A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
On December 14, 2023, my latest book, Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness will be published by Bloomsbury. This is a work of love that began in 2015 and has slowly progressed in the background. A link to order the book is here. And, more excitingly, you can preview the first chapter... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycGlTq8Bb4 Wrestling has always held a special place in my heart. Thanks to my grandparent's old VHS collection, I grew up with the WWF and later the WCW firmly moulding my impressionable mind. Like countless others I was a 'Hulkamanic' growing up but I was always fascinated by the Iron Sheik. Known for kickstarting Hulk... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycGlTq8Bb4 Wrestling has always held a special place in my heart. Thanks to my grandparent's old VHS collection, I grew up with the WWF and later the WCW firmly moulding my impressionable mind. Like countless others I was a 'Hulkamanic' growing up but I was always fascinated by the Iron Sheik. Known for kickstarting Hulk... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycGlTq8Bb4 Wrestling has always held a special place in my heart. Thanks to my grandparent's old VHS collection, I grew up with the WWF and later the WCW firmly moulding my impressionable mind. Like countless others I was a 'Hulkamanic' growing up but I was always fascinated by the Iron Sheik. Known for kickstarting Hulk... Continue Reading →
Originating in modern-day India, the practice of club swinging has a long and deeply embedded cultural Indian history. In the first instance, the Indian clubs featured heavily in the Mahabharata, a Hindu religious epic written during the Indian Vedic Age (1500 – 500 BCE). Highly allegorical, the epic focused on two warring sects, the Pandevas... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycGlTq8Bb4 Wrestling has always held a special place in my heart. Thanks to my grandparent's old VHS collection, I grew up with the WWF and later the WCW firmly moulding my impressionable mind. Like countless others I was a 'Hulkamanic' growing up but I was always fascinated by the Iron Sheik. Known for kickstarting Hulk... Continue Reading →
Readers of this blog will undoubtedly be familiar with my fondness for Indian club swinging, that great Hindu and Persian practice which became all the rage in England and the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The history of Indian club swinging has been previously covered here with one big exception. I... Continue Reading →
Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my fondness for Indian clubs. I've posted on them at several points, published a few academic articles on them and even spent a year in Cambridge doing a thesis on them. Alongside and indeed fuelling this interest, has been my daily use of the Indian clubs.... Continue Reading →