The Forum's Most Epic Ninja Moments

[EV]

Have any of you ever dome something that totally screams of a Ninja Moment?

Just now, a massive mosquito was buzzing around my desk and annoying me something chronic. It kept flying into my laptop while I was trying to compose a rather epically long email.

Eventually I got pissed off, grabbed a paired pair of socks from next to me and threw it as hard as I could in the general direction of the Mosquito in the space of a second. They flew across the room and hit the wall behind me. The buzzing stopped.

Somehow, there is now a MASSIVE amount of squished mosquito on my wall, and I need to wash my socks.

Still, a fairly epic ninja moment? Can I get a whoop whoop?
Share your own personal amazing moments below...

[Nick]

Wow, congrats. My socks would have killed it also...just from smell alone.

[Omen]

Caught a hobby knife between my big toe and second toe that rolled off a table.  It buried itself about half an inch into my sandal.

[EV]

Caught a hobby knife between my big toe and second toe that rolled off a table.  It buried itself about half an inch into my sandal.

Shit, that's pretty hardcore. If you'd lost the toe, you could always tell people it was frostbite, ya know, because you're so cool  [/awful joke]

My girlfriend once went to get a glass of milk, and tripped over with the full cup on the way back. Naturally, she fell over her laptop cable, and her arm went down. She somehow managed to catch the trail of milk from the air in the cup fully with no spillage. That was pretty intense.

Nick, I'm glad you live across an ocean from me

[bgb]

Shot a dragonfly with a shotgun.

[MadBunny]

I had a student throw a chair at my head a few years back, without thinking about it I grabbed it out of the air, put it on the ground an sat down on it in one smooth motion.

[pianodwarf]

Once, when I was about seven or eight years old, I was playing in the front yard while my father was using the riding lawnmower (one of those that has the two propeller-like blades) to cut the grass.  At one point when I happened to look over at what he was doing, the lawnmower made a loud, very bad noise, and one of those blades suddenly came flying out from underneath the mower, still spinning like a propeller, and coming straight at me.  As I saw it coming flying toward me, with all of about one second to react, I jumped up in the air, and the blade flew under my feet and went past me before I hit the ground again.  If I hadn't done that, I could very well have lost both my feet.

I'd give my eyeteeth to be able to say that that was due to diabolically lightning-fast analysis and logical determination of how to avoid the danger, but it wasn't.  It was a completely reflexive and instinctive response.

[jeremy0]

When I was a kid, my dad used to smack me on the back of the head just kidding around - I quickly learned when it was coming and was able to dodge it every time, if that counts.  I don't really have moments that stick out, but I'm very nimble on my feet - have very good balance, I can commonly stay on my feet stumbling and tripping, can run up and down stairs skipping steps, can walk a beam no problem, can pass a field test absolutely drunk, etc. 

I guess one thing that stands out was once when we were going fishing we hit some wake from another boat, and my mom started falling out the side - I reacted and grabbed her on the back and pulled her back in (buff moment)..

[magicmiles]

After many failed attempts I finally achieved this meaningless, but sort of impressive feat:

Stand in the front driveway, throw a tennis ball high in the air so that it goes way over our carport towards the backyard, run under the carport and undeneath the trajectory of the ball, then catch it without looking up in my left hand behind my back.

[Timtheskeptic]

i remember we were at a river raft. There were boats and we were on one. My little sister was falling over into the water and i just grabbed her wrist in an instant and quickly pulled her in.

[Historicity]

Pianodwarf doesn't remember his thought processes so I can top him.

When I was 16 and had my learner's permit the laws required an adult in my car so I took my Mom to a parking lot to practice.  (My mom couldn't drive, but the state law just said it had to be an adult with me.)

The lot was behind a shopping center and had an entrance at the back to a quiet suburban street.  I barely knew how to drive and to overcome a compulsion to slam the brakes I would say a mantra when I wanted to stop: "And slowly press the brake" with increasing pressure.

It was a Sunday and the stores there were closed.  The lot was almost empty.  I maneuvered carefully around, learning about turning radius and preparing to learn parallel parking.

THEN MY FOOT SLAMMED THE BRAKE and I was shocked that I had done that.  "I shouldn't do that" were the words in my head.   Then it flooded in that someone taking a short cut from the suburban street to go around the stores and reach the main street in front had been driving too fast and had cut in front of me.  It flooded in -- the sight of the car and the wordless decision to slam the brakes.   At the same time I could completely remember my careful train of thought as I was talking myself thru the learning process.   At that point I remembered the incident in 2 parallel simultaneous streams.

I had been learning the process, talking myself thru, with my left brain.  The faster, wordless, vision and space line of thought that took over was my right brain. 

The computer in front of you acts much of the time as a single functioning device.  But its OS is a collection of processes such as DLLs and scheduling.   Similarly each of us is conveniently a single identity but for a moment "I" realized that "I" am a collection of faculties.

[ParkingPlaces]

No ninja stuff for me. I'd make a great hero. They run in my family, after all   

People used to think I could do something cool. If someone snuck behind me and yelled or something in hopes of making me jump, I never did. The kids in my neighborhood tried over and over and could never succeed. It drove them crazy.

What they didn't know is that I'm so frickin' slow that my brain had plenty of time to tell me there was no need to jump. My reaction time was about nine seconds or something. I still might get hit by that lawnmower blade that pianodwarf dodged.

[pingnak]

I have mostly anti-ninja moments, having a serious case of hammer & thumb disease.

I've gotten to the point where I can hit a finger pretty squarely with the hammer, and just watch the blood flow around the fingernail, without reacting, and finish the job with a different pair of fingers, dripping and dribbling blood the whole time while my injured finger makes that humming kind of sensation that starts taking over my hand.  The last time, I was on a ladder, so I guess that's actually a 'good' reaction to have.

I know it will hurt later.  A lot.  But I've already made one mess, so I may as well finish.

My real bane is soldering irons.  Somehow, I always manage to pick up the wrong end when I'm engrossed in what I am doing.

Though gulping boiling hot tea in thermos mugs is a common hazard, too.

Fingertip slicing, like paper cuts, are so routine, I hardly notice unless I make a mess.  I always just tear the envelope open with my finger.  I hardly ever get cut.

I've even drawn my own blood with a plastic knife.  Those serrated teeth really play a tune on the nerve endings as they dig in.  And of course the mustard that was on it only added to the 'fun'.

Then there was that big old car door and my ankle, near the hinge, when someone shut the door on it.  Right on the 'knobs' on my foot.  I walked that off.  I've  'walked off' all kinds of things that I probably shouldn't have.  The time my knee swelled up to the size of a cantaloupe, I probably should've gone to a doctor or something.  The swelling went down after a neighbor recommended I take a larger dose of asprin, and I wasn't immobilized anymore.

Bees love me.  Or I should say, they love to sting me.  In large groups.  Ants, too.  I've become more alarmingly allergic to that over time.  The last time, when a hive of bees took offense to my yard work, they swarmed me and I developed really big networks of welts, like the stings were flowing together, or something.  Made my skin like a strawberry in big patches.

On the plus side, I don't think I'm allergic to poison oak or poison ivy.  People always pointed it out, and I never remembered which weed was which, and didn't pay any attention while running the weed whacker.  A house I used to have had it 'everywhere', and I probably could have taken a bath in it and not had a reaction. 

And the quadruple wisdom tooth extraction.  Almost the first thing I did when I got home was absentmindedly peel and bite into an orange.  I didn't finish the orange.  They gave me a whole bottle of vicodin, or whatever it was, and I threw it out after one pill.  I didn't like it, and it didn't touch the pain, anyway.

Then there was that time, or actually all those times I went in with a perforated appendix, before they correctly diagnosed what it was after a month in a hospital caused by it leaking poo all over the inside of me.

Oh, and I'm novocain resistant.  Nobody figured that out until I was an adult.  That nice dentist when I was seven telling me 'it doesn't hurt', and to 'quit bellyaching'.  And that time in the air force when the dentist told me the nerves were already gone from the last visit of excruciation, so he didn't need to use any novocaine... except... they... weren't... all... gone.  And he put the drill in.  And we both found them.

Having 'road rash' on my face cleaned out was another one for the scrap book.  The fork on the bike broke, and I did a face plant at speed.  Back in the days before some clever person invented 'bicycle helmets'.  Ever hit your head so hard you went blind for the afternoon?  I don't recommend it.

I guess pain doesn't make much of an impression on me, or I'd learn my 'lessons' more readily.

[kin hell]

at a old mates X private birthday party held in a small bar

We'd finished the main meal at a large table, with  X seated directly opposite me, centrally on the long axis. His back to a massive wall of mirror designed to make the place look bigger.

The desserts were being brought out and placed around the table. They were absolutely massive heaps of trifle, minor mountains of custard cream cake and syrup mounded in the centre of large flat plates.

At this time X and I were the only ones still seated at the table, the rest of our friends were up, gyrating on the token dance floor directly behind me.

Someone spoke to me, I turned away from X to answer whomever.... (and to this day I have no recollection with whom or upon what topic I was so engaged)......

......when something, out of the corner of my eye, caught my attention, and I turned back

.................just in time to see X rapidly slumping back into his seat while jerking his hands back from my side of the table.

The unmistakeable naughty boy behaviour warned me something bad was up, and I looked down, to watch a large firecracker buried in my trifle with the last of the burning wick fast disappearing. I was doomed...............        ..........fuck that no I wasn't

I picked up the closest edge of my large plate and calmly tilted it up away from me, facing it all towards X as the wick burnt down into the cracker.

There was the briefest moment of time in which I got to watch X's facial expression flit from naughty glee, to puzzle, to disbelief, to horror, and then the cracker exploded.

It was the ultimate splat bomb, it literally cleaned the plate, and blew out in a perfect cone of revenge, totally covering my mate, and allowing one of the greatest slapstick moments I've ever witnessed where first he removed his custard and cream caked glasses to expose his totally stunned eyes, then he was subjected to the massed laughter as the crew realised just what a backfire his attack had been, and then glory, X got up to go and clean himself up, and left behind his perfect trifle silhouette on the mirror behind him.

And I have never been prouder of my grace under fire.

[magicmiles]

Pingnak, I bet your health insurer is thrilled they signed you up...

[Cadillac]

They flew across the room and hit the wall behind me. The buzzing stopped.

COOL! 
Tip: If you don't wash your socks for like a month they will become hard enough, so that you can use them as a boomerang and you won't need to cross the whole room, once you kill the freaking fly.

 

[Samuelxcs]

You killed a mosquito and you are happy now? When I saw a large wasp fly into my home I did not kill it, I put it on a jar then let it out the window. Anyway, I once was asleep on a bench in victorian building, it was in the countryside and the building was a museum of the Victorian times. A group of elderly people walked past me, nticed that I moved, and most of them screamed. (Ruined my sleep) They said they thought I was some kind of doll, I just went back to sleep. More groups went past me, they all screamed. Must be my long hair and beard. Many people even thought I was a homeless person, atleast I got free money. Maybe I need a haircut.

[Anfauglir]

I was on the roof of a van, painting it.  I'd leant on the roof a while back, which had pushed a dent into it, and I had my coke can sitting in the dent.

I was sitting back talking to someone on the ground, when the dent suddenly "sproigned" back out, throwing the coke can a couple feet up.....and I caught it one-handed.  That's about as "ninja" as I get.

[RNS]

One time I was playing pool against one of my friends in the student union of my old university in london. I'm not very good at pool, but I do have my days- and this was certainly one of those! After beating him twice, he got rather pissed off, because he could tell that I was getting quite lucky, so he challenged me to yet another. I accepted.
Towards the end of the game, he had me snookered with his two last balls blocking me from the black ball and one end of the table. So, I decided to try and chip it, just to hit the black anywhere so that he doesn't get the two shots on his next go, which could really change the tide of the game.
I aim, pointing the cue downwards to try and get some lift on the white ball.
I finally go for it... both his balls cleared... it's going well! ...the white rolls on towards the black, still looking good... then "oooooh!" just missed the black! by the tiniest of slithers. My opponent smug, while the observers (our colleagues) and I took a moment to mourn the cool shot that didn't quite work out. But alas! it was not over! The ball rolled slowly on, hitting the cushion at the back of the table, and crawled back to the black, striking it lightly from behind. The black then rolled in to the side pocket and we went crazy! It was awesome!

[Seppuku]

When I used to do Karate I managed to stop my punch right at the point where my first was touching my opponent's nose when sparring, I could feel it on the end of my knuckles, he obviously noticed it because we both paused at that moment.

Or...

Back in 2005 when I entered a tournament with a team (not my dojo's team, as my team let us down, but there was a team missing a fighter so I joined them), we were 4 2nd kyu's (2nd before black) and a 3rd Dan (grade) black belt[1]. We did fairly well but our last fight was against 4 black belt and 1 2nd kyu, one of the black belts was a 5th Dan and had a reputation for being untouchable. Guess who was the unfortunate bastard to get him? Me. He came in with a roundhouse kick, I ducked it stepped in with a reverse punch to the chest and scored the first point. I felt pretty awesome. Though I didn't score any more points after that. Getting a second place medal, even if just a local tournament isn't so bad I guess.

If I were to try any of that now, I'd probably have to adapt to the Kung Fu Panda's style. 

1.	The higher the dan, the more established you are, but the kyu's (coloured belts) go down in number - 10 is the lowest, 1 is the highest

[albeto]

I'm oppo-ninja

I walk into doorways.

sigh

[Poseidon]

A couple of eons back I was in high school. I was an athlete but not on the school teams except cross country. I was involved with a judo club elsewhere. Brazilian style Jiu Jitsu actually. I was a quiet, peaceful, polite, and studious fellow. That seemed to be unsatisfactory demeanor to a very large and aggressive football player dude.  After school one day he began to bully me. To escape I leaped into a hedge right next to a wall. Luck was with me for I landed right beside a 30 inch iron rod of considerable heft. Who knows why or how that iron happened to be in that place at that time? WIthout an instants hesitation I squatted, grabbed the iron rod and swung it from beneath the hedge. It landed squarely and bloodily on the agressors shin bone. As he lay on the ground screaming with pain I straddled his body with the rod in plunge to the heart position. His eyes were as big as saucers. I quietly said to him; if this episode gets out you will be not only bloody but very embarassed. Getting beat up by a guy 70 pounds lighter is not good press for you.  How about we just forget that this happened.  He wisely agreed and we became good friends thereafter.

I kept my promise of silence, so did he. Jiu Jitsu was not involved in my defense, it was only dumb luck and adrenaline that kept me from being pulverized by a known bully who became much less of a bully after that. That was one of my Ninja moments that I may not have deserved.  Circumstances are sometimes on ones side.  Oh yes, many years later I became a 3dan and never had occassion to use my self defense skills again.

[Brakeman]

I had a bully actually come to my door at home to "fight me." I was the only one at home and I was pretty tough then as a fourteen year old. I got in fights at school and in the neighborhood way too much and I guess he just wanted to play king of the mountain so to speak. I wasn't afraid, but it did just piss me off the way he was yelling for me to get my yellow ass outside and fight. So I went downstairs into our basement garage and poured a glass canning jar full of gasoline and lit it. I then came at him screaming that I was going to burn him to death and laugh while he died. This scared the utter shit out of him and we ran all the way to his house on the other side of the next neighborhood, him crying and screaming for help and me swearing like a madman that I was going to burn him to hell!  We did become friends a year or two later, but funnily he hadn't forgotten the little gasoline chase.

[jetson]

After many failed attempts I finally achieved this meaningless, but sort of impressive feat:

Stand in the front driveway, throw a tennis ball high in the air so that it goes way over our carport towards the backyard, run under the carport and undeneath the trajectory of the ball, then catch it without looking up in my left hand behind my back.

I'm sorry, but you're not allowed to have God's help in these moments.   

[magicmiles]

I'm sorry, but you're not allowed to have God's help in these moments.   

If God had been involved I'd have done it first go and someone would have filmed it.

[Jag]

The one that stands out in my memory involved a really cool piece of crystal, shaped like a long, narrow pyramid. Maybe an 1 1/2 inches across at the base, about 8 inches tall and a flat top of 1/4 on a side. Gorgeous.

There were 6 or 7 of us in my living room, watching a movie and drinking cocktails. We were all in our early to mid-20's, so we were poor and well-versed in cheap entertainment on the weekends. Homemade popcorn with lots of butter, so my hands were a bit slick. Of course, this is when I had to show the crystal to someone on the other side of the room...

I stepped up on the couch and took the crystal off the shelf above it. One foot back toward the floor, and I fumbled it. Repeatedly. Balanced on one foot, after several beers, on the edge of the couch with literal butterfingers. Somehow, I never quite lost it completely and landed with it firmly clasped in one hand.

Not really all that ninja, unless you also know that most of the time, I have a great deal in common with pingnak (just to a slightly lesser degree) and albeto. I trip over lint. I wish I were kidding.

Slightly off-topic, this thread was a fantastic idea! This gives everyone a chance to see and/or share a side of ourselves that might not show up in many other ways. It's giving me some insights, and made me laugh out loud.

[screwtape]

I killed 23 people with a sword in less than 90 seconds.  None of them were aware it happened. 

[Anfauglir]

I caught the tail-end of a Japanese football match the other day, tuning in just around the end of the second half.  It seemed like a good game, but then in the 91st minute they all started kicking each other in the head.

Turns out it was ninjury time.....

[RNS]

I caught the tail-end of a Japanese football match the other day, tuning in just around the end of the second half.  It seemed like a good game, but then in the 91st minute they all started kicking each other in the head.

Turns out it was ninjury time.....

hehehe