Application of Monkey Steals the Peach

Whip the arms as described and strike the enemy’s groin with the open palm, fingers bent at the first joint in a Monkey Paw or Tiger Claw fist. The impact will lift the enemy off the ground. Those skilled in chi kung can direct energy up the Chueng Mo channel of the body and stop the heart. Followers of the Iron Hand styles immediately clench their fists tightly, with a crushing grip, and jerk the hand sharply back to the near hip, effectively ripping away the genitals. Massive blood loss causes death.

Boy oh boy. Love a book with the phrase “effectively ripping away the genitals”.

Ninja Mind Control is a filled with 1980s-style black and white photos showing a ninja pulling a variety of moves on a guy who, I swear, is wearing denim jeans with with his karate outfit. Was he some hobo they pulled off the street for the photo-shoot? I wonder where he is today. Perhaps running a small muffin bar or maybe shouting at mailboxes and doing karate outside a local McDonald’s.

Want some power?

Kuji-Kiri are the nine levels of power, or more correctly, nine interlacing finger positions which will enable you to be invisible, control time and space and all the rest of it.  Wow, I just have to lace my fingers in some way and I’ll be able to read minds? Get me this book right now.

This crazy mixture of breathing exercises, ways to use hypnosis in combat, principles of “Ninja Magic” and denim-jeans karate guy comes across as terribly earnest. Someone, somewhere, believes the utter bullshit that is this book.

A Comedy Tour De Force

As a comedy masterpiece with a kickass cover that you can keep on your bookshelf and use as a conversation piece it is simply brilliant. Put it facing out and people can’t help but pick it up. Ashida Kim is perhaps one of the unrecognised comedic geniuses of our time. This pseudonym protected author writes about ninja techniques with an absolutely straight face, much like Max Brooks and his Zombie Survival Guide (I own this and will be reviewing it in the future), knowing that in always maintaining his facade of deadly ninja seriousness he is part of a most brilliant and hilarious joke.

Buy Ninja Mind Control from Amazon, or you could check out Dojo Press, apparently Ashida Kim’s publisher of choice.  In looking for the front cover so I didn’t have to scan it, I also found a PDF version for download here.

For more hilarity from Ashida Kim, check out his website (in particular his $10,000 challenge. Spies are apparently after the guy).

How I got this book: I think from an esoteric bookshop that used to be in Swanson Street, Melbourne. The cover is all shiny and new so I don’t think it came from a second-hand shop. I’m pretty sure I bought it simply for the front cover and title and didn’t realise at the time I was buying a masterpiece of comedy.

sidenote: I read some reviews out in the world (check out the Amazon ones in particular) reviewing this book like it was an actual book on ninja mind control. How Ashida Kim must be laughing it up that people have taken his work seriously. He truly is the Andy Kaufman of the ninja world.

For more Ninja fun check out Dr McNinja (a doctor who is also a ninja) and White Ninja comics.

Happy reading,

Mat

the trojan guinea pig – the lesser known of the trojan wooden animal army

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