#hindu pushups

[confessions-of-a-movie-buff]

So workouts? Totally worth it. No need to give up the food you love and eventually you kinda become proud of the pain. Food and a body Im happy with? Perfection.

[nrsunandsteel]

Hindu Pushup Technique by Mike Mahler

[nrsunandsteel]

How to Perform Hindu Push Ups and Hindu Squats.  These are the King and Queen of body weight exercises and have been practiced for over a thousand years.

[nrsunandsteel]

Great Video!  Bodyweight strength training as taught by Swami Buaji.

[waterbearsnoscars]

How Pro-Wrestling Led Me to Yoga

I've always been fascinated by how things got to be the way they are.

 One of my favorite shows growing up was the BBC's "Connections" with James Burke.  In it, things we take for granted about the modern world were explored from their obscure origins. 

I come from a musical family, and I'd always liked music, but I don't recall LOVING music until the fall of 1991, when we first came to the frozen north. I remember a few of the first CDs I owned. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Movie soundtrack, the Wayne's World soundtrack, The Greatest Hits of Robert Palmer and....Pearl Jam's "Ten"....

"Ten" wasn't like anything I'd ever heard before, and it wasn't long after this I began awkwardly fumbling with a guitar.  It wasn't enough for me to just noodle. I had to UNDERSTAND.

To understand Mike McCready I had to understand Stevie Ray Vaughn. To understand Stevie Ray I had to understand Eric and Jimi, and to understand Eric and Jimi I had to understand B.B, Albert and Buddy, and to understand those guys I had to understand Muddy and Robert. (20 or so years later I'm finally beginning to understand the limitations of "understanding" but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish)

My love of pro-wrestling goes back even further than my love of music. One of my earliest memories is of successfully executing a drop toe-hold to my next door neighbor, sending him tumbling down the hill in the front yard of our duplex in the Philly suburbs. O, the satisfaction! The Triumph!  From then on my childhood was filled with grueling wars waged over construction-paper title belts, victory turning on the success or failure of an elbow drop from the arm of the beat-up couch in Aaron and Keith's basement.  I may have grabbed my Bible and fastened my clip-on necktie on Sunday morning, but as far as I was concerned "Church" was Saturday night 6:05 PM EST, when NWA World Championship Wrestling came on Superstation TBS. 

Flash forward. New Hampshire. Early two thousands.  I am morbid. I am obese. I am, you might say, morbidly obese.  Around 2 or 3 AM, Standing in the parking lot of a local pool hall with my friend Jason -discussing topics such as the nature of consciousness, chance, destiny, morality, the paradox of freewill and the problem of evil and "Dude, how seriously fucking sweet was the Great Muta's poison mist?" - the conversation turns toward my disgust with my physical condition.   My friend utters one of the most profound statements I have been blessed to hear in my life.

"Matt, just fucking DO something about it!  Jesus Fucking Christ...." 

So I did.  I had stumbled across a website (remember these were the days of dial-up internet and pages with "frames," folks) where a book called "Combat Conditioning" was sold. This supposedly detailed the training of the early Catch-Wrestlers.  I HAD to own this book.  I plunked down something like $40 bucks (a huge chunk of my supermarket salary at the time) to obtain this mystical tome. Though I have since moved FAR away from the philosophy of training presented in this book, it did serve as my gateway drug to the world of physical culture. 

Not everyone knows this, but the "theatrical" art of pro-wrestling is based largely upon a true "martial" art known as "Catch-as-catch-can" "Catchwrestling," or simply "Catch."(which is what Pro-Wrestling is known as today  in parts of Europe, especially Germany) This style was pioneered in the United States and Great Britain and rose to prominence in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The conditioning methods used by early catch wrestlers were clearly influenced by those used by the Hindu wrestlers in India ( part of the British Empire during Catch-as-Catch-Can's heyday.) Probably, the most vivid example is in the now popular (but not in 2002) Hindu pushup (known in India as a "Dand").  To perform a Hindu push-up one moves from downward facing-dog to upward facing dog and back repeatedly. 

I stayed fascinated with these conditioning methods even while I pursued activities like kettlebell lifting etc.  Years later, when retired pro-wrestler Diamond Dallas Page put out the book "Yoga For Regular Guys", an Ashtanga/Power Yoga/ Cardio fusion workout, I purchased it, and saw good results from incorporating in my training. From there on out, I was a believer in yoga. 

Though I've never moved beyond self-described "dabbler" status in my own yoga practice, it has certainly enriched and informed all of my training since those first back bridges and Hindu squats. 

And to think, it all started on a hot day in suburban Philly with a drop toe-hold. 

[waterbearsnoscars]

12/7/10 Workout

Conditioning today

Kettlebell snatches 53 lbs

3 sets of 15 reps left +15 reps right hand

Superset

10 Hindu pushups followed by 20 kettlebell swings, alternating right and left hand at the top of the swing.  Repeated 3 times.

Bridging and stretching to finish. 

[waterbearsnoscars]

11/23/10 Workout. KETTLEBALLZ Breathing Ladderz!!!

Breathing Ladder

Hindu Pushup and 1 arm Kettlebell snatch in the following fashion

1 pushup 1 snatch left hand, 1 snatch right. 2 deep slow breaths.

2 pushups, 2 snatches left hand, 2 snatches right, 4 deep slow breath...

Continued until 10 ( although, I'm pretty sure I got confused and did 5 twice haha)

Things were pretty tough by the time I got to 10.  Was drenched in sweat and heart was beating such that my tank-top was moving visibly over my chest by itself.  Weird.  Felt good though.  Haven't done enough "conditioning" lately, so it'll take some time to get back there. 

afterwards I did 1 set of 10 L and 10 R.  

I gave my friend "Action Hero Dave" a little coaching in the basics of the kettlebell swing and so did a few more swings and snatches as part of that.  a couple more straight sets but not really counting anything.