Cowboy Carlson was one of my favorites because he was a real cowboy. He grew up on a ranch in Ekalaka Montana and eventually married an Indian girl and retired to raising cattle on an Indian reservation.

 

As a very young kid, seven years old, my sports were amateur wrestling, rodeo and fishing. My favorite was fishing but my father insisted I also make time for wrestling and rodeo.

 

My father's tag team partner in the Amarillo Territory in the old days was Cowboy Carlson. Cowboy got me interested in weight training to give me strength in all sports. In those days we trained in my father's garage.

 

We had a wrestling mat on the floor of the garage and our weight training paraphernalia was a couple of wooden Coke cases stacked upside down serving as our weight lifting bench.

 

In those days we thought it was an amazing feat of strength when Cowboy Carlson bench pressed 350 pounds. Considering he was bridged back on two wooden Coke cases, it was an amazing feat of strength and balance.

 

Cowboy encouraged me to train with weights and gave me my first weight training program. Some people told me that  weights could  cause heart problems, especially as your body tried to adapt when you quit weight lifting.

 

I asked Cowboy about that. He looked at me and said, "Why would you ever quit?

 

To this day, I still love weight training and wrestling and like Cowboy Carlson said, "Why would I ever want to quit."

 

On our website we have ideal Christmas Gifts for those interested in learning about the wrestling business. You can order our wrestling training DVD "The Dory Funk Method" of professional wrestling or we have a special combination of "The Secrets of Professional Wrestling" together with The "Dory Funk Method of Professional Wrestling."

 

Included with both packages is our weight training program that includes some of the original lifts taught to me by Cowboy Carlson. You can order these DVD's at  www.dory-funk.com.

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