It’s a bird.
It’s a plane.
No. It’s Ashrita Furman!
While even a single Guinness World Record is beyond most of us, it is certainly pocket-change for a man named Ashrita Furman.
With over 200 Guiness World Records against his name, he is a man on a mission.
The 62-year-old has spent the last 37 years of his life trying hard to break various different records around the world. Furman was fascinated with the Guinness Book of World Records as a child but never thought he could ever break a record, since he was very nonathletic. That all changed when, as a teenager, he became interested in spirituality and in 1970 became a devout follower of the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy.
His spiritual awakening helped him focus on supreme athletic training. Sri Chinmoy inspired Furman to participate in a 24-hour bicycle race in New York City’s Central Park in 1978. Furman surprised everyone by finishing third in the race. That was the moment when Furman realised the true potential of his own body. And he hasn’t stopped since.
In 1979, Furman set his first official record by doing 27,000 jumping jacks. Yes, while we get tired after doing a set of 50, this guy did 27,000 of those.
Since then, he’s created a lot of these categories by himself and has a record in each one of them. Some of his record-breaking stunts involved pushing a car for 17 miles in 24 hours, translating and reciting a poem to 111 languages in 24 hours as well as walking 80.95 miles with a milk bottle on his head. He’s also done the fastest mile with a milk bottle on his head, in case you were wondering.
He also holds the record for chopping 27 apples in mid-air with a samurai sword within sixty seconds.
He even holds a record in racing against a yak in a sack. Yes. This is a legit record.
Let’s not forget that he holds the record for the fastest mile on a space hopper. If you thought that this was weird, please note that he did it on the Great Wall of China.
He also balanced the world’s longest pole in Turkey.
And then there’s time he completed the fasted mile while balancing a pool cue. At this moment, we’ve just stopped asking questions.
He’s also balanced for the longest time on a swiss ball. We’re assuming that if there’s no record in a thing, Furman will make sure he’s the man who gets it.
And after all those records, here’s the main reason why he deserves a lot of respect.
He holds the record for catching the most number of grapes in a minute with his mouth.
This guy is amazing. And if spirituality helped him do these amazing things, maybe it’s time to hit the meditation centres?
If there’s one take-away from this incredible journey of Ashrita Furman, it’s the fact that anything and everything can be a world record, if you try hard enough.