In the May issue of Men’s Journal: Robert Downey Jr. on how an ass-kicking martial art helped him find his focus and resurrect his career, professional BASE jumper Jeb Corliss on his attempt to execute the perilous no-chute landing, and an inside look at the brutal, murderous turf war over a libido-enhancing aphrodisiac fungus in Nepal.

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From Stephen Rodrick’s profile of Robert Downey Jr.:

On advice for practicing Wing Chun, a martial arts discipline:

“Seriously, don’t worry about looking like an idiot. It’s like life: The less self-conscious you are, the better it works. And remember, lots of ice and Advil afterward. Trust me on that one.”

On how Wing Chun helps him cope:

“This is all about focus. Wing Chun teaches you what to concentrate on, whether you’re here or out in the world dealing with problems. It’s second nature for me now. I don’t even get to the point where there’s a problem.”

On being reluctant to punch a stuntman full in the mouth while filming Sherlock Holmes:

“I was like, ‘I can’t or he’s not going to be able to play with his kids this weekend.’ And Guy (Ritchie) was basically saying, ‘He doesn’t have any kids.’ ”

On if he is worried about burnout from filming and promoting films:

“You don’t worry about something that has already happened,” he says with resignation. “You don’t need to worry about your car breaking down when you’re already on the side of the street with the hood up. Worrying is done. The hubcaps have already come off going around the corners.”

On being an actor:

“This is still art for commerce, at best. I consider myself to be a pain-in-the-ass artist who’s self-aware enough to still be tolerable. While I have a little bit of juice, I try not to rub it in anyone’s face, because it’s just disgusting. And I use the term ‘artist’ loosely.”

On his Iron Man character Tony Stark’s relationship with his dead father:

“We’re having Tony go back and really deal with the ramifications of his lack of connection to his dad, his almost professional-stock, prop-smile answers, and how he’d been using Dad’s memory as a weapon against others. He’s really feeling hugely conflicted by assumptions about his dad’s feelings about him and whether or not there’s any real connection between them at the most basic level, which is: You’re not here anymore for this. Is there something you have for me, is there something you left for me, is there some sort of bread-crumb trail I can find that will help fill me at this point in my life?”

Eric Oram, Downey’s Wing Chun instructor, on working with the actor:

“When he first came to me, insurance companies wouldn’t bond him for movies; he couldn’t get roles. I told him if he didn’t show up to a lesson, I was going to chop off his toes and feed them back to him. One day he didn’t turn up, and I told him goodbye. Then he had a couple of producers call me and vouch for him, saying, ‘He was with us in a meeting; he didn’t have a phone. It’s our fault. Don’t cut his head off.’ He has committed himself to it ever since and turned his life around.”

Guy Ritchie, on working with the actor:

“The word to describe Robert is hard. I know that’s fucking ridiculous in describing an actor, but he really can scrap. He’s done time in jail, which didn’t exactly soften him up. He has a real physicality that is pretty fucking amazing.”

From Bill Gifford’s Falling Man:

In essence, BASE jumping is like playing chicken with the ground. The moment a jumper launches off an object or cliff (BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth), he has just a few seconds — as little as one or two, or as many as 10 or 12, depending on the height of the precipice — to accelerate in free fall and “track,” or fly his body free and clear of whatever he leaped from, and then throw the pilot chute, which in turn extracts the main canopy from its container. If something goes wrong — an “off-heading” chute opening sends the jumper hurtling back into the building, say, or a stray wind gust pushes him someplace he’d rather not be, or maybe just waits too long to pop the chute — there’s not much chance to fix the situation. (There are no backup chutes in BASE jumping because there’s no time to activate them.

Jumpers not only live for the free fall but also try to make it as long as possible, traveling to places like the fjords of Norway, which feature 5,000-foot cliffs. (Switzerland has a few 6,000 footers.) As BASE jumping has surged in popularity over the past decade or so, the sport’s leading athletes — including Corliss — have pushed its boundaries, adding high-level acrobatic moves to their jumps and, increasingly, using wingsuits made of tough, reinforced nylon that let them soar like flying squirrels and execute basic maneuvers at 100 mph. Chances are you’ve gotten a knot in your stomach watching a wingsuited BASE jumper on YouTube. Corliss is one of the world’s top wingsuiters; his résumé includes buzzing the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that towers above Rio de Janeiro.

When I caught up with him last fall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Corliss was obsessed with taking his wingsuit technique to the next level of so-called “proximity flying”: gliding as close as possible to the cliff faces and solid objects without touching them. In the spring of 2009, he leaped from a helicopter and flew down the spine of the Matterhorn while being filmed for a Channel 4 documentary that aired in September. It’s a terrifying display, with Corliss’s body skimming past jagged outcrops as he screams down the mountainside. Even scarier: He did four separate runs to ensure that the producers would have enough footage. “The Matterhorn was some of the best proxy flying I’ve ever done,” he says. “The second time, when I almost touched, I as really, really close. I almost went in.”

From Jamie James’ Nepal’s Aphrodisiac War:

As twilight falls across the snowy peaks of central Nepal, just over a steep ridge from the iconic Annapurna trekking trail, a herder scans the shadows with binoculars, searching for a lost yak. From a perch high above the tiny cliffside village of Nar, he spots a stealthy movement in a desolate meadow below the snow line. He sharpens the image. It’s a young man, a stranger. Behind him is another. Eventually five more men creep into view, most still boys in their late teens, led by a man in his mid-30s. The herder knows immediately who they are and why they are there.

The Annapurna region is the ancient homeland of the Manang people; the intruders are from the Gurkha tribe, dirt-poor neighbors of the Manang in Nar. This ragged band of men has come 60 rugged miles to plunder Nar’s riches: its fields of yarsagumba, a tiny, wrinkled fungus that is, by weight, the most valuable tonic in Chinese medicine. It has been prized for centuries as a potent aphrodisiac and elixir of youth; tradition holds that it will prolong virility through long winter nights and throughout a long life. On a good day, a yarsagumba picker can bag 400 pieces, gently yanking up the subterranean fungus by the gracile fruiting stem it sends up. He can then sell his harvest for as much as $1,000 — in a country where the average annual income is $500.

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