Contortion

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alina Ruppel is a contortionist from Germany.
Dancer and / or contortionist at the Parasumaresvara Temple in Bhubaneswar , India (7th century)

The term contortion ( Latin contortio , twisting, twisting ) describes a form of acrobatics demonstrations in which the artist twists or bends his body in positions that most people seem to be inaccessible. Contortion is often part of a circus act .

A contortionist , even contortionist called thus, one acrobat who can turn his body extremely due to years of training. In general, contortionists already have an unusually high natural mobility, which is then increased by special gymnastics exercises.

description

Exercises

Mostly contortionists either as (front Bender engl. "Vorbeuger") or as a baking Bender (engl. "Zurückbeuger") , categorized, depending on the direction in which its spine is movable. Only a few actors bend equally skillfully forwards and backwards. Bending backwards is often also called “rubber work” and bending forwards according to Eduard Klischnigg is called “cliché nigger work”.

During the demonstrations, contortionists demonstrate the following skills, among others:

  • Front bending exercises such as folding forward at the waist with straight legs or crossing the legs behind the head ( Yoganidrasana , also called human knots ). The body can also be passed through a ring or barrel during a forward fold.
  • Backbending exercises such as touching the head with the feet or even the buttocks (a so-called head seat ) - while standing, lying on the floor or doing a handstand. A Marinelli flexion is a backbend in which the contortionist only leans on a small holder that he holds in his mouth. A chest stand is a position in which the contortionist "sits" on the chest in combination with a backbend z. B. a head seat.
  • Split and overspagat (a split of more than 180 degrees ) can be integrated into both front and backbending exercises. An overspagat can be carried out by supporting the feet with two chairs or two helpers.
  • Enterology is the practice of squeezing someone's body into a small, knee-high box that seems way too small for a human. Usually the person who is pressed together crosses his legs and takes his head between his knees.
  • Dislocations of the shoulders or hip joints are sometimes demonstrated as a stand-alone exercise. For example, the arm is raised and placed behind the head on the other shoulder. Also known as "bonebreaking" in English.

In the broadest sense, the figure of the elk , as known from the citizen Lars Dietrich , in which a person folds his arms behind his head in such a way that his forearms and palms take on the shape of elk antlers , can also be classified in this category of unusual, artistic body positions , whereby this is essentially a party gag.

Types of ideas

Like other performing arts , contortion can convey different moods, depending on the costume and choreography chosen , as well as the personality and acting skills of the performer. For example, performers can choose a style that is beautiful , athletic , crazy, scary, sensual, erotic, or humorous , and each of these styles has followers who prefer them, sometimes to the exclusion of other styles.

Some special types of imagination:

  • An adagio act (pronounced: [aˈdaʤjɔ]) is a very slow, acrobatic dance in which one partner lifts and carries the other partner, doing splits and other poses of flexibility.
  • In a rag doll act or golliwog act , one or two helpers bend, carry, or shake the contortionist in a way that convinces the audience that the performer in disguise is a limp, life-size doll. The performance usually ends with the doll being stuffed into a small box, whereupon it gets out of it by itself and takes off the costume.
  • A Spanish network is a contortion performance that is performed high above the stage. The acrobat holds onto a loop of a thick, soft rope that hangs from the ceiling.
  • Some performers also handle props during the performance, for example swinging hula hoops , juggling rings, balancing towers of wine glasses or playing a musical instrument.

A contortionist can appear alone, have one or more helpers, or appear in a group of several contortionists. Utensils such as suitcases or transparent boxes are not uncommon for demonstration. Pedestals and handle systems are also often used to raise the position in relation to the viewer. Accompanying dance, music and lighting arrangements are part of the regular repertoire in order to create a suspenseful atmosphere suitable for the performance. As a rule, such a performance is limited to a small repertoire of basic elements, which are presented with enhancing variations in slow motion up to the respective climax of the figure.

During the presentation, nothing stands in the way of the artists' imagination, whereby skin-tight clothing, mostly bodies with long arms and legs, is preferred. The color scheme is both plain and structured. One likes to find skin colors, gold and silver, but also many other colors. Occasionally, black rubber is also used as a material. In the case of a patterned dress, fantasy designs that emphasize the body line, but also veil the line, are chosen. Animal designs, such as a snake or a cat, are also not uncommon. In terms of their effect, they differ in that every muscle and bone structure is very prominent. Soft parts tend to be concealed due to the stretch effect of the fabrics. Sports design in the style of historical weightlifters or strength athletes is a rather outdated appearance. Corresponding body painting is also occasionally used, but requires significantly more preparation. In the sense of Greek aesthetics , the demonstration without clothing is also an option, but for reasons of youth protection it is not very acceptable in the general public. Occasionally, lavish headdresses, a robe, necklaces and bracelets or necklaces are used during the performance, but these are usually removed before the actual action. Depending on the actor and the aim of the depiction, shoes are also worn, although ballet shoes are more common , but barefoot is also preferred .

In the past, contortionists were almost exclusively from the circus and the carnival ago known, but they have recently found increasingly work with appearances in nightclubs , amusement parks , in magazine advertisements, at trade shows, TV - variety -Vorführungen, in music videos , as warm-up Performances or in the background of concerts. Contortion photos and video clips are also exchanged by fans on the Internet today; several websites offer access to contortion photos for a monthly fee or sell video cassettes by mail.

Sports medicine aspects

Contortion is not a popular sport , but rather an art that needs to be trained hard and intensively. For example, while stretching in connection with physiotherapy is an important goal for the restoration of normal mobility of a person, the stretching practiced with contortion achieves movement possibilities that go far beyond normal and thus beyond vital mobility. Ideally, contortion is practiced in such a way that it slowly and gradually, comparable to a cyclist or a track and field athlete , expands the body's possibilities - usually almost imperceptibly in the millimeter range, so that years of training are required. Forcing results, for example through excessive dynamic loading, inevitably leads to serious internal injuries to the organs involved and can bring the whole project down.

Ideally, people start shifting their individual boundaries at a young age, for example in a circus school , in ballet or as part of sports gymnastics . Muscles as well as tendons and ligaments are stressed, to which the human body reacts with stronger growth. This growth leads to both an increase in circumference, which at the same time means an increase in the maximum length of these organs when stretched. At the same time, the training work will soften or, better said, make these components more flexible. Not least, better blood circulation due to training is causally involved in this.

A crucial aspect of training, but also of every demonstration, is warming up , as is done by skiers and every strength athlete. The aim is to increase the temperature of the muscles, their blood circulation and, as a result, their elasticity by means of gentle, increasing stress. If the exercises of a training session are tackled too quickly or even without any warm-up, the risk of painful muscle strains or other damage to the body increases. Above all, regular training allows you to improve your stamina and thus the starting point of each session. An example is the balancing act , which for the untrained person usually fails because when the thigh is bent, the lower leg also tilts like when walking normally. At first it is only trained as a straddle, which then becomes wider and wider, slowly allowing it to approach and touch down on the floor, until it is finally practicable both in the forward-stretched position and with legs stretched out on both sides. A good knowledge of anatomy is helpful during training , as the leg muscles with their socket joint and the hip joint that has a role to play are limited in their range by several independent muscle groups. Good training in a wide variety of exercises demands the individual muscle parts individually or in groups in a regular manner, without missing a part or demanding too much.

It should also be noted that in the event of contortion, the internal organs in the abdominal area are sometimes heavily compressed, which can possibly be impaired by the current intestinal contents. Such exercises are generally not advisable during pregnancy. The chest also experiences stress, both from extreme overstretching into the hollow back, but also from the use of the chest area as the sole support surface for the entire body weight. The risk of dangerous rib fractures, especially with the arches that are not closed in the lumbar area, but also damage to the sword process of the sternum must be considered. A temporary restriction of breathing, especially if the abdominal cavity and thus indirectly the diaphragm are also heavily stressed by stretching, is to be expected; further physically strenuous activities are not advisable. The extreme hyperextension of the cervical spine can restrict breathing due to the tension on the windpipe and larynx. A reduced blood supply to the brain through the two cervical arteries can also occur, so that prolonged persistence in hyperextension can at least impair current well-being and thus the ability to exercise. In general, any other prolonged overstretching can lead to circulatory disorders in the bloodstream or affect nerve tracts.

Contortion, if it is done correctly, is neither particularly stressful in the short nor in the medium term, especially if it is done by people who have not yet passed the age of 20. The training of muscles and tendons should even bring about an improvement in the sense of a higher dynamic of the person, and thus, for example, a greater probability of surviving various fall accidents undamaged. In the long term, the repeated, intensive exercises are particularly likely to cause wear and tear on the joints. In particular, excessive overstretching at an advanced age and with the discontinuation of training can lead to the joints being held less strong if the soft tissues are incorrectly dismantled, thus increasing the risk of dislocations. As with many competitive athletes, a multi-year fading phase with a correspondingly smaller training effort must be planned for the possible end of the activities. Similar hazards also exist in the active phase if you neglect to build up strength during training with increasing elasticity of muscles and fasciae. This applies in particular to people with a naturally high degree of joint flexibility ( hypermobility ). A special risk for the spine, nerve tracts and articular cartilage is due to the sometimes extreme curvature, almost angling in the lumbar area, which is actually alien to people walking upright. Although there are muscle groups in this area that are usually only used in rudimentary form, which can be made many times more efficient through targeted training, this does not change the fact that this increases the risk of a herniated disc or leakage of cartilage mass or the pinching of nerve tracts of the spinal cord , which means damage that can seldom be completely or even largely corrected to the previous condition by today's specialist medicine.

Myths

Many myths and misconceptions have been spread about contortionists; most of them are due to the general public's ignorance of human anatomy and physiology , while others were deliberately invented by contortionists or fans to make the performances seem even more mysterious.

  • Myth: contortionists rub their joints with snake oil or drink special elixirs to get agile. - This was a common myth in the 19th century when medical shows hired contortionists to "prove" the effectiveness of their arthritis drugs. However, their extreme bending was by no means the effect of these remedies. Agility is either innate or the result of intense training, but mostly both.
  • Myth: "Articulate" people have more joints than most people. - Every fully developed person has exactly the same number of joints . “Flexible” is colloquial and means that the outward appearance of a person is to be described who can bend much more than one might think that the joints would allow. Despite the origin of the word, it is a perfectly acceptable term to describe a hypermobile person.
  • Myth: Contortionists have to dislocate their joints when they bend abnormally. - Some people are actually able to pop joints without pain, and without an X-ray it is impossible to tell whether a joint is dislocated or not. As long as the joint socket is not pathologically deformed, most poses can also be taken without dislocating a joint. Real dislocation occurs rarely during athletic contortion demonstrations, especially since a dislocated joint is unstable and prone to injury and cannot hold any weight.
  • Myth: Contortionists can bend boneless in any direction. - The degree of mobility of the individual joints of a person varies from below average to extreme mobility, including all intermediate steps. Furthermore, the mobility of a joint in one direction neither determines the mobility in the opposite direction, nor the mobility of the other joints in the body. Contortionists, however, can create the illusion of having boneless bodies by specializing in the exercises that best showcase their range of motion; the rest is done by her acting and pantomime skills.
  • Myth: You have to be born to be a contortionist. - Muscle mobility can be acquired. So as long as the shape of the bones or joints does not restrict mobility, every sufficiently motivated person should be able to learn contortion exercises regardless of their natural mobility. However, those who have inherently flexible joints have an advantage both in knowing that they have a talent for contortion and in the level of mobility they can eventually achieve. In this respect, this statement is true, since really spectacular positions are never achieved if there is no favorable disposition, even with regular training.
  • Myth: Most contortionists have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or Marfan syndrome . - People with these hereditary diseases often have the opportunity to perform amazing contortionist tricks without prior training due to a hypermobile constitution (excessively flexible muscles and fasciae). With these predispositions, however, there is often a disproportion between mobility and strength, or strength of muscles and connective tissue. As a result, people with such hereditary diseases have difficulty performing positions that require strong muscles. The training and exercise of contortionist positions usually leads to considerable health problems in the joints of people with these hereditary diseases, which lead to a rather quick abandonment of the practice.
  • Myth: Women are better suited to become contortionists than men. - Images of contortionists across history and around the world show all in all about as many women as men. Western contortionists in the late 19th century were largely men, just as extreme agility is largely found in men in modern India today. Also, medical studies show that equal numbers of hypermobile men and women are found when the trait runs in the family. Therefore, the fact that most contortionists in Western cultures today are female is a result of contemporary cultural preference.
  • Myth: Asians are more agile than Europeans. - The art of contortion is more widespread in the Asian culture than in Europe, but, as already mentioned above, the degree of flexibility of a person has nothing to do with the origin, but with the training. Although there are more contortionists from Asia than from Europe on the stages these days, that doesn't mean they are more agile.

Famous contortionists

Nina Burri

See also

Web links

Commons : Contortion  - album with pictures, videos and audio files