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I don't often post about physical feats, but when I do, I make sure they're interesting!

Mental Floss has teamed up with Dos Equis, and their famous Most Interesting Man In The World campaign, to develop a series of posts, collectively titled, Be More Interesting.

Instead of the usual mental feats I emphasize here on Grey Matters, these are more physical in nature. They're unusual enough, however, that remembering, practicing, and demonstrating the techniques are definite conversation starters.

The great majority of the techniques are described in posts which can be found in Mental Floss' Be More Interesting gallery.

Many of them are survival skills, such as building a wilderness shelter, winning a duel, and surviving without water for extended periods of time.

There are also numerous “bucket list”-type feats, such as surfing a volcano, or piloting a hot air balloon. The remainder tend to be feat you would demonstrate at a parties or other gatherings, such as picking a lock, or dominating at arm wrestling.

Some of the other techniques require more visual instruction, so Mental Floss has chosen 8 of the feats to teach on video. At this writing, only 5 of them have been recorded, and they're shown at the bottom of this post.

If you like these type of feats, and/or even the usual type of mental feats found in Grey Matters, check out Mental Floss' book Be Amazing and O'Reilly's Mind Performance Hacks. You can also learn similar feats online for free, in places such as Reddit's Learn Useless Talents subreddit, and even Scam School features the occasional stunt.

Do you have any favorite stunt you like to demonstrate that makes you more interesting? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

How to open champagne with a saber:



How to rip a phonebook in half:



How to start a fire without matches:



How to walk on a tightrope:



How to break a board: