Ashrita Furman, the man who has the world record for having the maximum Guinness World Records
There are many secret and seemingly impossible desires that we nurture in our hearts. One of them is earning or breaking a Guinness World Record. After all, it is one of the most prestigious feats one can achieve in life. Recently, popular Colombian singer Shakira has earned a whopping 14 Guinness World Records for her song Music Sessions Vol 53 (aimed at ex-boyfriend Gerard Pique, the Spanish star footballer). The song that had released on 12th January this year set the record for the most viewed Latin track on YouTube within 24 hours with over 63 million views. It also went on to become the fastest Latin track to reach 100 million views on YouTube and most streamed Latin track on Spotify within 24 hours with 14.3 million plays, among other records.
This latest news made us wonder: Who on earth has the greatest number of Guinness World Records? Well, it’s Ashrita Furman, the person who also owns a Guinness World Record for having the maximum Guinness World Records?
Meet Ashrita Furman
Now aged 68, Furman, a New York-based health food store manager holds the Guinness World Record for the most Guinness World Records. While he has set more than 600 official records, currently he holds 530 of them. He has been breaking records since 1979 and has done so across seven continents in more than 50 countries.
Born as Keith Furman, he has been fascinated and obsessed with the Guinness World Records since his childhood. However, he never imagined to earn or break one someday as he was always unathletic. In the 1970s, he came across spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy and under his influence slowly started to venture into sports. In fact, it was his spiritual guru who inspired him to take part in a 24-hour bicycle race in New York City’s Central Park in 1978. With only a fortnight’s training, Furman went on to become third and had cycled 405 miles for it. This is when he also started gaining confidence and even changed his name to Ashrita meaning “protected by God himself” in Sanskrit.
Furman’s first-ever record
If you are wondering when did Furman set his first Guinness World Record, well that was soon after his cycling feat. In 1979, he set a record by doing 27,000 jumping jacks. For those unaware, jumping jack refers to a physical exercise that is performed by jumping to a position with the legs spread wide and the hands touching overhead and then returning to position with the feet and the arms on the side.
Guess what? Even after earning his first Guinness World Record, Furman was unsatisfied. He thought his accomplishment was far too ordinary. This is why, in 1986, he invented and set the record for underwater pogo stick jumping and considers it as his first big record. What’s interesting is that, he had introduced the world to this game on the April Fools’ Day, which is why many initially considered it to be a joke.
His other notable records
Not only has Furman set and broke Guinness World Records, he has done them in major tourist locations worldwide. For instance, he invented distance pool cue balancing in the major Egyptian pyramid site, stood on a Swiss ball near the Stonehenge, did most sit-ups in an hour on the Eiffel Tower, and hopped on a Kangaroo ball on the Great Wall of China. What else? He was the fastest to run a mile while balancing a milk bottle on his head at the ancient Indonesian Buddhist temple, Borobudur. Likewise, he jumped rope on a pogo stick in the Cambodian temple Angkor Wat.
One of his other daring records include, underwater juggling (he invented it and calls it gluggling) for 48 minutes straight in the frozen waters of Antarctica. In April 2009, he had become the first person to hold 100 Guinness World Records at once. Fascinating, isn’t it?
World’s largest pencil is in Furman’s possession
Over a period of three weeks, Furman built a giant pencil (the world’s largest) as a birthday gift for his spiritual guide Sri Chinmoy in 2007. It is 76 feet long and weighs 22,000 pounds. It is made up of solid Pennsylvania graphite and is bigger than the 65 feet tall pencil standing outside the Malaysian head-quarters of leading stationer Faber-Castell.