Plague of Strength

Very few, if any, strength authors touch on the use of the occult, alternative medicinal practices, or non-traditional training methods and styles in the course of their writing. This is to all of our detriment, as whether you want to call it chi, the Force, Vril, or a manifestation of your will, there are forces out there we can harness to help us level the fuck up in the gym and in life in general. And I’m not talking about the hackneyed bullshit you read on most sites or in comments on the Gram about sacrificing your body on the iron temple of Crom- I’m talking about doing the type of weird shit that will allow you to laugh while deadlifting 500lbs with your balls or sleep in the snow naked and awaken warm and refreshed. This is where the “Essential Heretics” series fits in. I am going to profile the people who can help you unlock the keys to your psyche and the universe that will have your opponents quake in fear at your displays of raw power. Let’s get heretical.

Many times, I look at the utter shit state of the strength world, at the Youtube fitspo pussies like Athlean X literally robbing people for his shitty clothing and the dark, money grubbing world of the “natty science” experts and wonder why I even lift. Association with those people by dint of my favorite pastime is fucking disgusting, and it begs the question of whether or not everyone on the planet is just as hideously shallow, evil, and weak as much of the fitness world is today. And then some days I randomly happen across the page of William Calvani, an esotericist and strength athlete who looks like he drinks with Phineas and Barnaby from Family Guy on the weekends, writes like he works with Friedrich Nietzsche, and needs an AncestryDNA test to confirm my suspicion that he’s distantly related to our favorite bodybuilding esoteric, cave-dwelling psychopath Benny Podda. A self described “gentleman thuggee” (a blood-crazed cult of badass Indian killers who used a garrotte to make lots of sacrifices to Kali), he combines Indian club and mace training with “war yoga” to condition himself for catch wrestling. Or that is at least what it appears he’s up to.

Q: Flesh out William Calvani a bit for everyone. Did I get your training and style correct? You tag and train bjj and pankration in your vids, but as true pankration seems to be restricted to Greece and given your fitness methodology, I’m guessing if you had to declare your style before a challenge it would be catch as catch can. Beyond that, you seem to be a bit of an odinist with Hinduism thrown in as a kind of pan-Indoeuropean thing. Is that accurate? Are you a devotee of Kali? I could keep asking questions but I’ll just let you flow. And while we’re at it, hit us with your height, weight, and best lifts if you would, for the kids. Do it for the kids.

A: I grew up wrestling in the athletic and secular cult of New Jersey wrestling, dominated in those days by the Italian and the Irish and their hybrids, of which I am one. As most wrestlers can attest, it is an all consuming sport, demanding everything as only a god or a demon can. We who are so inclined give everything to it, and in do doing are recreated as new creatures by it.

I barely graduated high school, and though I was a decent wrestler was not able to distinguish myself in the fiercely competitive Jersey scene, so I did not wrestle in college.

I was sure that wrestling held within it a spiritual path, but it was not till years later that I discovered the Indian Akhara.

I introduced wrestling to my oldest son, enrolling him in a local wrestling club here in Charlottesville, Virginia. When the season was over my son asked me can I keep wrestling through the year? His coach overheard us and told us that he teaches a family Brazilian jiu jitsu class. I’ll give you a good rate. At that time I had never heard of it but agreed. My son and I began going. He parted from it but I continued. It was something that I had sorely missed in the 20 year gap since wrestling. I am currently a three stripe brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Gordon Emery at C’ville Jiu-Jitsu.

Jiu-Jitsu is a highly malleable martial art. At the same time our bodies and minds are adapting to the art, we are adapting the art to the specifics of our temperament and body type.

Much of what was left of catch wrestling, itself an amalgam of the many grappling styles that preceded it and were absorbed into it, was absorbed into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. What I consider to be the catch attitude, that is: take down, top game, aggressive pressure game, fits both my temperament and my body type.

At 5’6″ 170 lb. I’m built like a bulldog.

Q: Haha. At 5’5″ and 225, I definitely share that aesthetic. How did you arrive at this training style and belief system? Did they arrive concurrently, or independently of one another?

I am a practitioner of Agnihotra, a Vedic and therefore Indo-European fire ritual.
I consider the body to be the farthest extremity of the Mind and the mind to be the farthest extremity of the body.

I consider grappling a spiritual pursuit. When I came across Joseph S. Alter’s book The Wrestler’s Body, a book about Indian Akhara wrestling gyms, it provided context for that intuition. It also provided my first exposure to the Gada.

I adopted a minimalist bodyweight vyayam, or exercise routine, and began investigating what is described in The Wrestler’s Body as:

“… a large round rock fixed to the end of a metre long bamboo staff which is lifted and swung for exercise. The gada is, then, clearly the mark of a wrestler’s prowess. … it resembles the churning stick used to make butter and buttermilk. By swinging the gada one might say that a wrestler is churning his body to increase his store of semen…”

Q: Alter’s book is phenomenal. I cited it quite a bit in my series on the long, awesome, and completely unreported history of strength training in India. Where’d you learn to use the gada (mace) and the meel (club)?

A: I experimented until I got it, and then began to deeply explore the mind body connection that could be created and maintained in the rhythmic exercise. The benefits to grip strength is palpable.

I began making gadas for donations following a ritual process (and if you want a training gada, you can get into contact with William here to arrange that).

Q: Back to you- what made you develop a preference for the ancient Vyayam methods of strength training as opposed to more modern implements? Is it simply a “if it worked for Great Gama, it’s good enough for me” kind of thing? Do you ever hit the gym and throw iron around, or is it strictly Indian/Persian methods for you?

A: I have never been a fan of the linear movements of conventional weight training.

Q: I’ve written about the fact that yoga as the West knows it was created by American hippies in the 20th century and has fuckall to do with Indians. What’s your opinion of Western yoga, and how does war yoga differ?

The name waryoga began as a joke referring to BJJ. As in ”Hey are you going to WarYoga tonight?”

But I found that it described concisely my belief that the origins of spiritual techniques such as meditation, were from a martial context.

Indo-European cultures I characterize as “Bull Cultures,” a reference to their patriarchal, semi-nomadic, symbiotic with cattle, and Mithraic nature. All had grappling, all were warlike, cattle raiding ritualists and shared the alchemical food products of the cow: milk, cream, cheese, ghee.

The cow itself has always been our most sacred and empowering food.

Q: Hell yeah- meat and milk are Northern and Central Europeans’, as well as tribes like the Masai in Africa, manna from heaven and the source of their legendary strength since prehistory. And speaking of that, your diet looks to be pretty paleo. Is that the case? The diet of the pehlwan is markedly different from that. Have you tried eating their diet? Why did you decide to go with your method instead?

A: I follow the ancestral diet as documented, described and refined by the Weston Price foundation and feel that this has been one of the reasons that I remain an active, aggressive athlete at 50.

Q: That’s a name I only read when I read my own writing about the paleo diet, haha. His work is definitely a seminal work in nutrition and one of the most tragically overlooked works in the field, but it definitely explains why you’re still killing it at 50. Speaking of looking like a badass at 50, is your look an homage to the legendary British inmate Charles Bronson, or did you arrive at that look by a separate happy accident? You two seem to be of a similar artistic, philosophical, and fitness mindset.

A: I consider the mustache to be man antlers. I was inspired by Nietzsche’s mustache, but later saw it as homage and resonant antennae to both the famous Indian wrestler the Great Gama and Charles Bronson [my articles about them are here and here, respectively].

Q: “Man antlers” is a great way to describe it. Before I break out into song about the glory of your facial accessory, I’d better change the subject. Since you’re into hardcore as well, what three albums would you say are essential to own?

A: I grew up listening to punk, hardcore, ACDC, Black Sabbath etc. But at age 50 this month with three boys I am more interested in whatever periods of silence I can find. [Editor’s note: on his FB page he recommends Sick of It All and Grievous Bodily Harm, among others.]

Q: How about book recommendations? I’m sure you have a couple my readers may have missed- I know I’ve already picked up a copy of The Broken World of Sacrifice.

• Julius Evola and the UR Group- Introduction to Magic
• Michael Murphy- The Future of the Body
• David Gordon White- The Alchemical Body
• Aleister Crowley- Book 4

Q: Are there any ritual exercises, breathing techniques, etc that in your opinion are universally applicable for strength sports? I’ve been writing about the use of chaos magic for reaching strength goals, for instance, and am curious if your esoterica have similar applications.

A: Gada, Dand and Bethak are all conducive to meditative states. They’ll are rhythmic, repetitive and are themselves mantras. I see training as an exercise in bringing mind and body into close collusion, the state in which we perform best, the flow state. Draw a circle around yourself, real or otherwise, banish everything from the circle and perform the work with as much presence as possible. Words before, words after that hold a sacred sound, project a sacred concept, this is what breathing is for and will assist in the modulation of the breath, important in conflict if one is training in the arts of Mars.

I highly recommend the discipline of Agnihotra, a simple fire ceremony done at particular times of the day. Any disciplined act is the exercise of the will and will can be applied universally

Q: Awesome. I feel like the more tools we put in peoples’ toolboxes the better, and given the complete ignorance of the spiritual/metaphysical in the strength training world, every bit of light we can shed on the use of the occult in the pursuit of superhumanity is a triumph in and of itself. As we close, do you have anything to add? Any way people can get involved with you?

A: I am currently planning and fundraising for a trip to India to compete at the Nag Nathaiya festival in the city of Varanasi and to visit and study every aspect of the Akhara wrestling and training system that I can. My go fund me for this trip is:
https://www.gofundme.com/waryoga-in-the-motherland-akhara-n

T shirts with various WarYoga designs are at
http://www.killerbeegi.com/waryoga-gear/

My writing, training and other mind body notes are on my Facebook page: William Calvani or my Instagram page @heathenlyfather

And there you have it- not only is Matt Furey not the end-all be all when it comes to training like a pehlwan, but there are people who take that sort of thing far more seriously and traditionally. And lest you think I am giving up the weights to train with the gada, I’m not, though the incorporation of such training definitely lends itself to otherworldly grip and grappling strength, and has produced some of the most insanely dominant fighters in the world. If you take nothing else from this interview, know this- most character flaws you might possess are forgivable, but being boring definitely not one of them, and William Calvani is anything but fucking boring.

Go do something interesting.

“Look around you! We must tear down the rusty and ancient cage that we have built for ourselves and replace it with a shining tower that can once more touch the stars. Without evolution. we are shorn of our greatest strength.” – Inquisitor Laschia

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