rootninja

I just read about a tribe of indigenous people from northern Mexico that are physically fit and extremely heathy in an article titled, “The Men Who Live Forever“. They’re called the Tarahumara, but they call themselves Raramuri. They aren’t plagued with diseases such as diabetes, colon cancer, or heart disease like we are. They are extremely fit and can run forever chasing prey. Oh, and they party like rock stars. Reading all of this in the article made me stop and say wtf is this!? So I looked them up on wikipedia. The word for themselves is Raramuri, meaning “runners on foot” in their native language which predates the Aztecs. If you search for pictures of the Tarahumara or Raramuri on google, you get pics of random indians, mexicans, and other tribes. So it seems like there’s just not that much information about them out there.

When it comes to the top 10 health risks facing American men, the Tarahumara are practically immortal: Their incidence rate is at or near zero in just about every category, including diabetes, vascular disease, and colorectal cancer. Age seems to have no effect on them, either: The Tarahumara runner who won the 1993 Leadville ultramarathon was 55 years old. Plus, their supernatural invulnerability isn’t just limited to their bodies; the Tarahumara have mastered the secret of happiness as well, living as benignly as bodhisattvas in a world free of theft, murder, suicide, and cruelty.

So how do they do it? How is it that we, in one of the most technologically advanced nations on Earth, can devote armies of scientists and terabytes of data to improving our lives, yet keep getting fatter, sicker, and sadder, while the Tarahumara, who haven’t changed a thing in 2,000 years, don’t just survive, but thrive? What have they remembered that we’ve forgotten?

Check out some of the Tarahumara Training techniques.