Someone recently asked me how to get started with contortion. This is a subject that I love and I don't mind making a guide. To be honest I am making it in the hopes that It generates interest and conversation. First of all, I wanted to say that anyone can get into contortion with enough effort. However, if you are out of shape or older it will be more difficult. In almost any case a reasonably healthy person can do it if they are consistent, determined, and healthy. Something else that really helped me to be consistent is a social network called contortionistsunite.ning.com. Stretching with others can really be a motivator and give you the willpower to stretch even when you think you would not stretch today. I'll probably only be covering basic stretches in this guide and maybe listing examples of advanced stretches because I do not want to turn the guide into a book. I will give more detail about anything you want to know upon request. There are stretches and detail I will probably forget to put here.

The first thing to know is that if you exercise and get your body warmed up stretching is much easier even if you exercised yesterday or a few days ago it will make a huge difference in how easy it is to stretch. Something that usually gets me in the mood to stretch is cardio. I like to run a lot I do maybe 2.5 miles twice or three times a week. This gets the muscles warmed up and the stretching can feel much better. If you try stretching after not exercising or at least warming up the body with jumping jacks or something it can feel stiff not not be as enjoyable. A bad habit of mine is that I do not do much weight lifting. Weight lifting/cardio vs stretching are very complimentary and improve each other.

There are different types of stretches, static and active stretching. Static stretching is probably what you usually think about when you think of stretching. You grab the limb and pull, not engaging the muscles near the muscle being stretched. Pretty simple, you gain static range of motion if you practice enough. Static range of motion is how far the limb will move with the help of a prop or your hand.

Active stretching is different. Let me give you an example. In the thigh, the muscles on top of the leg are the quads and the hip flexor is between the abs and the quads. The Hamstring is on the bottom of the thigh. Now imagine you want to lock your knees and lift the leg straight up and keep it there without help from your hands or a prop to keep it there. You need to be flexible but you also need to be able to keep the leg there with it's own strength, not relying on the hand to keep it up. It requires, strength and flexibility. To lift the leg forward with the knee locked you have to engage the quad and hip flexor muscles to keep it there and your hamstring muscles need to be flexible enough to not resist the movement. The muscles will also resist this movement if there is no muscle memory of being in this position before. This muscle memory can be extended, letting you move your leg further. Eventually with enough practice you could move your leg like a ballerina or a martial artist! This type of movement is called active range of motion, moving the limb without the help of a prop or your hands. In order to extend your active range of motion you have to practice active stretching. If you already have a base of strength and static flexibility in this limb but have not done much active stretching, active stretching can give dramatic and almost immediate results. Even if you do not have this base, active stretching is awesome. In this example, to do an active stretch you lift the leg as high as you can with the knee locked and keep it there. I like to keep it there for a count of 20. Even if you can only keep it there for maybe 4 seconds it helps, do it again. Eventually with enough of this active stretching practice you will be able to lift the leg high and keep it there. Another benefit of active stretching is is AWESOME at removing soreness or stiffness from stretching too much or too little, I will explain this later.

When you do a stretch you want it to be uncomfortable but not to the point of hurting. If you are not stretching hard enough and it is only a little uncomfortable you will progress slowly. If you push it too hard you will risk injury. Such injuries can put you back a lot, you do not want them. Listen to your body, trust your instincts.

Now I will describe the major categories of stretching. I will describe mostly leg stretches and back stretches but there are others like some types of shoulder and hand stretches that can bend your fingers backwards. Now, there are a few major contortionist categories: frontbends, backbends, human knots, splits and straddle splits. There are combinations of these things in advanced stretches. I'll describe these in detail later.

I'll be describing the stretches now starting with the splits. The splits are pretty central. They help to do a good backbend and are even connected to the human knot. The splits requires flexibility in the hamstrings, quad and hip flexor areas. One good stretch to start stretching the hamstrings is to sit down and put one leg in front of you and have the other one in a half indian leg style (see below). Reach as far as you can forward. If you can reach your foot or shin try to grab it and pull until you can feel a deep stretch and keep it there for 10-20 seconds or longer if you feel up to it. This stretches the hamstrings. Another hamstring stretch is standing up and bending forward to touch your toes. With both of these stretches if you bend the back it will also be a frontbend stretch rather than a pure hamstring stretch. If you really want to focus on the hamstrings be sure to keep the back as straight as you can. The next stretch stretches the hip flexor and quads. This one is hard to describe. See below for a picture. I like to keep the knee against the wall. To really do a deep stretch you keep the hips square and you push your pelvis down. The last stretch is to just slide down as far down as you can into the splits. Try to keep the hips square and the legs as straight as possible.

The straddles is pretty simple. It engages the muscles on the inner thigh. I got good at this one buy using a low table to slowly lower myself until I was at a good stretch and using to table and my arms to keep it stable at the deep stretch. Now I can do a full straddle split. I believe this stretch might be connected to the human knot. There are more advanced stretches, I can describe them on request.

Next is the human knot. This is the first contortionist pose I wanted to accomplish when I started. Basically this is bringing your legs behind your head/shoulders.

The following is a copy paste of something I wrote earlier, it is a good explanation of the different approaches to the human knot:

When doing the knot, there are generally two approaches. You can work on hip/leg rotational flexibility which after lots of practice can allow you to get your legs behind your head/back while keeping your back straight and even do the DeMario Knot if you are experienced enough. The other approach is the frontbend which allows you to to a knot even if your have a lesser degree of hip rotational flexibility. Any good frontbender can bring their hips and thighs close to their face and make the knot/frontbend look "tight". A very experienced frontbender can bring their hips to their face like the opposite of a backbender headsit.

It is better to train for both hip and back flexibility although most people tend to only focus on one and then only focus on the other when they have satisfactory experience in the first. I did the same thing, I worked on my knot by leaning forward in the knot and other frontbend exercises which lead to a great frontbend but did not do as much for my hips. I am now working on my hip flexibility, leaning backward in the knot or half-knot helps open the hips. Also, sitting straight against a wall and bringing your foot close to your chest with your other knee also helps. I always try to start with my right leg because my left leg is more open.

It can get difficult to breathe when doing a really deep frontbend. However, it does seem to get easier with practice. I do not seem to get as short of breath doing the same frontbend that I did a while back.

If you want to do a comfortable knot I would advise working on hip rotation and general leg flexibility. You can work on pure frontbending but it will not lead to a comfortable knot. I described hip rotation a bit in the quote. This is being able to bring your legs behind your head/back without bending the back forward as much. Some good stretches: butterfly, half lotus, full lotus. Another great stretch once you get more advanced is to lay down and bring the shin to your chest. I anchor the foot under the elbow pit to bring the foot and shin closer to the chest while trying to keep the back straight. I can give pictures later if you want to see or my explanation was not good enough. If you can get your legs behind your head/shoulders leaning back (straightening the back) is a good hip rotation stretch.

A good frontbending exercise is the plow stretch(see bottom). Depending on how you roll on your back you can focus on the upper or lower back. Some more advanced frontbend stretches are grasping your butt while bending forward standing and trying to bring it to your shoulders. Also doing a knot, getting the legs behind your back/head and grabbing your butt to bring it closer to the face. I incorporate active stretches into my frontbend by doing crunches without help from the arms. Frontbending and backbending are great stretches to do together. They seem to loosen each other up.

Finally is the backbend. In my opinion this one is the most difficult. I could describe all of the possible stretches but it might be easier to describe my routine. I start with simple cobra stretches(see below). I also do a cobra active stretch which is where I do a cobra without support from the arms kind of like a reverse crunch. I keep my feet anchored under a couch when I do the cobra active stretch. I do as deep a cobra active stretch as I can without support from the arms and hold it for as long as possible. I can take a picture if this is not clear enough. The active stretches alleviate soreness in the back that prevents you from stretching. This is extremely useful. Then I focus on the deeper cobra static stretches. I then do a "King Cobra" this is a cobra except my shins are against a wall with my knees in the corner of the wall and floor. In between deep stretches I do crunches. It is important to note that backbends and frontbends are complimentary. Immediately after switching between backbends and frontbends you might feel like you took a step back but if you put in the effort warm up again your range of motion usually increases. After the king cobra I move on to the advanced stretches, the deep bridge, the kneeling backbend, the attempt at a chest stand. Something else that is important is that the quads, hip flexors, and the shoulders are connected to the muscles that do the backbend and you need to stretch these to do a better backbend. I do a wall backbend stretch to stretch the shoulders. See below for example. The hip flexor stretch for the splits is also very important for the backbend. There are many more backbend stretches. I can list and describe them if people ask.

There is a lot more I have probably forgotten. I hope this is a good start. Please ask me any questions you have.

I would love to skype stretch with anyone who wants to learn! I like to teach and show off my stretches.

Hamstring Stretch

Quad/Hip Flexor Stretch

Plow Stretch

Cobra Stretch

Wall Backbend Stretch.

4755482

I highly doubt that I will ever do any of this myself, but it made for interesting and informative reading. Thanks for writing about it. ^_^

Have you considered advertising this group in The Shameless Self-Promotion Bureau? There might be newcomers to Fimfiction who don't know about this old group, but may be interested in the subject matter.

4756080 I might do that later today when I am less busy. I hope I can say the right things to grab peoples' attention.

4756161 Adding a pic of Blossomforth should help. ^_^ Advertising is always a crapshoot, but just make sure you include a nice clear link to this group and you might pull in a few takers.

4756161 Grabbing attention is always fun.

I am currently working on a story that is starting out on a pose like the one your avatar is using. Just not quite this far forwards with her hind hooves. I may need some help on expressing a few things as to how she is doing it in the story. (I think it was the bridge)
4756195 Clear images are always appreciated.

An image says more than 1.000 words, as they say.