Contortionism: Bend It Like Gumby

If you could put your leg behind your head, would you? Of course you would! You might even make a career out of it, amazing people around the world with your flexibility. That’d make you a contortionist! But first you’d better get started with stretching. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here to do, which makes this Diz-uh, you should know.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  That's right. Boy, did Livia had a good title on this one.

• 1:59Josh Clark?

  Did you like it? Go ahead.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Well, this is about contortionists. And Livia titled what she sent us, Bend It Like Gumby.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  I think it's good.

• 2:12Josh Clark?

  It is good. Yeah, Livia always comes up with the best titles.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and now we know that she listens to some of these because she heard you take a dig at her.

• 2:21Josh Clark?

  About explaining what a socket and electrical plug does?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, she's a good sport, though.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  Uh, let's see, what else, Chuck? I guess you already spoiled what this episode's about. It's about contortionism, which I guess we were gonna have to get into eventually.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, obviously, we're talking about bending your body.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  In ways that are, yeah, like Gumby, bending your bodies in ways that are extraordinary. And as we have learned, it's something that maybe you're kind of born with and definitely something you can work toward and maybe a bit of both.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I always assumed it was just a born thing and that like one out of every 15 million people were born as a contortionist essentially. And I figured, yes, of course, they have to train and everything and, you know, choreograph. There's a lot of types of contortionism that are essentially contortionist ballets, especially like the ones you see at Cirque du Soleil.

• 3:20Josh Clark?

  Which if you say that funny, it's a hilarious thing to say. It's a good joke.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:27Josh Clark?

  But I guess I just didn't realize that it is something you can, like you or I could go train to be a contortionist. We would fail utterly, but we could at least go train in our 50s and still do a lot better than we can right now because it is something you can adapt your body to.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And it's also something that's been around a long, long time, right?

• 3:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it has one more thing. It will help you a lot while we're going through some of this stuff to just, if you can, look it up, watch videos, but even like just photos sometimes can kind of get the point across. It's, it's just one of those things while we were studying this, I was like, this is gonna kind of be tough to, to describe in some cases, but we'll do our best.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I don't think it's gonna be that hard to follow. People know what we're talking about.

• 4:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, so we are talking about contortionism and you did say that it is very, very old. The oldest thing we've found that is pretty much a certainty that they're depicting a contortionist was an image that was found in Syria, an old, old Polaroid from 2300 BCE.

• 4:33Josh Clark?

  And there's some contortionists and they're holding swords. And the best that historians can come up with is that it's possible that so there's some Hittite writings that describe a performance where contortionists basically jumped through hoops of swords as basically a well, a performance essentially that basically say, can you do this? No, you can't.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, you know, that followed, of course, we have to talk about all the usual suspects, of course. China will come in, don't worry. But ancient Egypt, they found pottery fragments that date to 1200 BCE that definitely show women dancing in back bends, like, you know, contorting themselves.

• 5:14Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  And the Greeks also did this later on as well, right?

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the Greeks is where we finally start to get to unambiguous descriptions of contortionism. I think as far back as, well, the like about 2,500 years ago, something like that. Contortionists had had become like an actual thing, like they were part of troops or performers that performed in Greece. Like if you went to say a public festival, let's say Dionysus was being celebrated that day, there's a chance that you might find somebody doing a contortionist act as just kind of part of the festivities.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I mentioned China, and this is one of those cases where we don't know if it, if people in China, and this was like 221 BCE to 220 CE, if they were influenced by people from other parts of the world or not, or whether it developed independently. When people over there realized that they were bindi. But when they look at like some of the clothes that contortionists were wearing in China, it seems like it maybe was influenced by people in Europe, but also could have been maybe that's just the garb.

• 6:22Josh Clark?

  They were all wearing Benetton.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Stretchy stuff.

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, that's very interesting because usually something came out of China and it influenced Europe rather than going the other way around, especially that far back. So I'm, yeah, as a person of European ancestry, I'm quite proud of that.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Of course, you know, you would think India is probably a pretty obvious spot for contortionism. And you would be right because there are sculptures in temples from India. These date to 10th century CE that also show women in contorted poses. This time it got a little sexier, though.

• 7:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think a lot of times you think about something like the Kama Sutra, and there are definitely contortionist poses in the Kama Sutra.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:10Josh Clark?

  But there's the, to just think of it as like, oh, this is just, you know, like you said, just sexy. There's a spiritual aspect to that whole thing, too. It's like a tantric yoga practice. But it is also sexy, just admittedly. But there's this, that made me kind of wonder, Chuck, like, did like yoga and Buddhism and Hinduism and the incorporation of all these physical movements that include contortionism, did that kind of come out of this contortionist,

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  I guess, heritage or whatever that dates back to at least the Hittites? Or was what the Hittites were doing essentially the foundation for what would later become, you know, Buddhism and Hinduism?

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, and to be clear, when we say sexy, we mean they're depictions of actual intercourse. Because

• 8:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, thank you for saying that.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  One of the things that's really annoying to me about all of this, and Livia picks this up sort of at the end of the article, but I'm going to go ahead and address it now, is that if you get, you know, 100 people in a room and there's a contortionist, there's probably going to be some dim-witted man making some stupid sexual reference about somebody being bendy, about a woman being bendy. And that's just dumb. So that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about like, you know, actual pictures of sexual positions in this case.

• 8:32Josh Clark?

  I think that was great because I, you could interpret it a way where we sounded like dirty old men, essentially.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the guys who like kind of elbow on another, like, huh, huh, check it out, huh?

• 8:42Speaker 02

  I mean, come on.

• 8:44Josh Clark?

  So some people have a further way to come than other people, you know?

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 8:51Josh Clark?

  So back to India itself. There's a clear like comparison between contortionism and yoga today. And actually, it's kind of neat because if you go online and you look up like contortionism or training or something like that, it's essentially people who are into yoga and they're trying to figure out how to go even further.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:12Josh Clark?

  So they're following ancient practices that have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, that are contortionist in by nature.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. England might not be the most obvious place to think about men doing contortionist poses, but that's exactly what happened in 17th and 18th century there in the form of posture master, masters, posture masters is what they were called.

• 9:38Josh Clark?

  That sounds like a mattress.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  A posture master.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  But that's what was going on. It was, it's a little odd to think about now, but there, you know, it might be like an actual performance, maybe sometimes it was something that they would do on the street to raise money, like busking, or maybe to trying, instead of like holding a sign outside your business, there might be a male posture master sitting outside your tavern to try and get people in there. But it was kind of a big deal and they kind of became sort of famous in England at the time.

• 10:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, this is before TV, radio, internet, even newspapers in a lot of cases. And there you could, as a male contortionist in particular, because it was a male dominated field at this time, at least in Europe, and it seems like basically throughout the world, that you could become distinctly famous, like a guy named Joseph Clark, who apparently in the late 17th century was a very, very famous contortionist in England, so much so that his last name was shorthand for contortion in England. And then eventually would morph into shorthand for giving somebody something that they want.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh, the circus is obviously going to come into play and that is when the circus came into play and that was, and we, you know, we've done quite a few episodes on the circus back in the day, but as a reminder, this was late 18th century when Philip and Patty Astley, they had a, you know, a lot of the early circuses were like horse riding tricks, like equestrian stuff.

• 11:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  And theirs definitely formed out of that, out of their Astley's Riding School in London. And, uh, you know, once the circus started spreading around, it came to the United States. And within that circus world, contortionists started kind of performing on the regular. But, you know, it started to get, and which is like it is today, it gets kind of mixed in with other sort of acrobatics.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and just stepping back a couple of paces, once it reached Europe and England in the 17th and 18th century, there was no spirituality associated with it, once it reached Western Europe. It was performance from that point on, you know? Um, and yeah, once it hit the circus, it's really started to morph into what we understand as contortionism today. There was one trick I have to say that Patty Astley did on her horse in the very beginning of circuses, she would ride her horse really fast and her, um, uh, arms would be covered in bees.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:10Josh Clark?

  That's a wild ride for, that's a wild ride for everybody involved.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you know, maybe she was a beekeeper.

• 12:17Josh Clark?

  Uh, it doesn't matter what she was doing, Chuck. She was riding full throttle on a horse with bees all over her arms. I mean, I'm assuming like they changed like the shape of her arms because there were so many bees, that kind of thing, not like two or three bees on each arm.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That wouldn't have much impact, I don't think.

• 12:38Josh Clark?

  That impressed me quite a bit.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a pretty good trick. So, uh, the actual word contortionist, that, that came around in 1860 before then, uh, you know, it was just called other stuff depending on what culture it was coming from. But if you were in the US or if you were in England performing as a contortionist, you probably said that you were either Chinese or Turkish or German or French, or maybe you were, you might have just claimed to be one of those things because it had such a rich tradition in being bendy like that. But at this point, it started to be mainly women who were hired by male circus owners and a lot of times performing exclusively for male audiences.

• 13:21Josh Clark?

  Right. And so, yeah, it kind of evolves even further. And luckily, that went from like the point of a contortionist act eventually evolving to, you know, a couple of dudes in the audience like elbowing one another where most people are like getting what the point is. But that said, there are contortionist acts today that are very much geared toward the sexual nature of the whole thing. And, you know, they're performed by women who are doing that on purpose. So you, you know, whatever, more power to them. There is like a thread of that. Like, you can't just be like, nope, that doesn't exist. Stop, stop

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  saying that. But the point of most contortionist performances, it seems like, is not that. That's a very niche thing these days.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. There was one, you know, kind of notable early contortionist we got to mention here named, well, her real name was Beatrice Mary Claxton, but Beatrice Claxton isn't the best name for a contortionist. So she went by Anna Bertoldi, which is much more of a sort of a circus-y name. And starting at like age eight years old, she was touring around. And as we'll see, you know, contortionism is mainly a sport of the young. You can age out of it like ballet in a lot of cases. But she was a kid doing it. And she performed all over Great Britain and then eventually traveled to the US in 1891. And one of the reasons we mention hers because she was very famously one of the early people that

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Thomas Edison filmed with his kinetoscope.

• 14:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is pretty cool. I mean, you have to be pretty famous in and of yourself to do that, but to, you know, be memorialized in one of the earliest film strips is definitely going to help your fame later on in history as a contortionist, I would think.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 15:14Josh Clark?

  So you want to take a little bit of a break and come back and talk about the epicenter, ground zero of contortionism?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Hmm, where could that be?

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• 18:57Josh Clark?

  Okay, so we're back and I talked about the epicenter of contortionism and I'm just going to reveal it now. It's Mongolia, everybody.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  That's right. It is, has long been that sort of epicenter. It still is that epicenter.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  And we're going to tell you why, because one of the reasons it started as a big deal there is, or at least we think, that it, you know, had to do with sort of meditative practices. And also like a dance, a Buddhist dance known as the psalm, which is, you know, also, you know, it's very religious, obviously tied to Buddhism, but has to do with, you know, training your body and mind to work together to do incredible things.

• 19:38Josh Clark?

  I also saw that has secret meanings, that you have to be a very high, highly advanced Buddhist monk to you basically be led in on, which is pretty neat.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Oh, cool.

• 19:49Josh Clark?

  There's also a folk dance in Mongolia that's indigenous to Mongolia, from what I understand, Biyeelgee. And as far as folk dances go, I'm not usually a huge fan of folk dance. Like, I wouldn't go to a community center to see a folk dance performance. But this is a pretty cool folk dance to just check out on video. In part because of the movements, which include contortionism, including full back bends to where the dancer's back is like flat on the ground while they're on their knees.

• 20:22Josh Clark?

  But also just the incredibly colorful costumes that they wear too. It's really neat.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  What is a folk dance performance? Like, what are you avoiding? I don't even know what that means.

• 20:32Josh Clark?

  It's kind of like when, when people from different cultures perform traditional dances.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 20:41Josh Clark?

  That's a folk dance.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  I got you. Okay.

• 20:43Josh Clark?

  I mean, what'd you think? Like, square dancing? I guess that's probably a type of folk dance. Yeah. No, it's just, you know, any kind of cultural dancing. For some reason, it's never floated my boat, but

• 20:55Speaker 02

  I got you.

• 20:56Josh Clark?

  I'm not yucking anyone's yum, because I couldn't do a single step of any folk dance. And I'm usually impressed with anybody who can dance in any way, shape, or form.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. So 12th century is when it starts to become a really sort of mainstream thing in Mongolian culture, basically, at, you know, festivals, court appearances, obviously. And then 17th century is when there was a Buddhist leader named Andor Gighin Zenzivar, who inspired these contortionists with these, I guess they were

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Was it like just art sculptures, basically, the people like in all sorts of kind of contorted positions?

• 21:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he was like, do that position, I dare you.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:42Josh Clark?

  He would make sculptures of them.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:44Josh Clark?

  I thought that was, yeah, and the guy was so, I guess, popular that like he actually advanced contortionism by pushing them to their limits, I guess.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 21:55Josh Clark?

  As a sculptor.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you can bend clay in ways you can't bend a body.

• 21:59Josh Clark?

  That's right. That's why you can bend it like Gumby, man.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 22:04Josh Clark?

  So Mongolia is, and I thought this was pretty interesting, too. There's like contortionism evolving in different places around the world, you know, kind of simultaneously. But Mongolia basically took the mantle and one of the reasons why is because they became a Soviet state in the 40s. And as part of the USSR, the government bankrolled the Mongolian State Circus, which became world renowned, traveled the world. That's one of the ways it became world renowned, but also because they were really, really good. And one of the centerpieces of the Mongolian State Circus was contortionism.

• 22:41Josh Clark?

  And from that, it grew in popularity very, very quickly because there was a lot of funding for it. There's a lot of publicity for it, but that created a mushrooming of contortionist schools in Mongolia, some of which are still around today.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, for sure. The first one and the first sort of, you know, superstar of that circus was a contortionist name, Tsindayush, and that was the first school. But like you said, there's, there's a lot of them still there and it's not just like, hey, if you're from Mongolia and you're a young girl and your parents think you're like pretty flexible early on, they may send you to this, like that certainly happens, but people from all over the world, like gymnasts will go and train, like anyone who wants to sort of increase your flexibility in an extreme way. There's no better place in the world to go than a contortionist school in Mongolia.

• 23:36Josh Clark?

  No, they know what they're, they're doing, in other words.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Their, their circus isn't nearly as big ever since they peeled away from the Soviet Union in the early 90s. But it's still like a, a big kind of rich tradition in that country.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, big time. Right now, the biggest school, I think the oldest school, is owned by a former sumo wrestler. And he is Mongolia's most famous, most revered sumo wrestler. He got out of the sumo game and bought the school for contortionism. The thing is, it's kind of in this decline, so much so that Mongolia has been trying to get UNESCO heritage protection for Mongolian contortionism because it's just not quite as widespread, even though there's more schools than ever. It's just become much more diluted. I think there's a lower barrier to entry for being like, say, a teacher or a school owner or something like that.

• 24:34Josh Clark?

  And then simultaneous to that, a lot of Mongolian contortionist trainers are going abroad. And so they're taking it with them, but at the same time, someone in, say, like, England, who sees an English contortionist, they don't, they're not regarding the idea that that person was trained by a Mongolian contortionist teacher. They are looking at the English contortionist. And so in that way, it's becoming less and less identified with Mongolia.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's kind of, I was kind of disappointed that UNESCO turned them down. They tried to get, you know, it added as a list of intangible heritage, which it seems very clear that that's the case. But they rejected the proposal. This was in 2011. And they said that advocates didn't make a strong enough case for its significance in Mongolian culture and society, which just, I don't know. I'm not on that board, obviously, but it seems pretty obvious to me as an outsider that it's like super tied to Mongolian culture.

• 25:32Josh Clark?

  Sure. Well, you will be heartened that the Mongolian folk dance Bielgi is protected under UNESCO heritage.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  I'll just take it one step further, UNESCO.

• 25:42Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Because also, what's the big deal?

• 25:45Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I was trying to think about that. I'm sure that they have a kind of mentality that's like, we don't want to open the floodgates or else, you know? But I mean, there's plenty of stuff that that I'm sure deserves protecting that they're turning down. And you know what? I'd be interested to know about that. I'm going to look into that. And we'll do a short stuff on all the stuff UNESCO's turned down for heritage protection.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  Well, if you want to learn about the mechanics, now is your time to listen closely. This is the point where you were probably talking about maybe looking at pictures and stuff. But, you know, I think a lot of people have seen a lot of this stuff. If you've ever watched, uh, when we were kids, that's incredible. Or America's Got Talent these days, they'll have acts like this. Or certainly if you've ever been to like Cirque du Soleil or something.

• 26:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  But backbending, there's like kind of six main, um, sort of overall things you can learn. And then within that, you can do all sorts of stuff to incorporate little side tricks. And then, you know, mix these together for, you know, performative purposes. But backbending, that's sort of the classic place that you start, the classic backbend.

• 26:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Um, one of the things is the chest stand. And, um, essentially it's where you're on your chest, see? So I'm gonna, like, everybody get in this position. I'm going to walk you through it. You're on your chest, flat, I guess it's prone on the floor. And you bend your, your, um, yourself at the waist and you bring your hips back, back, back, back, back. And then you have your feet on either side of your head. You can do this, everybody. Just hang in there. And then your feet are fat, uh, flat on the floor on either side of your head. Remember, you're still on your chest, but now your legs are completely over you. And your feet are on either side of your head, flat on the floor. That's the chest stand. That's the most basic one. Anybody can basically do that, just jumping into it.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Well, my only note with that description is, uh, when you said your waist went back, back, back. Technically, I think your waist is going forward, forward, forward. So that might have confused people.

• 27:50Josh Clark?

  Okay, yeah, I think maybe that's why I was like, this is, um, this is hard to describe because I knew I was gonna screw it up just royally.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Well, you've also got the front bend. Uh, if someone has got a little humor to their performance, you're probably gonna use a front bend because that is when you're sort of doing the opposite in which you fold your head and chest all the way between your legs to where you're sort of looking at your own butt. So obviously, insert joke right there.

• 28:17Josh Clark?

  Yes, these are the ones that really get to me. Like the, there's like some sort of preternatural like zap that, um, that contortionist poses can do to you, or to me at least. And the, the, like, the human pretzel one, or the human knot, those are the ones that they just zap me. It's a very thrilling way, but at the same time, I'm like, there's some part of my lizard brain that like, that ain't right. Body's not supposed to do that.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we go to Cirque du Soleil every year when it comes to Atlanta in the fall. That's kind of one of our little family traditions. And there's always some kind of contortionist, I feel like. But yeah, this last one, and I can't remember which one it was called, but, uh, they had a guy and it was, he was the best I had ever seen. It was, uh, I wasn't quite sure what I was watching at certain points where you can't even tell which arm was which, or, you know, it was definitely one of those, uh, brain breaking sort of performances. It was incredible.

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. Um, those are, I think one of the other things too, that I've noted, especially with Cirque du Soleil performances, is it's not just like a, hey, look, I'm in this pose and I'm holding this pose and now I'm just gonna get into the next pose. Like the, the transition from one pose to another is incredibly important. And that's kind of what makes it like a very ballet-like performance, you know? I think that's just, um, that makes the whole thing like even more amazing, but at the same time, more, it zaps me less than just like a, here's a pose, check it out, let it really sink in what I'm doing right now. Yeah, it's like, I like it when, when it's the way that you describe where you like, can't even tell what's what.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think definitely the next part balancing is when that comes into play. That's, um, I think a lot of like the feats of strength combined with, you know, I said, they kind of mix things up in, uh, in circuses. And the feats of strength is definitely when balancing comes in, cause that's when you're contorted in a pose and maybe you're like lifting yourself off the ground in a little ball that you can't even figure out with just like your fingertips or something like that.

• 30:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, very famous one of these is the Marinelli Bend and that is essentially kind of like, it's like a chest stand, um, it's very similar to a chest stand, except that rather than, um, having your weight on your chest, you have all of the weight in your entire body on your teeth and you're probably biting a pole and that's what's holding you up while you're doing your chest stand in the middle of the air. It's, it's quite impressive and I looked it up. There is a Mongolian, um, contortionist named Satsral Erdanablig and she holds the record for holding a Marinelli Bend for four minutes and 17 seconds.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  That's a long time.

• 31:05Josh Clark?

  With her teeth.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, dislocation, that's another one that, uh, probably might trigger some folks. Uh, that is kind of one of those deals where you're, it looks like you're popping your shoulder or your arm out of joint or something like that, um, to achieve the sort of performative effect.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  The shoulder pass through was sort of a classic move. Uh, that's where you hold a stick with both hands and you move the stick all the way, you know, in front of your body and then over your head into your back, but you're not changing your grip. So your arms are twisting and, uh, contorting in ways that look like they've been dislocated.

• 31:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Uh, the splits too. Um, I always think of the splits as kind of like a cheer, yeah, it's classic. It's like a cheerleader thing or, you know, your friend in the neighborhood can do it. Um, have you ever done a split?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  No, I'm not a split. I mean, I used to be very flexible.

• 32:00Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Uh, like I could put my, my ankle, like my foot behind my head.

• 32:04Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Uh, when I was young and stuff like that. And

• 32:08Josh Clark?

  When I was one.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Come close now. And Ruby the other day was just laughing at me because I was actually fairly close, but uh, I was never a splitter.

• 32:16Josh Clark?

  All right. Fair enough. I wasn't either. Um, but one of the basic things that you have to, to learn is the splits. Cause so many of the, um, the other kind of movements and poses are based on being able to do a split. It's a basic one, but if you really wanna be impressed, go look up over splits, which is doing a split, but say one foot is on a chair in front of you and the other foot is on a chair behind you. And you're a foot or so off of the ground, um, almost making a, just the beginnings of a U with your legs.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like that standing split, uh, where you're on one leg and you have, uh, reached behind you and, and grabbed that foot and brought it all the way over. That's always, cause that's also incorporates balance, obviously.

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  I don't remember who did that, but one of the, I think the, one of the American skaters in the Winter Olympics did that while they were doing like a spin.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 33:11Josh Clark?

  Uh, but it was like perfectly 90 degrees, um, perpendicular to, to the ice. It was really amazing.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you got to, or you'll get that half point deduction.

• 33:23Josh Clark?

  Um, and then twisting too. This kind of twisting is not necessarily in and of itself a pose, although it would be impressive, but it's kind of like a, a fundamental part of a bunch of other poses. Right? Where if you're twisting yourself around, or if you, if you're moving yourself so that you can't tell what arm is what, um, you're twisting to some degree and what's really Fascinating to me about this is that each individual vertebra is rotating and it's rotating to a degree that the average person can't do, obviously, but the, just the idea of your spine, I would think of it as moving in one thing, but it's just like ding ding ding

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  ding ding. Each vertebra is moving itself. I think that's an amazing skill, just that. Like if somebody walked up to me and said, I can twist all of my individual vertebra. Can you? I would say, I don't think I can.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I wouldn't know if I am.

• 34:21Josh Clark?

  Exactly. I know somebody's gonna write in and be like, don't be stupid, Josh. Everyone's vertebra twisted individually. I get that. I guess I'm trying to get across that I'm impressed by contortionists. Okay?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  For sure. Uh, should we take another break?

• 34:34Josh Clark?

  I think we should.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  All right. We're going to come back and talk about sort of the dark side of this right after this.

• 34:55Josh Clark?

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• 35:05Speaker 02

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• 35:18Josh Clark?

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• 35:33Speaker 02

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• 35:56Speaker 06

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• 36:22Speaker 02

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 36:25Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do, or buy, or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 36:36Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug, or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

• 36:42Speaker 02

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• 36:54Josh Clark?

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• 37:15Speaker 07

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• 37:28Speaker 02

  All right. I promised talk of the dark side. And that is to say, there are some syndromes and some disorders that could lend itself to this. So I guess that's the dark side. The first thing we should clear up is that double-jointed is not a thing. I know that's something that everyone kind of learned on the playground, like, look, I'm double-jointed. But what people are, people don't have extra joints. What people are really talking about there is what's called hypermobility.

• 37:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  And that is something that, obviously, if you are hypermobile, then you are, have a pretty good leg up to being a contortionist, and they would diagnose that, or I guess rather, rate your hypermobility on what's called the Batton Scale.

• 38:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  And nine is the highest on that scale, and if you're a contortionist, you're probably a nine.

• 38:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but also, aren't you a jerk if you make a scale and you just leave it at nine rather than 10?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  I just, I feel like there had to be a reason for that, but I didn't ask.

• 38:29Josh Clark?

  Well, you add a point for each thing that somebody can do. So it's things like, can you touch your thumb to your forearm? And I can do that very easily. I'm doing it right now over and over again.

• 38:42Josh Clark?

  But you want to be able to do that with each hand. There's like, can you, does your knee go back a certain degree? Behind itself, there's just a bunch of different ones and you add one point for each limb that can do that. And I guess it just adds up to nine. He wasn't being a jerk. I was just kidding.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mentioned early on that genetics could play a part. And that's certainly true. You know, if your parents were contortionists, or your mom is a contortionist, you may be born more flexible. You may be born with hypermobility. But sometimes it does correlate, like I said, with the genetic conditions. The first one is EDS, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. There's really 13 of those syndromes. So it means that, you know, if you're a contortionist, you may have one of these, not, not always, but it's possible.

• 39:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think it's sometimes called Cirque du Soleil disease. And there are, like you said, 13 of them. They, because they, the one thing they have in common is that they affect your connective tissue. So you can have one that makes you very hypermobile, very extendable, hyperextendable. Because the connective tissue in your joints is not as, say, stiff as somebody else's. So you can go way beyond the normal range of motion. But then there's also other ones that keep you from being able to control your, your own breathing. Or your teeth fall out of your head because your gums are not connective enough to hold them in there. So there's a whole bunch of different ways that this can affect you. It just happens that a couple of the forms of EDS or a couple of the symptoms of some types of EDS

• 40:21Josh Clark?

  make you much more hyper, hypermobile and hyperextensive.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Sometimes if you are hypermobile and you have the EDS, and that's one of, I guess, sort of the pluses. It can have some harmful traits like,

• 40:36Speaker 02

  although it can also help with skin, hyperextensibility, like having really stretchy skin. Or maybe joint instability is obviously a bad one. Cause that can lead to injury and dislocations and stuff like that. But we should point out that there doesn't seem to be any like weird high rate of injury for people who are involved in contortionism and definitely not, doesn't mean you're like you're gonna die younger, that's sort of a old wives tale that contortionists die young, but that may have to do with the fact that it could be, go along with some of these syndromes.

• 41:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I also wonder if it has to do with just going out of the public eye at a very young age, because in Mongolia, I think the average career of a contortionist goes from about age six to age 13. So I wonder if that just kind of helped develop that old wives tale over the years.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Oh, like people think they died and just aged out?

• 41:29Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  One of the things that was always kind of obvious to me is that women are more flexible than men on the whole. There are actually distinct physiological reasons for this, one of which, I mean, body structure, obviously, but hormones apparently affect your connective tissue and it's, I guess, strength or degree of flexibility. And so when women take progestin, progestin-only birth control pills, they're more hypermobile than when they aren't on birth control pills. Isn't that fascinating?

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, jumping back to the syndromes, the second one is something called Marfan syndrome, which I feel like we've talked about at some point. I know I've heard of it, but that's another genetic condition that makes that connective tissue like super flexible.

• 42:23Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  In this case, it's about sort of like EDS, it's about 1 in 4,000, each of them are. And, you know, this one, you can call it shortness of breath, heart palpitations, eye pain sometimes.

• 42:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  And, you know, those are the two main ones, but outside of this, there's an umbrella term called hypermobility spectrum disorder that kind of covers, you know, other things that lend itself to extreme flexibility.

• 42:50Josh Clark?

  Yes. And like, like you said, you do have advantages to this. So if you're a woman on a high level of hormones who has Marfan syndrome and maybe a high hypermobility spectrum disorder, you are probably a, like what I thought all contortionists were essentially a born contortionist. There's challenges for all the advantages that it offers. And then obviously the drawbacks and other ways that it affects your health. But as far as contortionism goes, it has just a suite of advantages for you. But there's also like drawbacks in that, like you will have to probably do more strength training than the average person, because again, your connective tissue is weaker than other people's, which makes you easier to flex or more flexible.

• 43:33Josh Clark?

  And then also you might be more prone to injury, like you were saying, you can dislocate way easier than other people.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they've, you know, they've done studies and it's, it's, they haven't found it's any different than any other sort of, you know, professional athleticism.

• 43:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  They've even put people in the, the wonder machine and had them contort in, in MRI and didn't see anything odd going on. So they basically said, it's all good. Keep doing what you're doing.

• 44:01Josh Clark?

  Right. Nothing odd going on here.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:04Josh Clark?

  Um, so if you wanted to get into contorting, Chuck, where would you start? That's the question I pose to you now.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Let's start stretching immediately.

• 44:15Josh Clark?

  I think that's a good, good plan.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you should probably start as a small kid. Like some people get into this as adults, but much, much, much more often, like I would say 95% of the time you're starting out as a kid. Uh, because you have a lot more, you know, you're flexible as a kid. You got more collagen fibers going on. Your muscles and joints don't have as much calcium at that point. So kids are just bendy.

• 44:39Josh Clark?

  They are super bendy. You also want to do a lot of strength training too. And you're gonna, like, if you want to be an actual professional contortionist, you're basically going to need to dedicate your life to it. You have to train every day for hours and hours a day. And that whole stretching thing is not just like what you do to warm up. There's, it's actually part of your training is to stretch, because there's a really interesting reflex called the myotatic reflex.

• 45:08Josh Clark?

  Be myostatic, but essentially when you flex a muscle or when you press on a muscle, the reflex is that your muscle automatically contracts. It's how your body keeps you from falling down, essentially is this this automatic reflex. The problem is that keeps your muscles from expanding or stretching further. So if you just stretch like normal, like if you do a hamstring stretch, your muscles are no longer than they were before you did that hamstring stretch. It feels better and they're looser, but they're not actually longer, which is really important in contortionism. So they've figured out that there are certain ways that you can do stretching. They're called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretches.

• 45:53Josh Clark?

  And essentially, this is how you train your body to actually elongate the muscle fibers.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you are well on your way at that point. You obviously got to be drinking plenty of water, too, because that's going to keep that spinal support, keep those discs nice and cushiony. And that's just a good, obviously, when they tell you to drink water every day, there's lots of reasons for that, but that's one of them, just as a regular old person walking around, not twisting themselves into shapes.

• 46:21Josh Clark?

  True that.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  And, you know, they have found that it gets, obviously, it gets better with time. Like, when you, when you start training, your muscles aren't going to change that much in the first few weeks, but your neurons actually shift in their behavior and your pain tolerance is going to increase and your range of motion is going to extend. And again, this is just, you know, for contortionism, but flexibility and stretching is kind of one of the keys to aging well, you know? So this advice is for a lot of people.

• 46:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, when I was looking up a lot of this stuff for contortionism, I ran into tons of videos that were just like for that, like just to become a more flexible, average person. It is a super important, agreed.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:05Josh Clark?

  Okay, so if you want to go see a contortionist, there are videos on the web, but it's much, much different to see it in person. So, you know, maybe, like you said, make an annual pilgrimage to Cirque du Soleil like your family, Chuck.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's fun.

• 47:23Josh Clark?

  Well, since Chuck said he thinks it's fun, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Guys, I'm gonna call this, no corrections, just compliments.

• 47:33Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  But that was in the subject line, so I'm always prone to read one of those.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  It was a nudge, listening to Jane Stanford episode was a nudge to finally write in and thank you guys for what you do. And so what Sarah has done here was wrote a top, sort of a Stuff You Should Know top 10, which means it's four things long, five things long, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. No, there's 10. But maybe I'll read like six of them in True Stuff You Should Know style.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  So here we go with number 10. Thank you for your friendly banter at the beginning of the episode. Number nine, thank you for the witty episode names. Number eight, we always try to make the episode titles kind of fun.

• 48:13Josh Clark?

  Most of the time.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sometimes it's straightforward and you can't, you know, mock something like, oh, I don't know, anything serious or sad.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  Number eight, thank you for the movie, book, cocktail, barbecue, rice, recipe recommendations that you share, sometimes topic specific and sometimes not. Number seven, thank you for your obvious desire to not show just kindness to different groups of people, but or be politically correct, but to actually be kind to people. All right, that's nice.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Number six, thank you for your openness about your own lives, pets, and relationships, which makes us feel like we can relate to you. That's a good one.

• 48:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Number five, thank you for being surprisingly informative on unique topics, but also admitting that some of them are not as tantalizing. Parentheses, I'm looking at you hard sciences, is what Sarah said. And can we all admit that the true crime and holiday extravaganzas are the best? So Sarah's into those.

• 49:10Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Number four, thank you for coordinating the intro/outro jingle to the overall style of the episode. We need to thank One person and another whole set of people for that. Obviously Jerry is the one who's picking those out.

• 49:24Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  So she's doing the coordination, but Stuff You Should Know listeners are the people who perform in those to begin with and record those.

• 49:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah. And Dave and Ben pick them out, too. Jerry's the all time goat.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 49:36Josh Clark?

  She's the all time greatest of all time.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  That's right. Number three, thank you for the mispronunciations and the accents, especially in the Halloween episodes. Sarah really gets what we're trying to do here. Number two, thank you for creating something we can usually safely listen to with kids in the car and still be entertained or just have on in the background. So we feel surrounded by friends. Number one, thanks to you both for coming to Madison, Wisconsin in April. Snag second row seats. So Sarah, I guess we'll be seeing you on the second row there. And if you haven't got tickets for Madison yet, or Akron or Chicago, there are still tickets available.

• 50:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's stuffyoushouldknow.com on the tour button.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 50:20Josh Clark?

  That was really nice, Sarah. That was a great email. I'm glad you selected that one, Chuck.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:25Josh Clark?

  Thank you very much for all that, Sarah, and thanks for listening as much as you obviously do. And if you want to be like Sarah and send us a clever, cool, neat email, we love those. You can send it off to [email protected].

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 50:58Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 51:29Speaker 06

  In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.