I talked about the game of Myachi Fu earlier today on the blog and I felt it would be remiss of me not to also share this related story. This is in part due to the fact that it emphasizes an important safety risk. It is also partly because the story involves Animal going butt first out of a window and that's just funny.
We came up with Myachi Fu back in the summer of 06 and for weeks afterwards we would spend an hour or more a day duking it out in the sultry Orlando evenings. As with any new Myachi game, we were hard at work finding new strategies and nuances. We were also naming moves and strikes and generally having a blast.
After a few weeks of practice we were kind of anxious to show it to someone. Kid Myach was out of town on a long series of trade shows and Myachi Man was a few states away so we waited until we had a free evening and went up to St. Augustine to see Butter.
Butter had been a part time Myachi Master early in the movement. He came on board the same summer that Animal and I did and did a couple summers with us before graduating and moving on to the glamourous life of a professional artist.
Butter was no lightweight in the world of Myachi. In addition to serving as a Master, he also designed our website and our forum, not to mention the fact that invented such fundamental moves as the Ninja, the Dark Slide and the Bruce Lee.
Anyway, he was living only a few hours away and he was having a little get together so Animal and I hopped in my junky old Hyundai (it was too hard to find parking for the Myachi Mobile). On the way we talked about how cool it was going to be to show Butter our new Myachi game. He was bound to love it being that he was a big fan of both Myachi and martial arts.
So we get to his place and there's a couple dozen people hanging out. Like everything in St. Augustine, the house he's renting is mad old. Quick lesson in American history, it's actually the oldest continuously occupied European city in the country, dating back to a Spanish settlement founded in 1565. Don't worry, there won't be a test.
So after an hour or so of hanging out and being sociable, we start moving Butter's living room furniture out of the way so that we can show him Myachi Fu. He's all stoked but he warns us as we get started that the house is really old. "Stay away from the windows," he says ominously and we nod and proceed to ignore the warning altogether.
So we go a quick round and Animal wins it fast when I leave my elbow out for the taking. Butter's loving the whole concept but he mentions that we got a little close to the window so be extra careful in round two.
Of course, I was more concerned with winning the round than I was with Butter's 100 year old windows. There were twenty or more people watching and I couldn't exactly go down two rounds to none. The round went long and we largely avoided the windows through pure happenstance. Eventually I won and we faced off for a final round to determine the winner.
The game was a bit less refined then than it is now so we were tossing each other around a little. Eventually I got into a rhythm and put Animal into a desperate retreat... right toward the window.
"Guys," Butter warned with an exhausted tone, "watch out for the..."
He probably finished the sentence with the word "window", but I couldn't h
ear it over the sound of Animal's butt breaking the glass. Animal went about half way out before we caught him. In his defense, he actually kept the Myachi on his hand. I dropped mine when I grabbed his forearm to keep him from spilling tailbone first onto the concrete below, so technically he won the match.
I wrestled Animal back in with the help of a nearby onlooker and turned to a completely silent room. All eyes were on Butter who was staring at the broken window as if he were still seeing Animal go through it in some sort of slow motion visual echo. Crickets chirped outside. You could hear it because it was really quiet. And because the window was broken.
There was a really long moment where nobody said anything. Butter had warned us about the windows at least three times and still we'd managed to screw around enough to break one. I tried to formulate something in my defense, but nothing occurred to me.
Finally, Butter broke the silence:
"I'm not paying for that," he said.
"No," I said, "of course not. I'll pay for it."
"Good," Butter said and nodded. The crowd took a collective breath of relief as Butter continued, "In that case, that was awesome."
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There is a moral to this story, obviously, and it's not just "listen to Butter". Myachi Fu is an outdoor game and you should always be really aware of your surroundings when you're playing. And remember, people who live in glass houses shouldn't play Myachi Fu.
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