ON THE MAT WITH DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE
Hollywood may be courting the three-time World Wresting Champ, but what he really wants to do is kick your ass into shape with Yoga!
Philip Nutman explains why.
As he approached the big Five O, Atlanta resident Jim Mabes found he was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his workout regime. Despite having trained in the martial art T’ai Chi Ch’uan for nearly nine years and being in better than
average shape for a man his age, Mabes still felt something was missing.
Don't mess with DDP -- the patented
"Diamond-Cutter" belongs to him!“With my 50th birthday approaching, I was willing to accept that my body was not what it once was until I saw Diamond Dallas Page’s Website in August 2005,” Mabes says with the enthusiasm of a teenager. “He and I are the same age and he was doing things I’ve never been able to do – until now! I discovered
his YOGA FOR REGULAR GUYS and have to say it is the best exercise program I’ve
ever done. I don’t have to dodge cars running any more or run on a machine
to nowhere to get an aerobic workout. I don’t have to go to the gym and wait
for machines to open up or change the cable settings on my home gym to strength
train. I can do 20-30 minutes of YRG three to four times a week and get an
aerobic and strength workout that’s incredible.”
Diamond Dallas Page (born Page Joseph Falkinburg in Point Pleasant, New Jersey
in 1956) came late to the wrestling ring, first hitting the ropes at age 35
when most professional wrestlers were hanging up their spandex leggings and
superhero shorts. Within a short space of time, DDP, as friends and fans refer
to him, had won three world championships and was a major draw for pay-per-view
events featuring smack-downs between him and Randy “Macho Man” Savage, Hulk
Hogan and others. But fame and fortune in the ring came at a price: DDP’s list
of injuries sustained throughout his career are enough to give an ER doctor
a coronary—torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders, a torn meniscus in his left
knee...the list goes on. But health matters came to a head on the David Arquette
movie READY TO RUMBLE (2000); while performing stunt sequences, he severely
damaged his back, rupturing his L4 and L5 discs. Retirement and serious surgery
seemed the only answer, but with his typically positive attitude, DPP decided
to find another way, as he puts it, to “put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
That way started with the support of doctors and physical therapists. However,
DDP decided to become an expert at healing his own body, which ultimately led
him to discovering yoga through his ex-wife, Kimberly (a story he recounted
with great humor and humility in the introduction to the YRG book).
After studying the positive healing effects and experiencing the increased
flexibility that yoga positions provided, he became a devotee and adapted the
discipline to meet his own needs. He developed YOGA FOR REGULAR GUYS, a comprehensive
health and fitness program that can be conducted in 20-, 30- and 45-minute
workouts.
Diamond Dallas Page is as much in demand these days, if not more so than
when he was bouncing off the ropes and body-slamming his opponents. In fact,
his career has splintered into three tracks: he is a well-sought-after motivational
speaker and yoga guru, and he has a burgeoning career in Hollywood. Within
the next six months he has four movies coming out, including the DEATH WISH-like
JACK’S LAW, the gang thriller SPLINTER, a key cameo in the anthology SNOOP
DOGG’S HOOD OF HORROR, and a lead, villainous role in the supernatural drama,
DRIFTWOOD, directed by Tim Sullivan (2001 MANIACS), who was also co-creator
of the Snoop Dogg project. But much as he enjoys acting and inspiring others
to “live life at 90 percent,” DDP’s main passion is for the YOGA FOR REGULAR
GUYS program. “That's where I'm going to leave my mark," he says. “To
look the way I look at 50 is one thing, but when you consider how I beat the
hell out of my body between 35 and 50 and still to have flexibility and the
strength I have, that's the key. I want to make 50 the new 35. That's what
YRG is all about, holding back the hands of time."
Having met DDP and taken one of his YRG classes (yoga babes, as he calls
them, are also welcome and contribute a big part of the book, before anyone
accuses Page of being exclusionary), there’s no denying how irrepressible a
character he is or how great his yoga workout makes you feel. The following
interview took place one morning over the phone while DDP was fixing breakfast
in his Los Angeles home and waiting for the maintenance man to come fix his
dishwasher. Even celebrated yoga gurus need their appliances...
PHILIP NUTMAN: Your movie career’s really starting to take off, especially
with landing a leading role in DRIFTWOOD. When you were a kid growing up in
New Jersey and you told everybody you wanted to be a wrestler, did you ever
imagine being a movie actor?
DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE: No. As a kid, I couldn’t read. I grew up with ADD/Dyslexia.
I was a natural for acting – that’s why everyone comes out here [to California]
and six months later they leave because they find out it’s way harder than
they thought [laughs]. But, no, much as everyone told me I was a natural, when
I was 30, I was still reading at third grade level, and to be a real actor
you’ve got to be able to read. When I turned 31, I made the decision to learn
to read proficiently because deep down inside I knew some day I would be an
actor. But you’ve gotta read. So I worked hard at reading. But much as I was
well-known in the ring and was on TV, it took over four years for people out
here to even take notice of me. But I’ve worked hard, prepping for a break.
I’ve taken a bunch of classes at the Howard Fine Acting Studio. I got lucky
to hook up with Howard. He’s really great.
PN: You don’t believe in doing anything half measure, do you?
DDP: No. What’s the point? If you’re gonna do it, do it. It’s my philosophy
of living life at 90 percent. Ten percent is the stuff that happens – the other
90 percent’s how you deal with it.
I could have just cruised on playing simple roles, the kind of roles that
feed off of who I am as “Diamond Dallas Page,” but what’s the point in that?
It’s easy to play yourself. But to play this character, the Captain [Captain
Kennedy] in DRIFTWOOD, who runs a correctional institute, the bottom line is,
there’s a lot of depth to this character, and I had a lot of dialogue I had
to learn. I couldn’t have done that without learning with Howard, and really
training for the role. I mean, I’d never done anything like this before. Tim
[the director] took a real gamble on me.
PN: So how did you prepare for DRIFTWOOD?
DRIFTWOOD's Captain Kennedy
contemplates arson.DDP: You want to play basketball? You learn the fundamentals; you learn how
to dribble, how to shoot, how to play defense. You want to be an actor, you’ve
got to learn to really find out who the character is; you need to learn how
to write a bio on that character; you need to learn how to take stuff from
yourself, to use it, to twist it, to take it into your fantasy life and develop
this character. You gotta make the character you, even though you wouldn’t
be them in real life. You know, maybe if I’d taken a couple of left turns in
my life instead of a couple of rights, maybe I could have been a Captain Kennedy?
You never know. I gave this guy a Florida accent, made him a real cracker,
but when I was playing Kennedy, I WAS Captain Kennedy.
PN: Your cameo, with Danny Trejo, as Billy Ray Snapper, in THE DEVIL’S REJECTS
(2005), was silent. There was no dialogue. How did you go from that to doing
DRIFTWOOD?
DDP: Working with Rob [Zombie] and Danny [Trejo] was fun. I mean, Billy Ray
wasn’t me; he wasn’t Diamond Dallas Page. But I did four other movies before
I did DRIFTWOOD, and each one was a bigger, more demanding part. I didn’t even
think about trying out for the part of Kennedy; I read for a smaller part,
that of Norris, who’s one of the Captain’s henchmen. The bottom line is, Tim
called me the next day and said he really didn’t see me playing Norris, but
I see you playing the Captain: “Really?” [Laughs] That was a very pleasant
surprise.
PN: I’ve watched Tim Sullivan direct major scenes from his debut, 2001 MANIACS,
which shot here in Georgia. What was it like working with him as an actor?
Ricky Ullman, Tim Sullivan and DDP want
you to take them seriously -- very seriously!DDP: Oh, phenomenal. We bonded as buddies big time. We’re both Jersey guys,
and we both have the same kind of intense work ethic. He’s such a nice guy,
and some people try and take advantage of him...there were times [laughs]...there’re
a lot of kids in this movie – like Talan Torriero from that LAGUNA BEACH show
[LAGUNA BEACH: THE REAL ORANGE COUNTY]; he’s been running with that Paris Hilton’s
pack; and then there’s the other kid, Ricky Ullman [star of the Disney Channel’s
PHIL OF THE FUTURE], he’s the antithesis of that and has been studying acting
since he was real young. He’s a professional; he’s 19 going on 39. But you’re
working with these guys, and sometimes they’re just kids, and they’d...well,
Tim’s a nice guy. Let’s just say, sometimes the Captain had to step in and
say, “hey!” [laughs]. Tim’s great, man. It was a real pleasure working with
him. I learned a lot.
PN: Let’s come back to your career as a sportsman and a wrestler. You’ve sustained
some serious injuries over the years, going back to when you were a kid and
you were hit by a car and were told you’d never be able to play sports again.
But you overcame that and became a basketball player. Then, here you are, 40-something
years later, and you bust up your back—badly—as a wrestler. That’s what led
you to yoga, correct?
DDP: You’re right. But listen, Phil, you gotta understand, I spent 40-something
years of my life avoiding yoga. I mean, I wouldn’t have been caught dead doing
yoga. Never, ever. But [my then-wife] Kimberly opened my eyes to it as a way
of healing my body.
You gotta remember I was 35 when I started wresting. Steve Austin retired
from wrestling when he was 37. They fired me when I was 36, but I came back
and they gave me a job when I was 37, mainly because of my work ethic, but
basically because they didn’t think I’d amount to anything. But I kept working
my tail off. It wasn’t until Hulk Hogan took an interest in me that things
opened up. He came backstage one night and said to me, “how do you keep going?
I see you in the ring every few weeks, and every time, you seem to do something
new, and people believe in you, man. And whatever it is you’re doing, some
time down the line you and I gotta get together and throw down some big money.”
What’s really great about that was, he was right [laughs].
But yeah, I screwed up my back real bad. Yoga? I’m not doing that crap –
it’s for sissies! At 42, they said my career was over. By 43, I was back in
the ring and became Heavyweight Champion of the World. I really don’t listen
when people tell me what I can’t do.
And now, here we are, YRG is changing the world, one regular guy at a time,
because most guys’re like me, they’d never do yoga! So, by adapting yoga into
this workout, by making it accessible, I’m making a difference. It’s not just
yoga: it’s yoga meets old school calisthenics, meets full motion isometrics.
What happens is, it builds your heart rate up to a fat-burning pace much faster
than regular yoga. You’ve tried it, Phil – tell me what you think.
PN: I enjoyed the book. In fact, I read it twice in one night and tried to
do the basic workout. I say “tried” because I did it, but not as well as I
would have liked because I kept stopping to reread the descriptions and tried
to memorize the photos. It’s definitely do-able, but it takes some time and
commitment. Then, I had the opportunity to do a beginners’ class with you and
it just flowed. Obviously, not everyone has the chance to do YRG with DDP.
When are the instructional DVDs coming out? They will make a great addition
to the book.
DDP: We shot the DVDs a while back and they’re being edited right now. They
should be available around the time you run this interview.
There are three different levels, it’s not just YRG like the book. There’s
one aimed at over 50 – both age and pounds. When you’re carrying 40—100 pounds
of extra weight, you can’t do a regular workout, but this gets your heart rate
up real fast and keeps you in that fat burning zone that you just start burning
weight.
PN: What are the three workouts?
DDP: There’s YOGA FOR REGULAR GUYS, that’s the basics, whether you’re an athlete
or a regular guy, especially if you’re a regular guy!; YRG 50 +: LARGE AND
IN CHARGE, that’s for guys and gals who’ve put on a few pounds over the last
10 years and have discovered 50 means 50-plus; and then there’s YRG: FOUNTAIN
OF YOUTH.
You’ve seen Ted Evans, he’s 71 years old. He’s an incredible YRG warrior
who’d never done any kind of regimed workout until he was 66 years old. You
go to my Website and see the case studies, and there’s Smokey [Larry “Smokey”
Genta], who is amazing; here’s a guy who’d never worked out a day in his life,
yet here he is, eight months later; he’s lost 73 pounds and 58 inches.
YRG gives you energy, flexibility, stability, creativity, because it helps
you focus, but ultimately it gives you longevity. I am doing stuff now at 50
I never expected to be able to do. Especially after all the damage I’d done
to my body. I get up every morning and I feel great. That’s what I want to
share with everybody, and that’s why I’m so passionate about this. 
Page will be touring to promote the YRG DVDs over the next few months. For
more information go to www.diamonddallaspage.com
DRIFTWOOD will have its premiere on MTV as a special movie event this Fall
and will receive a major DVD release in February, 2007. For more information,
go to: http://www.myspace.com/driftwoodthemovie.
"Yoga for Regular Guys Book -$12.97 at Amazon
