When You Snatch the Pebble

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"When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave."

—Master Kan, Kung Fu

The character undergoing a course of training is given some strange little test to prove that he/she has learned well and is ready to go forth into the world, face his/her destiny, etc.. Said test is often a lot harder than it seems. For instance, snatching a pebble out of the hands of the Old Master requires incredible speed.

See also Wax On, Wax Off, where your training is the mundane task and it allows you to do something more impressive.

Examples of When You Snatch the Pebble include:

Advertising

  • A sneaker commercial from the '90s spoofed the scene in which the old master telling the unseen student. Pebble in hand, he starts:

Master: When you...
(student snatches pebble)
Master: I was not ready!
(student returns the pebble)

    • This scene repeats itself several times before it's revealed that the student is one of the NBA Superstars.
  • This Mountain Dew commercial, where the protagonist trains at hand slappy, finally besting the master... he thinks.
  • This troper recalls an old Chef Boy-R-Dee commercial regarding a monastic order revolving around Ravioli. The master challenged the student to snatch a can of Ravioli out of his hand, only to repeatedly move it out of the way as the student tried to grab it. All the time, the master is laughing like a little kid, indicating that he is using the tests as a form of personal entertainment as well as instruction.

Anime and Manga

  • Naruto plays this trope straight when Kakashi introduces himself to his students with a test that no-one has passed yet: to get a little bell from Kakashi's possession. However, there are three students, and Kakashi only brought two bells. (The secret is working together, putting the team's overall success ahead of your own, and breaking the rules when necessary.) It is suggested that this test, with some variation, has been handed down from the 3rd Hokage, to Jiraiya, to the 4th Hokage, to Kakashi, to Naruto.
    • He does it again at the start of the Shippuuden arc, this time only with Naruto and Sakura (because, as we know, Sasuke had defected to Orochimaru's side). They succeed much faster than when they were kids.
  • Ranma ½: Happens at least once to Ranma, as most Martial Arts tropes do. Probably the best example is when Cologne was wearing the Phoenix Pill, which would cure the "Curse of the Full Body Cat's Tongue" (a Shapeshifter Mode Lock trapping Ranma in his female form): Cologne challenged the martial artist to snatch the Pill away from her, but Ranma would never be fast enough to do so until he could pluck chestnuts from a roaring fire (a concept that was misinterpreted by the anime as the "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" attack.) In the end, Ranma finally attained this speed, and became too fast for Cologne to notice... but the ancient matriarch cheated and switched out the Phoenix Pill beforehand, aware of Ranma's newfound ability.
  • Dragon Ball has Korin and the Divine Water. If Goku wanted a drink from it, he had to get it away from Korin first. Of course, getting the water WAS the training, the water was just normal old water.
    • And also, Kamesennin and the big boulder. True to Dragon Ball's comedic nature before Z, when Goku and Krillin both prove themselves able to move it after going through Master Roshi's training, he told them that he hadn't expected them to be able to move it.
  • Played with in Marchen Awakens Romance. After Gaira's Training from Hell that he puts Ginta and Jack through, Alvis asks for a showing of their power now. He takes two stones and fires them towards the two from behind. Ginta, intelligently moves out of the way, impressing Alvis. Jack instead grabs the stone out of the air. He then is seen rolling on the ground because the stone injured his hand. Alvis notes the power increase, but notes that Jack is still an idiot.
  • In Aiki, the first test Kunitoshi gives Kizuki is to catch an ayu fry with one hand - slowly, not by just snatching it up. She spends an entire chapter trying to do this (it doesn't help that Metara and Hou Mei keep buying the wrong type of fish).
  • Battle Angel Alita has some fun with this trope. After Don Fua reveals himself during the ZOTT finale, he challenges Alita to one of these, saying that if she can lay a hand on him he'll concede victory to her and the Space Angels on behalf of the Space Karate Team. In a Crowning Moment of Funny she (non-fatally) puts her fist through his face before he can even finish his sentence. He reacts by humorously chastising himself for underestimating her abilities like a fool.

Comic Books

  • The Sonic the Hedgehog comic has a variant of the pebble test with Princess Sally; her solution was to hit her teacher's arm, knocking the pebble out, and then grab it.
  • In one comic set early in the lives of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage, Splinter tries this as a training exercise. Raphael distracts him with questions about the rules and then snatches it unexpectedly; Splinter thinks ruefully that being a sensei may be more complicated than he'd thought.
  • In the Kitty Pryde & Wolverine limited series, Wolverine explains that the way for Kitty to prove she has the inner strength to defeat the Big Bad Ogun is to hold the Honor Sword of Clan Yashida at arm's length overnight.
  • A French comic set in Ancient China has the Old Master pull this trick. Both wait... and wait... and wait... until morning, when the master has fallen asleep, where the student takes it.

Film

  • Kung Fu Panda: After a training regime where Po is denied much food, Master Shifu invites him to sit down and eat a bowl of dumplings. However, when Po tries, Shifu prevents him from eating any. Eventually, Po is forced to fight for the last dumpling and gets into a knock down, drag out battle with Shifu where the panda displays impressive fighting skill. To Shifu's surprised delight, when Po finally wins that dumpling, he suddenly throws it back and notes he's not hungry, a sign of maturation in that he doesn't need food as an emotional crutch so much anymore.
  • The song "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan starts with one of these. Shang fires an arrow into the top of a tall flagpole, and challenges the new recruits to retrieve it, with a heavy weight around each wrist. They all fail miserably. It turns out to be a variation on this trope, in that the challenge was mental rather than physical. Mulan manages to complete the challenge by wrapping the ribbons attaching the weights to her wrists around the pole.
    • It was both physical and mental. Sure, there was the trick to it, but you still need a good amount of strength to climb a pole like that.
  • Subverted in The Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi has been trying for years to catch a fly with chopsticks, but Daniel manages it the first time, before he's even begun his apprenticeship.

Mr. Miyagi: ... You beginner's luck.

  • Wanted sees Wesley trying to snatch a weaving shuttle.
    • A few others show up during the training scenes, including shooting the wings off a fly.
  • In the 2002 film of The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes, while in jail, is challenged by the the old priest, Abbé Faria, to see if he can move his hand through dripping water without getting wet.
  • Taken one step further in Blood Sport. When Hussein is propositioning the female lead, and meeting with no small amount of resistance, Dux steps in to resolve the situation with a wager: Hussein holds a coin (a U.S. quarter) on his outstretched palm. The objective is for Dux to grab the coin before Hussein closes his hand; the winner of the bet gets to take the girl home with him. After taking the bet, there is a brief pause, Hussein gives the go signal and closes his hand, grinning as he proclaims "Ha! You lose, American ass!" He opens his hand to reveal that Dux not only got the quarter from Hussein, he put a Hong Kong coin in its place.
  • The slightly regrettable movie Balls of Fury has a subversion. The old training master pulls out a cricket, and the brash student snatches the cricket out of his hand, killing it in the process. Cue the teacher getting angry over having his good-luck charm squashed.
  • Oliver! During the "You've got to pick a pocket or two" song, Fagin lets his urchins demonstrate pick pocketing to Oliver by letting them steal things from his coat. He's not trying that hard to stop them, though, since he's not training them.

Literature

  • A variation occurs in Waylander by David Gemmell, when the title character uses a similar task to determine if another character is good enough to start training. He throws a pebble at her in the dark having told her that if she fails to catch it she has to leave and they'll never see each other again. The point to the exercise was to live completely in the moment and realise that no matter the stakes, the pebble was only just a pebble.
  • Subverted in Lords and Ladies: Granny Weatherwax asks three girls who want to be witches to knock her hat off. They tried to do it with magic they dabbled at and so missed the point. Nanny Ogg throws a stick, illustrating the point Granny was making -- a large part of witchcraft is knowing when not to use magic and instead solve problems using simpler, more mundane methods (the answer to that, incidentally, is "most of the time").
    • Two important addenda: 1) Granny Weatherwax caught the stick. 2) Agnes Nitt was starting to head down the right track, even if she didn't realize it. When her turn came, instead of attempting any "magic" assault, her response was "I don't think I can do it while you're looking", indicating she's considering the physical option.
  • Similar example in A Wizard of Earthsea: to graduate from the wizards' School on Roke, a student must find out what the Master Doorkeeper's name is. While there may be a way to find out by magic, it's perfectly acceptable simply to ask him what it is.
  • The main character of the Safehold series is familiar with the Trope Namer, and actually uses the pebble trick when training Caleb in her martial arts style. It's somewhat subverted, however, in that she knows full well normal humans can never match her speed—it's her way of teaching him that there's always room for improvement.
    • Not exactly. Merlin's teacher, Pei Kau-yung, knew of the Trope Namer, and referenced it regularly during lessons. He promised to explain the page quote to Merlin (Nimue at that point in history) when Nimue could beat him in a formal match, something that never happened. Merlin just called Caleb 'Grasshopper' in reference to the quote, without ever learning what the reference actually meant.
  • Harry sets up a trick test for his apprentice Molly in The Dresden Files: to prove that she is a sorceress ready to operate on her own, she must telekinetically lift several dozen small beads on her bracelet, which requires very subtle control of magical power. In White Night, Molly goes through some rather horrifying experiences and asks, for the first time, why that test is necessary in the first place. She then realizes that power alone does not make a good wizard, but decent motivation to use it and facing your fears does.

Live-Action TV

  • Kung Fu actually has two: snatch the pebble to prove speed (hence the trope name), and walk on the rice paper without tearing it to show lightness of tread.
    • Revisited in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Throughout the final season, Peter Cain, Kwai Chang Cain's son, has been training to improve his shaolin skills while his father is on the path to become a Shambala Master. Peter is reluctant, preferring his current status as a "Shaolin cop", continuing his police career only with added kung fu skills, but nonetheless continues his training. In one of the final episodes, he completes the trial of rice paper on the second try; the first time, he tries to walk it like a tightrope but leaves tears behind on every step. The next time, he uses a style of fluid movement to make it across flawlessly. In the Series Finale, his father, having succeeded in his own Shambala trials and is preparing to continue his own wanderings challenges his son with the pebble snatching test. Peter successfully snatches the pebble from his hand in a Passing the Torch movement while Kwai Chang smiles proudly and walks away.
    • And in the Pilot Movie Kwai Chang flashes back to his grandfather's "snatch the pebble" moment and uses a matchbook tossed into the air. "When you can snatch the matchbook before me, you will no longer need a teacher."
  • Played with in grand style during the first episode of the second season of Wild West Tech. At the beginning of the episode, Keith Carradine (the first season's host) loses his hosting job in a poker game to his brother David (who played Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu). At the end, Keith walks past in Caine's outfit, and David suggests that next season their younger brother Robert can host. Keith jokes that he can only do so "when he can snatch the pebble from my hand", and holds it out. David's response? He smacks the bottom of Keith's hand, causing the pebble to fly up, and then catches it out of the air.
  • The trope gets a playful namecheck in an episode of NCIS courtesy of Tony, with an eraser in the place of the pebble. Action Girl Ziva snatches it out of his hand before he's finished the sentence.
  • Subverted in The Office. Ryan is easily able to take the seed from Dwight's hand.
  • Parodied on SCTV, during their version of Kung Fu. During the training flashback, the teacher gives the usual spiel and Cain immediately takes the pebble from him.

Teacher: Wait, hold on, I wasn't ready. Do it again.
Cain snatches the pebble again.
Teacher (whining this time): I wasn't ready!

Web Comics

  • Parodied in Adventurers!! during an interlude in the final battle. Karashi's sister is going through ninja training and their father gives her this test, which she passes due to a distraction; he isn't happy about it and responds with this.

Web Original

  • In The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of Ninja Gaiden, he ends up consulting an actual ninja to help him beat the game. One part of his training is to catch a falling Q-Tip with his thumbs, to increase their speed. The review makes this look difficult, but an outtake video reveals that he actually did it on the first try.
  • Makes an appearance in a first-season episode of RWBY Chibi, where Ren puts himself through Training from Hell in order to be "It" in a game of tag.

Western Animation

  • Subverted in Xiaolin Showdown. Omi has asked Grand Master Dashi for another Panku Box. Dashi says that he can have one, but only if Omi can get the pebble in his hand. Cue the fancy, gravity-defying tricks Omi's been trained since birth to do. Dashi calmly deflects all of them. Finally Omi realizes that he just has to ask "May I please have the pebble?"
    • This actually makes perfect sense on top of being hilarious. Martial arts are more about discipline than beating the shit out of everything in sight.
    • Played with when Master Fung bets double chore duty on the dragons-in-training that they can't take a jade elephant from him. It's used to demonstrate a lesson in paying attention to differing objectives when Master Fung smashes the elephant.
  • To complete his ninja training in Transformers Animated, Prowl has to master the processor-over-matter technique and move objects with his mind (sort of) in order to complete his cyberninja training. He does, but by that point his master's been dead for millions of years, so he technically never completes his training.
  • A variant occurred in an episode of Hey Arnold!!; part of Arnold's martial arts training was to catch a fly in his Grandma's hand. He eventually does so, but ends up crushing it in his hands because he was too fast. Cue Squick from master and student.
  • Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, "Ninjacompoop". Yumi undergoes ninja training from a monkey master who gives her this spiel. Try as she might, Yumi can't get the pebble. In frustration she stomps on his tail, causing him to drop the pebble so she could catch it.
  • A martial arts themed segment of the Super Mario Bros Super Show has a scene where, after undergoing "Plum Fu" training, Luigi successfully snatches a washer from the martial arts master's hand.
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