Underwater wrestling? Yes, this is a thing. And while it may not be a thing that you have heard of before, it will be a thing that makes perfect sense after you watch the video/hear the explanation for it above. Also, Mark Mathews does it, so you know it’s legit. And he does it with none other than renowned-expert-at-holding-his-breath-underwater Nam Baldwin which makes it even more legit.
In a calm state, Mathews is able to hold his breath from three to four minutes. In more stressful situations — such as big wave hold-downs, as stimulated by underwater wrestling — he aims for a minute and thirty seconds. Once again, I, and 99.999% of you, are not him nor Makua Rothman. But by first appreciate and then emulating their training regimens (along with Waterman Survival) and we might someday hope to be a shadow of their surfing selves in those sorts of conditions. If you have the stomach for it, that is.
On the bright side, it all begins with rock running, and those make for epic Instagram shots, so we non-big-wave-surfers have that going for us, which is nice.
