Shifu Shi Miao Jin is the name of a warrior monk of the Shaolin Temple, the mecca of all martial arts. Except this one — Master Prabhakar Reddy — comes from our very own Nellore district. With experience of over 24 years in nine different martial arts, he is one of the only three warrior monks in India and holds 16 world records for unimaginable feats like the most number of single thumb push-ups in a minute! Now, this martial artist has set his first record in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of full contact knee strikes in a minute using one leg — 97, breaking the previous record of 85 strikes that was set in 2012 by a Greek citizen.
“I was fascinated by Kung Fu masters like Bruce Lee, Jet Lee and Jackie Chan. When I was 11, I signed up for Karate classes since there was no Kung Fu near my house. After a year, I started training in Kung Fu and my only goal was to be a black belt holder. I never knew I would come this far,” says Prabhakar, who reached his goal by the time he was 16, and started training others.
Prabhakar has trained in countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Japan in their traditional martial arts, but chose to open his academy in Nellore, where he has trained more than 60,000 people so far. The academy has a world class hostel facility and people from all over the world, even masters, come to him for advanced training. “No doubt I get appreciation, but I don’t do what I do for that. Every time I set a record, it is to spread awareness about staying fit by taking up some physical activity.”
Prabhakar says that he felt even more connected to Kung Fu since he learnt about Bhodidharma. “An Indian invented these martial arts, but it is unfortunate that we don’t give as much importance to our own culture. An activity becomes cool only if it is borrowed from another country,” he quips.
Prabhakar admits that raising funds was his foremost challenge. “To qualify for training in the Shaolin Temple is hard, but once you pass that, the expense of training there is equally huge. My parents supported me as much as they could, but eventually, I had to take loans from people,” he says.
Prabhakar has attempted to set four more Guinness records, the results of which have yet to come.
