The real-life flexible friend: India's very own 'Rubber Man' makes the Guinness Book of World Records

The real-life flexible friend: India's very own 'Rubber Man' makes the Guinness Book of World Records 2010.

Posted by MydeaMedia

Vijay Sharma can wrap his legs over his head, wriggle through a tennis racket and wind his arms around his back.

His flexibility has earned him the title of 'Rubber Man' in the Limca book of Records, India's version of the Guinness book of World Records, and he hopes to one-day achieve global fame.

'It was when I was training for martial arts I realised my body was so bendable I might be capable of setting a world record in flexibility,' the 27-year-old said.

 

'Rubber Man' Vijay Sharma demonstrates his flexibility by winding his arms around his back and wrapping then around his waist in Delhi

  

  

Write caption hereThe village boy from Rajashtan's Jhunjhunu district started taking martial arts lessons in 1999 in a bid to learn Chan's acrobatic fighting style

ts became a source of motivation for me.' Shop assistant Vijay claims his bendy obsession stems from watching Jackie Chan movies when he was a youngster.

The village boy from Rajashtan's Jhunjhunu district started taking martial arts lessons in 1999 in a bid to learn Chan's acrobatic fighting style.

It was during these lessons he discovered the extent of his flexibility and started experimenting.

He squeezed into tiny spaces, curled his body into boxes and attempted to drink from bottles held between his toes.

After seeing the tennis racket stunt in Guinness book of world records, he became curious and bought a tennis racket the next day. He quickly removed the strings and tried to pass through the nine-and-a-half-inch surface.

'I tried to get through it, but got stuck for the entire night,' he said. 'I had to shut myself in my room and sleep with it. I got up at 3 o clock and tried to get out of it.

'I began to bleed but that didn't stop me.' Vijay, who practices up to four hours a day to improve his elasticity, has performed on TV Shows and various tournaments at national level. But he believes, he has performed the toughest stunt on a Zee TV show.

 

Least interested in his father's clothes shop business, Vijay wants to achieve fame by working on martial arts and body flexibility

'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,' he explained.

'It was such a stunt that I couldn't breathe for a moment while doing it.' He has won a silver medal in body flexibility at a country level tournament, held at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh in 2001. He also claims to have broken the world record for wrist-egg-crushing - which involves pushing your hand backwards to lie flat against the arm - set by a Lissa Patterson (CORR) in 2005.

'I made the claim and even got some documents from Guinness Book of World Records to complete, but I couldn't get back because of constraints of time and money,' he said.

Least interested in his father's clothes shop business, Vijay wants to achieve fame by working on martial arts and body flexibility.

'Anything for fame,' he said.

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