaby: He’s got everything a woman could want. Hair like a forgotten peach. A tube-like structure. Most of his knee cartilage back in a Cambodian mine field. Three hundred and fucking sixty degrees of detonating thrust. Your panties aren’t sliding off, ladies, they are somewhere beyond the panty-shaped hole in the wall behind you.
Brockway: This can only be unisex wank material. See, back in the â80s you couldnât just masturbate. You needed a system of deniability for being caught pantsless in the living room. This section is advertised as an exercise video, in the same way that a huge-tittied woman in spandex would winkingly explain the benefits of Jigglecize. Just try to keep it in your pants as Grandmaster John McSweeney air-climbs a giant woman only he can see.
Seanbaby: This is majestic. I will never love again the way I love this self defense tape.
Brockway: âTigers have developed the ultimate exercise system, far superior to manâs,â he tells us, sweatily dogpaddling through beige. âTigers are strong, but they donât work out. They donât even jog! Yet they can tear the head off a man,â something we all want according to McSweeney. But how does that happen? The secret: Every adorable stretch is a workout! Itâs basically just dynamic resistance while auditioning for Cats. But the key is to âthink into the muscle you want to grow – think into it!â
Maybe start by thinking into the shoulder first, because death-circling a gang of jogging tootheads intent on sexual mischief is hell on the rotator cuff.
Seanbaby: I agree with the “fuck it” of all of this.When your fighting style only works in your imagination, you might as well transform into a tiger. Frank Dux has got to be so embarrassed that when he made up Bloodsport he did so entirely in human form. Only McSweeney has the balls to claim, “Raaoohr, ignore the wet toddler body, you see before you a tiger.”
Brockway: He was born in the wrong time. Fifty years later and heâd be the undisputed king of a furry forum not well regarded in the community.
We need the plausible deniability part of Tigercise. This isnât just jack-off material, you tell your wife, at her witâs end after the phone booth incident. Every other exercise man does completely destroys him. Calisthenics will cripple you, what human body can withstand aerobics? Jogging is the ultimate dim mak. But with Irish Kitty Yoga you can survive the brutal exercise gauntlet and finally reach your fitness goal which is, again, being able to tear the head off a man.
Seanbaby: 1. THE MOIST HERNIA
2. THE DICK CHENEY STRIPPER
3. THE ELEVENTH STRONGEST BABY
4. THE SEX HAM
5. THE LUBRICATED UNCLE
6. THE MARGARINE KOBOLD
7. THE NIPPLED POTATO
Brockway: Ladies, gentlemen, newly awakened human tiger fetishists, I leave you with this. According to my karate science, which took the lives of 14 research muggers, it should be enough to finish.