TOTALLY AWESOME TOTALLY AWESOME
SPIRIT JULY 2011 JULY 2011 SPIRIT
Record
Roster
Some of Furmans
CurrentlyHeld
WorldRecords
THE RECORD BREAKER
In the course of our 45-minute
interviewwith Ashrita Furman,
hed balanced a glass of juice
on his head, demonstrated per-
fectly formed jumping jacks, and
somersaultedall in a midtown
Manhattan caf. Ahealth food store
manager and devout disciple of the
late spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy,
Furman gives praise to positive
energy as the key to his success.
As akid, didyoudreamof,
amongother things, snapping
more cucumbers inaminute
thanwas thought humanly
possible?
This pursuit of records is the fur-
thest fromanything I thought Id
be doing, but I couldnt be happier.
Nothings impossible. Thats why I
love Guinness World Records. You
can say, OK, Imgoing to train for
that, Imgoing to do it, and you
can! I dont feel that Imexcep-
tionalanybody can do what Ive
done. Positive energy is boundless.
With it you can do anything.
What sparkedthe ideatostart
settingrecords?
Sri Chinmoy taught me to make
endless progressspiritual, but
alsophysical. I was never anathlete,
but I started attempting these
impossible feats. I got my first
Guinness Record in 1979 by doing
27,000 jumping jacks in a row. I
currently hold 124 records, but Ive
broken 334 of themover the years.
For me its a spiritual quest.
What achievement was
surprisingly difficult?
Skipping. I sawa little girl skipping
across the street and wondered if
Guinness had a skipping record,
and they didnt. So I thought Id
train for fastest five miles of
continuous skipping. Guinness
sent it back, saying, We like the
idea, but it has to be a full 26.2-mile
marathon. So, I actually invented
that record. I thought it wouldnt be
that hard once I got over the blister
thing, but it was really difficult. You
use your abdominals a lot. I finally
did it at a marathon in Victoria,
British Columbia.
What has beenyour biggest
challenge?
The forward roll, otherwise known
as continuous somersaults. I did it
for the length of Paul Reveres ride
in Massachusetts, which is just
over 12 miles. I carbo-loaded the
night before and, well, that was a
mistake. I was sick the entire way. It
was brutal. It got to the point where
I thought I couldnt go on. At that
moment, I started chanting, I am
not the body, I amthe soul. It took
10 and a half hours, but I finished.
Whats next?
I want to climb Mt. Fuji. On stilts.
Kathryn OShea-Evans
I \oD AsL cuAsL, the 7-year-old border collie
belonging to retired Woford College psychology pro-
fessor Dr. John Pilley, to go get Goose, shell promptly
pick out the squeaky rubber chicken from a pile. Ask her
to fnd Inky and shell pull from a mountain of similarly
stufed toys a lime-green plush squid. In fact, this dog
knows the aliases of all 1,022 items in her collection of
playthings, each of which has been named by Pilley. And
she fetches them with a success rate of about 95 percent.
Whats more, Chasers cognition goes beyond memo-
rization, according to her owner. She doesnt just know
each toys name; conceptually, she understands that
objects have names. While border collies are known for
being top dogs in terms of intelligence, this pups particu-
lar mental abilitieshighlighted in the February 2011
edition of the academic journal Behavioural Processes
have sparked widespread conversation about the bounds
of the animal mind.
Pilleywasnot alwaysconvincedsuchfeatswerepossible.
He once approached a group of farmers at a sheepdog
competition and announced that their pets couldnt pos-
sibly recognize their own names. Weve discovered
in our lab that we cannot teach them nouns, Pilley
explained. When you call your dogs name, he actually
thinks youre saying, Look at me or Come to me.
These guys looked at me, Pilley remembers with a
chuckle, and said, What an idiot you are. And I was.
His disbelief stemmed from previous auempts to teach
words to canines, using them to provide his students
with hands-on experience in animal comprehension.
This 56-year-old from Queens, New York, has broken some
334 Guinness World Recordsmore than anyone else on earth.
Most Underwater
Rope Jumps in
One Hour: 900
PogoStickJumping
Most Jumps inOne
Minute: 238
Fastest Time toRuna
Mile While Balancing
a MilkBottle onthe
Head: 7 minutes,
47 seconds
Most Cucumbers
SnappedinOne
Minute: 87
Greatest Distance
Traveledwitha [Pool]
Cue BalancedOna
Finger: 8.95 miles
Most Apples Bobbed
inOne Minute: 34
Most JellyEaten
withChopsticks
inOne Minute:
1 pound, 5 ounces
THE CANINE GENIUS
Its hard to say which is more impressive: a dog that knows more
than , words or the retired professor who taught her.
C H A S E R
I
A S H R I T A F U R M A N
Eyes ontheBall
Chaser and
Pilley prepare
for a lesson.
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