An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

It can be quite the summertime thrill to jump from a cliff or bridge into a body of water. But it’s not a thrill that should be engaged in recklessly. Although some professional divers can enter the water safely from more than 100 feet, chances are good that you’re not a trained professional, and all jumps — even those from a low height — risk serious injury or death. To mitigate this risk, follow the above guidelines as to your chosen jump spot and body position. 

Illustration by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

A multimeter is invaluable for the DIY troubleshooting of electrical problems around the house. You can use it to identify faulty wiring, check if electrical sockets have power, and test batteries. My electrical engineer brother-in-law, Ryan Davis, recently showed me how to use one. Here’s a write-up of what I learned. Maybe you’ll find it handy.

What Does a Multimeter Measure?

A multimeter measures three electrical properties:

• Voltage (Volts): The electrical potential difference that pushes electrons through a circuit. Measure voltage to check battery charge or verify power in outlets.
• Current (Amps): The flow of electrical charge through a conductor, indicating how much electricity is moving through a circuit. Measure current to verify that circuits or devices are drawing the correct amount of electricity.
• Resistance (Ohms): How much a material opposes electrical flow. Higher resistance means less electricity flow. Measure resistance to check component continuity, verifying that a wire or fuse isn’t broken.

Basic Multimeter Components

Multimeters come in analog and digital forms. One of the nice features of digital multimeters is that they’re auto-ranging, meaning the multimeter automatically selects the correct measurement range for the quantity you’re testing — voltage, current, or resistance — so you don’t have to manually dial in an expected value range. That makes digital multimeters easier for beginners to use.

The main components of a multimeter (whether digital or analog) include:

• Display: Shows the measured value.
• Dial: Lets you select what to measure (voltage, current, resistance).
• Ports: COM (black) and two red ports: one for voltage, resistance, and milliamp/μA measurements, and one for high current (up to 10A). Most pro multimeters separate the ports for measuring voltage/resistance and milliamp/μA. There will be a port you use when you’re measuring voltage and resistance measurements. Never plug into the 10A jack unless you’re measuring large currents.
• Probes: Black (negative) and red (positive) wires to connect to test points.

Real-World Applications

Testing Batteries (Voltage)

You can use a multimeter to test if your batteries still have juice. Here’s how to do it:

Plug the black probe into “COM” and red probe into the milliamp/μA port.

Turn the dial to AC voltage (~ V).

Touch red probe to battery’s positive terminal, black to negative.

Read the display — AA/AAA should be around 1.5V, 9V around 9V, car batteries 12.6V when charged.

Testing for Parasitic Draw (Current)

A few years ago, my car wouldn’t start in the mornings. Once I jumped the battery, it was fine. The battery was good. But then a few days later, the car wouldn’t start again. I made sure I wasn’t leaving dome lights on or anything.

I ended up taking it to a mechanic, and he used a multimeter to discover a parasitic draw from a wireless phone adapter plugged into the cigarette lighter. Here’s how I could have used my multimeter to diagnose this on my own:

1. Set Up Your Meter

• Turn the dial to DC Amps (A⎓ or mA⎓).
• Plug the black lead into COM.
• Plug the red lead into the mA jack.

2. Break the Circuit at the Negative Terminal

Use a wrench to loosen and remove the negative battery cable from the battery post.

3. Connect the Meter in Series

You’re going to place the meter in series, which means you’re connecting it directly into the path of the electrical current. Instead of electricity flowing directly from the battery to the cable, it now flows through the meter first, then continues to the cable. Because the meter and cable form a single continuous path (like links in a chain), they’re said to be connected “in series.” This setup lets the meter measure all the electricity moving through that pathway.

It’s hard to see what I’m doing in this pic, but it’s this:

• Touch the black probe to the negative battery post.
• Touch the red probe to the loose battery cable.
• You’ve now inserted the multimeter in series and the battery current is flowing through your meter.

4. Read the Display

• A normal reading is typically 20–80 milliamps (0.02–0.08A).
• Anything above 100mA (0.1A) is excessive and warrants investigation.

5. Track the Culprit

If the meter reads above 100mA:

• Have another person start pulling fuses one at a time from the fuse box.
• Watch the current draw after each one.
• When the draw drops significantly, you’ve found the circuit responsible. From there, trace what’s connected to it.

Testing Extension Cords (Resistance/Continuity)

Extension cords take a beating. Over time, the insulation can crack, wires can loosen, and corrosion can creep into the connections.

A damaged extension cord is a fire or shock waiting to happen. Fortunately, your multimeter makes it easy to test cords and catch problems before they become dangerous.

Step 1: Check for Continuity and Shorts

Start with the cord completely unplugged.

Set your multimeter to resistance (Ω) or continuity mode. Plug the red probe into the voltage/resistance port.

To test each wire:

Ground:

• Insert the red probe into the round ground hole on the female (plug-in) end.
• Touch the black probe to the round ground prong on the male (wall plug) end.
• Expect a reading under a few ohms depending on cord length and gauge. Anything over ~5 ohms could indicate corrosion or a partial break.

Now check for shorts:

• Keep the red probe in the ground hole and touch the black probe to each flat prong on the male end.
• Your multimeter should display “O.L.” or infinity, indicating no connection. If you get a low reading, the cord has a short and should be tossed.

Hot and Neutral Slots:

Repeat the same procedure for the short (hot) slot and long (neutral) slot:

• Match each slot to its corresponding prong and test for continuity (0.8 ohms or less).
• Cross-test against the other prongs for “O.L.” readings to confirm there are no shorts between wires.

If any test shows continuity between circuits that shouldn’t be connected, that cord goes in the trash. It’s not worth trying to repair.

Step 2: Test for Live Voltage

Once you’ve confirmed the cord isn’t damaged, you can check that it’s delivering voltage properly.

Plug the cord into a live wall outlet.

Set your multimeter to AC voltage (VAC).

Insert the probes into the two female holes of the cord. You should get around 120 volts.

Move one of the probes to the ground hole (it’s round). You should again see ~120 volts.

These readings confirm the cord is carrying voltage properly and safely.

There you go. How to use a multimeter. Whether you’re checking batteries, hunting down mysterious electrical problems in your vehicle, or making sure your extension cords aren’t fire hazards waiting to happen, this simple tool can save you time, money, and headaches.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

People might get the impression that I’m something of a Luddite. I don’t use social media at all in my personal life and employ it only sparingly in my professional one. I don’t care much for watching online videos. I’ve hosted a lot of guests on the podcast who criticize modern tech.

Given this, people might imagine that I don’t care for the newest technological innovation on the block: AI.

But honestly, I kind of love it. It’s pretty glorious. It makes me feel like this is an awesome time to be alive.

There are some legit concerns to have about AI, to be sure. It’s not always accurate and not yet great at everything. But if used in the right way and with the right stance, AI can be really handy, improving your life and making it better and easier. It’s like having a personal assistant without paying personal assistant prices.

The great thing about using AI like ChatGPT is that, unlike doing a Google search where you have to sift through countless websites, conflicting opinions, and endless information, you get a single, streamlined answer. Is it really the best, most definitive answer? Maybe not, but oftentimes it’s nice just to be given one option. Again, it’s like having a personal assistant; they may not always fulfill your requests 100% optimally, but the time, bandwidth, and frustration you save by delegating a task in a turnkey way makes the tradeoff well worth it.

30 Handy Ways to Use AI

AI is new enough that people are still discovering the different ways it can be employed. Below are some of the things Kate and I have been using AI for in our work and personal lives; maybe it will give you some ideas you haven’t thought of.

Most of the suggestions below can be done with the free version of ChatGPT, though I use and would recommend the premium version. (As a side note, I’ve tried using ChatGPTs new AI agent feature where it can do things like book hotel rooms and flights for you. I didn’t find it particularly useful, nor worth the $200 a month you have to pay to access it. Maybe it will get better.) There are some other AI tools I think are helpful that I’ll mention with the associated tasks I use them for.

Health & Wellness

• Figure out a health issue. I’ve replaced Dr. Google with Dr. ChatGPT. I’ll just type in my symptoms (and sometimes upload a picture — don’t forget that AI can analyze images!) and ask ChatGPT about the potential causes. For example, I’ve been having some pain in my quads lately. I couldn’t determine if it was a muscle strain or a tendon issue. So I told ChatGPT where my pain was, what the pain felt like, when I experienced it, and what precipitated the pain. ChatGPT helped me figure out that I’m dealing with a muscle strain and not a tendon issue. My daughter had some bumps show up on her foot the other week, and I couldn’t tell what it was. So I snapped a pic, uploaded it to ChatGPT, and asked, “What is this?” ChatGPT ruled it a bug bite. Should you rely on ChatGPT to diagnose you for big issues? No, but it can help you troubleshoot minor problems and know when to consult a healthcare provider (when in doubt, go see a doc!).
• Explain medical test results. I’ve used ChatGPT to help explain medical test results I’ve gotten in terms I can understand. My father-in-law recently got an EKG and the cardiologist only spent a few minutes giving him a cursory explanation of the results. My FIL then went home and ran the results through AI, which gave him a lot more details.
• Generate workout plans. AI can give you a months-long workout plan; just tell it things like your age, your goals, how much time you have, and what equipment you have access to. I have a human coach to do this kind of programming for me, but I’ll use ChatGPT to whip up a workout on the fly. For example, if I’m traveling, I can tell ChatGPT, “I’m in a hotel gym that has a cable machine and a set of dumbbells. I have 30 minutes to train. Generate an upper-body workout that I can do with an emphasis on shoulders.” It instantly offers up a solid workout I can perform with the available equipment.
• Estimate macros. ChatGPT has been really useful in my macro tracking. One issue I’ve had with counting macros is estimating the macros for a homecooked meal. Now I’ll just snap a picture of the recipe and ask ChatGPT for an estimate of the macro breakdown for a serving. It’s not going to be super accurate, but it gets you in the ballpark, and that’s good enough. Another way I’ve used ChatGPT for macro counting is to help me figure out what to eat at a restaurant so that it will fit my macros. Here’s a prompt I’ve used: “Here are my remaining macros for the day: ______. What can I get at [insert restaurant] that will fit my macros?”

Home & Lifestyle

• Diagnose home repair issues. I’ve been using ChatGPT to help with home repair issues. The other day, I was installing a fan. My outlet had more wires coming out of it than what the installation instructions said there would be. So I snapped a pic of the installation instructions, told ChatGPT I had an extra wire not listed in the instructions, and then asked what I should do with that extra wire — I got the correct answer in a few seconds. Another issue I had when I installed the fan was that one of the lock washers got stuck on a screw, and I couldn’t get it off. So I snapped a pic of the screw and stuck washer, told ChatGPT the problem, and asked how I could get the washer off. It gave me an answer that worked.
• Work through home improvement estimates. Our upstairs bonus room needs some remodeling. We got an estimate from a contractor, and it was way over our budget. So I uploaded the line-item estimate to ChatGPT and started asking it questions like “How could we reduce the cost by $____? What could we eliminate from this estimate?” It helped us work through some scenarios quickly to figure out an approach that would work for how much we wanted to spend.
• Translate laundry care symbols. The laundry care instructions on a garment’s tag are sometimes given in symbols rather than text. If you don’t know what the symbols mean, snap a pic and ChatGPT will translate the symbols into written instructions.
• Figure out what’s going on with the plants in your garden. I planted a tree in my yard last spring. During the fall, the leaves started getting black spots on them. So I snapped a pic and asked ChatGPT, “What’s going on with my tree? Why are there black spots?” I got an answer and was able to take action to remedy the issue.

Personal Assistance & Productivity

• Transcribe and summarize YouTube videos. I don’t care much for the vast majority of online video. I much prefer to read things. So, I use Tactiq, an AI tool, to transcribe YouTube videos instantly. I can then read, scan, and skim the transcript to get the info I’m looking for quickly. I’ll sometimes also run the transcript through ChatGPT to give me a cleaned-up summary.
• Transcribe the conversations you have with yourself in the car. When I’m alone in my car, I talk to myself. It’s how I work through problems. I’ll also talk to myself in the car while trying to organize my thoughts for writing. Now, I transcribe the conversations I have with myself using Otter.ai. I can then ask Otter.ai questions about my conversation to help clarify and summarize the main points. A few articles I’ve written on AoM have started as Otter.ai transcriptions from my car.
• Organize your computer. Never lose a file again by allowing AI to organize your files for you. I’ve been using Sparkle, and it works like a champ.
• Use it as a coin toss in close decisions. When I’ve got a minor decision to make and can’t decide between two close options, I’ll ask Claude or ChatGPT for its opinion and decide to go with whichever one it picks. I basically treat it as a coin-toss mechanism that gives me slightly more confidence in the outcome than actually flipping a coin.
• Use NotebookLM as a research assistant. I like using NotebookLM for the research part of my writing process. I input all my notes into NotebookLM, and then NotebookLM creates a chatbot based on those notes. I can then use my chatbot as a research assistant. “Find me quotes about ____ topic.” “Are there any connections between ____ and ____?” “Give me a summary about ____.” It doesn’t pull in outside information, which keeps its answers focused on the specific notes I want answers sourced from and reduces hallucinations.

Food & Cooking

• Generate a recipe. Think of a dish and ChatGPT can generate a recipe for it. Just say, “Give me a recipe for coconut curry chicken,” and it spits out a recipe. Are the recipes that AI produces going to be as good as those you find on cooking websites? Probably not, but sometimes you don’t want to sort through all the variations out there and read through all the narrative fluff food blogs surround their recipes with.
• Generate a recipe based on what you have on hand. You cannot only use AI to generate a random recipe, you can tell it what you have on hand and have it come up with something you can make with those ingredients. For example: “I have leftover white rice, Mexican cheese, a tomato, and a rotisserie chicken. What can I make for dinner?” It will then generate several recipe options that use those ingredients.
• Modify a recipe. Feed an existing recipe into ChatGPT and ask for it to be modified, e.g., “Make this recipe dairy-free,” or “Scale the measurements up to serve twelve people.”
• Organize your grocery list. Once you write out a big grocery list, you can ask ChatGPT to organize the items by sections in the grocery store. You can also feed it a recipe, and it will give you a shopping list organized the same way. It makes shopping a lot more efficient.

Travel & Planning

• Create an itinerary for a trip. Just tell ChatGPT where you’re traveling to, how many days you’ll be there, what interests you, the age of your kids, where you’re staying, etc., and it’ll give you a suggested itinerary in a few seconds. You don’t need to follow the itinerary to a T, but it can make for a helpful starting point in creating your own plan for the trip.
• Get hotel recommendations. It can be hard to sort through all of a destination’s hotel options to find the one that’s right for you. ChatGPT can give you some recommendations based on a prompt like, “What’s a hotel in New Orleans that’s family friendly, in a quiet part of the city, and has a good gym?”
• Build a packing list. Tell ChatGPT where you’ll you’re going, what the weather will be like, and how many days you’ll be gone, and it will spit out a packing list.
• Translate on the fly. ChatGPT is pretty dang good at translating things, which can come in handy when you’re in a foreign country and don’t speak the language. Snap a picture of a sign, document, or menu to get an instant translation.

Education 

• Get homework help. Are you stumped with a word problem your kid is working on for homework? Snap a pic of the problem and ask ChatGPT to break it down. Ask for it to show you the steps for solving it, rather than just giving the answer. Great for helping your kid (and you!) understand the process.
• Chat with a reading tutor. When I’m reading a book, I’ll use ChatGPT like my personal tutor. For example, right now I’m re-reading Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. I just finished chapter 3. So I started peppering ChatGPT with questions: “What’s going on in chapter 3? What do literary critics say about chapter 3? What symbols appear in chapter 3? What themes are being explored? What’s the historical background of this chapter?” The chatbot helps me understand the book on a deeper level and notice things I might have missed. The trick is to get more and more specific with your questions.
• Summarize scientific studies. We reference a lot of scientific studies in our articles. I’ll paste in a link (when the whole study is available online) or upload a study (when you have to pay to access a pdf) and ask ChatGPT for a short, accessible summary. 

Business & Professional

• Brainstorm and work through business issues. I’ve been using Claude to help me think through business issues. I can tell it an idea I have, what I plan on doing, concerns I’m thinking about, etc. I then chat back and forth with it as I work through the different issues. I don’t look for answers from Claude, but rather use it as a sounding board to do my own personal reflection.
• Perform data analysis. I use ChatGPT to analyze AoM-related data. I’ll upload a CSV file of stats and start asking ChatGPT questions about it. This kind of analysis used to take hours to do, but now only requires a few minutes.
• Fix bugs in your code. An issue I’ve run into a few times is our site breaking after I make an upgrade or code change. I’ll upload the code and ask ChatGPT, “What’s causing this to break?” What used to take an hour of Googling and trial and error to fix now just takes a second.
• Simplify legalese. Got a contract that you don’t understand? Upload it to ChatGPT and ask it to summarize things in layman’s terms.

Entertainment & Events

• Generate game and activity ideas. We’ve used ChatGPT to generate game and activity ideas to do with our church youth group on Wednesday nights.
• Generate book and movie ideas. We’ve asked ChatGPT to come up with ideas for books and movies to read and watch together as a family. A good prompt is something like, “We’ve got a 14-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. We’ve enjoyed the following movies together: _______ What are five movies that we also might enjoy?” Are the ideas all winners? No. But some are.

There’s some worry that AI will make us less intelligent, and that risk exists if people use it mindlessly as a complete substitute for thinking and effort. However, when employed judiciously, I find it enhances my creativity and expands my capacities — streamlining tedious tasks and freeing me to focus on what’s more enjoyable, meaningful, and important.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Like killing spiders, opening a stubbornly stuck jar lid is a task that the man of the house is often called upon to perform. Sometimes, your virile grip strength is sufficient to solve the issue. But when the lid remains immovable, there are several other techniques that can be called upon to open a jar and gain access to its delicious contents.

Illustration by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

In the McKay household, I’m the official “Put the Lights on the Christmas Tree Person.” I’ve done this job every year since Kate and I were married. And every year, I’d end up muttering swear words under my breath while Nat King Cole crooned in the background about the joys of a decked-out tannenbaum.

I kept running into a set of perennial problems that made putting the lights on the tree an exasperating task. But over time, I slowly worked out remedies for each that have made the job easier and increasingly efficient. 

The first problem was that the lights wouldn’t work after I put them on; it’s a terrible feeling to get all the lights strung on a tree only to discover they’re defunct because a single bulb is burnt out. Thus, I now meticulously test each strand before it goes on the tree. 

Another problem that kept popping up was that when I strung the lights from the top of the tree to the bottom, by the time I got to the bottom, the lights would look too sparse. Since the bottom is wider, it takes more lights to fill it out, and I’d end up having to add some strands, but in a more haphazard way, since they weren’t part of the around-the-whole-tree flow. So now I begin to string the lights from the bottom, which allows me to plug them in before I start, and ensures that I can see how they look as I go and affirm that I have enough lights at the base before moving on up.

A final reoccurring issue was that the lights wouldn’t look like they had enough depth. In years past, I’d just sort of hang the lights on the ends of the branches, resulting in a tree that didn’t have a look and brightness that was sufficiently three-dimensional, and again forcing me to add in more lights after I thought I was done. To solve the problem, I’ve learned to alternate stringing the lights in towards the trunk and out towards the tips of the branches as I work my way up the tree. 

By implementing these techniques, my annual lighting job now goes a lot smoother. Hopefully they’ll work for you too, so you can save your swearing for when you’re fixing the furnace. 

Like this illustrated guide? Then you’re going to love our book The Illustrated Art of Manliness! Pick up a copy on Amazon.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

In the world of hand-to-hand combat, there are few tactics more brutally effective than throwing a powerful elbow to an assailant’s face. The elbow is one of the hardest and sharpest parts on the human body. It can deliver blunt force trauma to your target as well as cut their skin. Elbows can be thrown with devastating force even if your attacker has you close to him or if you’re on the ground. An elbow strike can also be used as a back-up to a missed punch. Thanks to the multiplicity of benefits, the elbow strike should part of every man’s self-defense arsenal. 

In this illustrated guide, we highlight three ways to throw an elbow strike: horizontal, reverse horizontal, and vertical. As with the punch, remember that the power of the elbow strike comes primarily from the rotation of the hips and torso. 

Like this illustrated guide? Then you’re going to love our book The Illustrated Art of Manliness! Pick up a copy on Amazon.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

You’re lost in the woods on a cold day, that’s only getting colder as the sun sets and the sky grows increasingly dark. If you don’t warm up, you’ll freeze, so you quickly and haphazardly gather some wood and begin to try to light it. But the wood isn’t catching. As you start to panic, you blow through your matches faster and faster, yet one after the other is snuffed out before it ignites a flame.

Eventually, you’re left with a single match. What do you do with your last chance? You steady your mind and hands, start over, and go about making a deliberate, foolproof fire set-up that’s certain to light with just one match. 

Like this illustrated guide? Then you’re going to love our book The Illustrated Art of Manliness! Pick up a copy on Amazon.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An essential part of being an awesome uncle is having a repertoire of tricks and jokes that will amaze your nieces and nephews, and crack them up. So from time to time we’ll be offering you current and future uncles out there a tutorial on some gags that’ll have them thinking you’re the coolest dude in the world. Check out all our Cool Uncle Tricks. 

The French drop is a classic coin trick every cool uncle should have in his back pocket. It’s easy to do, and its visual effect always astonishes spectators. Whenever I have to entertain kids for more than a few minutes, it’s my go-to trick. A real crowd favorite.

Before you show off the French drop, spend some time practicing in private in front of a mirror. Timing is everything with this trick. Once you’ve got the basic movement down, try jazzing it up by asking a niece or nephew to blow on the coin for good luck or dramatically announcing “Voila!” as the coin vanishes. You can also make the coin reappear by pulling it out of your niece’s or nephew’s ear. With a little practice, you’ll have those kiddos convinced you’re a real-life wizard.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

When you depress the brake pedal on your car, it pressurizes fluid in your brake lines which transmit force to your brake pads, forcing them to squeeze against your car’s wheel. The resulting friction is what brings you to a nice, comfortable stop. When your brakes fail, it’s typically because you’ve lost a substantial amount of brake fluid, or because your brake pads are incredibly worn out. The best way to deal with your brakes going out is to practice preventive maintenance on your car. Make sure to have your mechanic check your brake system whenever you go in for an oil change, or before a long trip.

If you are driving and think your brakes have failed, don’t panic. And certainly don’t just turn the car off — doing so while it’s moving could cause your steering wheel to lock. Fortunately, you’ve got other options; use the tips above to avoid an accident, slow down, and ultimately come to a safe stop.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

Man who catch fly with chopstick, accomplish anything.  — Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid taught kids of the 80s a lot about bravery, integrity, and — of course — rad chopsticks moves. The scenes where Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san try to catch houseflies between the tips of their chopsticks are among the most exciting moments in utensil movie history. To get to that level of chopstick zen mastery, you’ll need a lot of practice on easier targets, like sweet and sour chicken. But, with time, you may just find yourself tossing out your fly swatter. Be patient; remember, it even took Mr. Miyagi himself until Karate Kid II to finally snag a fly himself. 

Of course your chopstick skills won’t only allow you to get rid of household pests, but to deftly eat Asian cuisine at restaurants and when traveling without resorting to asking for a fork.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.