Fangs for the memories, say fans as man pull plane with teeth

By Gin Kurniawan

SURABAYA (JP): Suddenly the tense faces of thousands of onlookers disappeared and they shouted merrily with admiration when a man, who was the focus of attention, managed to pull a more than seven-ton aircraft with the strength of his teeth.

Earlier, thousands of spectators present at last month's celebration of the 44th Anniversary of Navy Flights at Juanda Airport, Surabaya, were pessimistic. They didn't believe that First Cpl. Naryo, 23, a member of air defense artillery, in Sidoarjo, would succeed in pulling the fighter plane, let alone with the strength of his teeth.

He did, however, have some difficulty initially. Naryo appeared to be making every effort to move the sturdy plane. The special ribbons tied to the plane's front wheels seemed only to move to the left and right, as if the plane didn't want to move forward.

He later managed to move it with the help of his hands.

"I used my hands to keep the aircraft moving to the right. Otherwise, it would only move to the right and to the left," he said.

Even using his hands to pull the plane, it was still amazing, considering the weight of the aircraft, which had seven people on board.

In fact, he pulled it beyond the fixed target. Formerly, the committee only targeted him to pull the Cassa 212 as far as 15 meters but he managed to pull it 32 meters.

Naryo, whose nickname is Monster, was grateful to God for being able to move the plane with the strength of his teeth, especially as, this time, none of them fell out. Before, he was afraid of loosing his teeth as three days earlier, when practicing, three of his teeth fell out. Fortunately, he said, they had been properly fixed and were back to normal.

Naryo's success in fixing his teeth was regarded as something strange. "The main thing is I can fix any teeth that fall out in less than 12 hours", said Naryo, who claims he has never specifically maintained his teeth, but rinses his mouth with salt water every day.

"Old men say, rinsing the mouth with salt can strengthen the teeth", he added.

Before, also with the strength of his teeth, he broke the world record when he managed to lift 110 bags of rice, each weighing 50 kilograms, with his teeth and move them as far as six meters in 25 minutes. The event took place in the yard of Brawijaya Military Headquarters on Dec. 6, 1999, when he defeated a Pakistani, who was in the Guinness Book of Records for moving 70 bags with his teeth, each weighing 40 kg, as far as 4 meters in 43 minutes.

His achievement was noted by the Indonesian Records Museum in Semarang, Central Java.

Despite his strength, Naryo maintains a low profile. He admitted what he did was nothing but merely entertaining the people with his ability. He wishes to use this ability to unite the people with the Indonesian Military (TNI), which has become an object of scorn for its alleged wrongdoings in the past.

"We don't want the people to be afraid of entering the TNI complex and knowing the real lives of TNI soldiers," said Naryo, who has been a TNI officer since 1995.

He thinks he can help change the bleak view many have about TNI and is attempting to draw the attention of the people so they no longer feel reluctant to come to any military barracks. "Perhaps this is too idealistic, but this is what I can possibly contribute to my unit," he explained.

Naryo admitted he was extremely disappointed with PT Quantum Art, the promoter, which held the recent event at Juanda Airport.

He claimed that the payment he received was not what was promised by the promoter and that he had encountered considerable expenses from the necessary preparations during training.

Naryo said that in order to become the strongest man, he had to pay for a lot of things. He had to undergo physical training for three days, at least, before the event. During training, he said, he had to buy 30 free-range eggs and half a kilogram of beef every day. In addition, he had to eat a lot of fruit and drink lots of milk.

Naryo said that the strength he has is a talent he has had since birth, and that even before he was born, there were certain peculiarities. "My mother was 14 months and 28 days pregnant before she gave birth to me," he claimed.

In addition to other peculiarities, Naryo was circumcised four times when he was in fifth grade of elementary school. He said the special knife used to circumcise him was not good enough to cut the foreskin, and neither were the other knives. Therefore, his mother took a spiritual step by fasting every Monday and Thursday for one year. After that, he was circumcised, but not quite perfectly. "The knife could only cut a bit, so, actually, I have not been circumcised."

Naryo was born into a simple farming family in the regency of Nganjuk in East Java, the youngest child of two children.

Realizing the talent had, Naryo was heavily involved in sports activities that drained his energy. He trained by practicing tough sports like judo, tae kwon do, boxing and wrestling, and was once registered as a regional champion in the sports. At the age of 14, he succeeded in dancing with a 25 kg dadak merak (giant mask) in the reog traditional dance in his village. Usually, only people who are considered to have magical powers can preform the dance wearing the mask.