Silly / Absurd

#81 · Catching flies (Mr. Miyagi style)

Crane your arm back, focus your mind, and strike with lightning precision. Results not guaranteed. Practice indefinitely.

In The Karate Kid, Mr Miyagi catches a housefly out of the air with a pair of chopsticks, and Daniel spends the rest of the scene failing to. This is the correct ratio. You will not manage it either, and you should still try, because failing at it is a genuinely pleasant way to lose twenty minutes.

Why it works

A housefly's compound eyes resolve flicker at around 250 times a second, against roughly 60 for a human. It is not that flies are fast - they aren't, particularly - it is that the fly perceives your hand approaching in something close to slow motion and has already decided where to go. Worse, a fly takes off backwards and upwards from wherever it is facing, so the obvious intercept point is the one place it definitely will not be.

Tips & warnings

• Aim slightly behind and above the fly rather than at it.
• Move steadily rather than fast. Sudden acceleration is exactly what its escape reflex is tuned to.
• If you somehow succeed, let it go out of the window. You have nothing left to prove.