I know, I know...Stan Lee is the comic book czar but I was watching it because I saw one of the segments was about a superhuman swordsman so you know that caught my interest. Isao Michii is the classic example of how when training becomes second nature, the excellence is apparent.
To recap, I watched this man, from the classic 'ready to draw' stance (I don't know the term), cut a baseball neatly in half that had been thrown at him by a baseball pitcher as a fastball. Now, from the moment that ball left the pitcher's hand, it was determined that it took just 4/10 of a second to reach Michii. It takes the normal human brain 3/10 of a second to register that something's just occurred, which means only 1/10 to draw and slice- which he did, effortlessly it seemed. That was awesome, but plausible, right?
Ok, the next test that really caught me was when he said he could cut a pellet in half fired from one of those CO2 charged airpistols- you know those things can propel a pellet up to 300+ ft/sec. The distance between the gun and Michii was roughly 70 feet. Anyway, the gun fires and almost immediately you see Michii's sword flash out and you HEAR the impact (you can't see it). When the slo-mo camera was brought in, you could see how contact was made, but he didn't slice it, he altered its flight path with his sword. Since it was a matter of pride for him, he asked that they fire at him again and this time, he did slice that pellet, which was less than 1/2" in diameter.
A lot of that stuff is easily explained (at least some of what I've seen in previous episodes) - but this guy, a product of his rigorous training made his actions with the sword second nature; when they tested his reaction time using a computer he came out as slightly superior to the average human, but not superhuman. Put a sword in his hands though, that changed the ball game. Here's a clip of him doing the gun thing I believe.
http://www.geekologie.com/2009/04/blade_work_isao_machii_modern.php
