Contortion of the Day

[thewayne]

So here's a weird question for you:

Can you touch, on the same hand, the tip of your index finger to the tip of your pinkie without using your other hand for help?

I can do it with my right hand, where I've had five operations on my thumb and I'm missing a couple of tendons. Can't do it with my left, but since it has more recently had carpal tunnel surgery, that could be part of an explanation. My wife can't do it with either.

I ask this because I've been re-reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and in one book she's visiting a member of the royal family of another star empire, and due to an assassination attempt on another noble, everyone in a royal's presence must be disarmed. Honor lost an arm when she was a POW during an escape attempt, and her dad manufactured a pulser gun, and the movement of touching the tips of the index finger and the pinkie opened a door in her wrist through which she could load/unload the gun. She makes the motion, the door pops open, and she removes the magazine of the gun built in to her index finger. There's no mention of clearing the chamber of the finger gun.


Discuss!

Comments

[deborak]

I can do that easily, either over or under the middle and ring fingers with either hand.

[vaudy.livejournal.com]

I can do it, barely, with my right hand, and I can only do it with my left if I sorta push my index finger with my thumb. Which is cheating, I'm sure, even though it's not the other hand. If you're right-handed, that may also contribute to not being able to do it with your left (I use my right more, therefore it's more flexible?).

I wonder if it's just a matter of flexibility/dexterity (which can usually be improved, with effort) or if it's one of those genetic oddities, like rolling your tongue.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I can do it under on both hands but not over. I think I could do it over if I worked on it for a while.

[anyeone.livejournal.com]

No, apparently I can't. I get about 2mm away.

[silveradept]

If you mean "press tips together", nope, not even with thumb help. If you mean "press it so they might touch tips next to each other", then maybe, with thumb help.