As religious Hindus, they recite mantras as they do their knee bends and push-ups. In their struggle towards “pollution,” they strictly management their diet, sexual habits, breathing, and even their urination and defecation. Like the extremely advanced civilizations of which they are an element, conventional Asian sports activities are historical and varied. From the Islamic Middle East throughout the Indian subcontinent to China and Japan, wrestlers—mostly but not exclusively male—embodied and enacted the values of their cultures. The wrestler’s energy was always greater than a merely private assertion. More often than not, the lads who strained and struggled understood themselves…