The Guinness Book World of Records has a lot of amazing record holders on their list. But as we all know, their list is constantly growing throughout the years. The newest addition is Vijay Sharma, India’s very own “Rubber Man,” who can wind his arms around his back, wriggle through a tennis racket, and wrap his legs over his head!
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Sharma’s amazing flexibility made him the man behind a rather bizarre world record in the Limca Book of Records, India’s very own version of the Guinness, and he holds the title of “Rubber Man.” Now the 27-year-old aims to achieve global fame some day.
Sharma, who came from a village in the Rajashtan’s Jhunjhunu district, took up martial arts lesson in 1999. He was a big fan of Jackie Chan back when he was a kid and he wanted to learn the famous action star’s acrobatic fighting technique. It was during those lessons that the shop assistant discovered his unique talent and began to experiment with it.
Sharma attempted to drink from bottles held between his toes, he’d curl his body into boxes and squeeze into tiny spaces. The tennis racket stunt came to be when he got curious and bought a tennis racket, after discovering the stunt in Guinness Book of World Records.
He then tried to squeeze through the nine-and-a-half-inch surface, with all the strings removed. Unfortunately, his first attempt didn’t go so well, and he ended up sleeping with the racket because he got stuck in it. Determined to pull off the stunt, he got up at 3:00 a.m., and even though he started to bleed, he just kept on doing it. Now he practices up to four hours a day to improve his elasticity.
Sharma has been able to perform on different national tournaments and has appeared on TV shows as well. For him, the most difficult stunt he had to perform was on a Zee TV show.
He explained, “I added a kick to my stunt, that is I pulled my leg up all the way so it was perpendicular to the floor and pushed my torso along with my leg out of the racket. It was such a stunt that I couldn’t breathe for a moment while doing it.”
Sharma also won a silver medal in body flexibility back in 2001. It was a country-level tournament held at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. The Rubber Man also claims to have broken the world record set by Lissa Patterson in 2005 by doing an astounding wrist-egg-crushing stunt. The stunt involves pushing your hand backward to lie flat against the arm.
Sharma is now focusing on achieving fame by working on body flexibility and martial arts. Although his father has a clothes shop business, he says he is not interested in working for him. Sharma has set his eyes on being a worldwide phenomenon with his unique talent.