WEBVTT - Contortionism: Bend It Like Gumby 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.480 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.680 Chuck and Jerry's here tis Zoo, which makes this is 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:18.279 uh you should know? 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.840 That's right? Ohod Lvia had a good title on this one. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:24.080 Did you like it? Go ahead? 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.440 Well, this is about contortionists, and sure Lvia titled what 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.240 she sent us bend it like Gumby. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:34.720 That's right. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:36.840 I think it's good. It is good. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.720 Yeah, Olivia always comes up with the best. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.080 Yeah, and now we know that she listens to some 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.640 of these because she heard you take a dig at her. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:50.479 About explaining what a socket and electrical plug does. 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:50.800 Yeah. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:56.320 Yeah, she's a good sport. Though. Let's see what else, Chuck, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.320 I guess you already spoiled what this episode is about. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.960 It's about contor, which I guess we were going to 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:03.360 have to get into eventually. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.960 Yeah. I mean, obviously we're talking about bending your body 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.679 right in ways Gumby that are yeah, like gummy, bending 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:16.360 your bodies in ways that are extraordinary, And as we 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:18.760 have learned, it's something that maybe you're kind of born 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.200 with and definitely something you can work toward and maybe 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:21.880 a bit of both. 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.240 Yeah. I always assumed it was just a born thing 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.839 and that like one out of every fifteen million people 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.080 were born as a contortionist essentially, and I figured, yes, 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.480 of course they have to train and everything, and you know, choreograph. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.640 There's a lot of types of contortionism that are essentially 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.040 contortionist ballets, especially like the ones you see at Circasla, 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.919 which if you say that funny, Yeah, it's a hilarious 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:52.360 thing to say, it's a good joke. But I guess 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.520 I just didn't realize that it is something you can 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.680 Like you or I could go train to be a 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.520 contortious We would fail utterly, but we could at least 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.720 go train in our fifties and still do a lot 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.480 better than we can right now, because it is something 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:06.960 you can adapt your body. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.320 To, yeah, for sure. And it's also something that's been 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.280 around a long long time, right. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.440 Yeah, it has one more thing. It will help you 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.639 a lot while we're going through some of this stuff 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.560 to just if you can look it up, watch videos, 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.360 but even like just photos sometimes can kind of get 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.239 the point across. It's just one of those things. While 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.720 we were studying this, I was like, this is gonna 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.679 kind of be tough to describe in some cases, but 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:34.560 we'll do our best. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:36.600 Yeah, well, I don't think it's going to be the 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:38.320 hard to follow. People know what we're talking about. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.680 Okay, So we are talking about contortionism, and you did 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.040 say that it is very, very old. The oldest thing 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.160 we've found that is pretty much a certainty that they're 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.840 depicting a contortionist was an image that was found in Syria, 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:57.040 an old old polaroid from twenty three hundred BCE, and 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.240 there's some contortionists and they're holding swords, and the best 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.959 that historians can come up with is that it's possible that. 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.840 So there's some Hittite writings that describe a performance where 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:13.239 contortionists basically jump through hoops of swords as basically a 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.560 well performance essentially basically say can you do this? No 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:18.080 you can't? 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.600 Yeah, and you know that followed, of course, we have 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.360 to talk about all the usual sets backs. Of course, 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.000 China will come in, don't worry. But ancient Egypt they 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.919 found pottery fragments that date to twelve hundred BCE that 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:38.240 definitely show women dancing in backbinds, like you know, contorting themselves. Sure, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.080 and the Greeks also did this later on as well. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.640 Right, Yeah, the Greeks is where we finally start to 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.600 get to unambiguous descriptions of contortionism. I think as far 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.200 back as well the twenty five hundred years ago, something 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.600 like that contortionists had become like an actual thing, like 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.280 they were part of troops or performers that performed in Greece. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.080 Like if you went to say a public festival, let's 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.720 say Dionysus was being celebrated that day, there's a chance 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.880 that you might find somebody doing a contortionist act as 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.600 just kind of part of the festivities. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.280 Yeah, for sure. And you know, I mentioned China, and 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.160 this is one of those cases where we don't know 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.960 if it if people in China and this was like 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.680 two twenty one BCE to two twenty CE, if they 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.080 were influenced by people from other parts of the world 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.440 or not, or whether it developed independently when people over 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.279 there realized that they were bindi. But when they look 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:36.840 at like some of the clothes that contortionists were wearing 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.000 in China, it seems like it maybe was influenced by 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.080 people in Europe, but also could have been Maybe that's 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:44.760 just the garb. 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:50.800 They were all wearing Benatton, Yeah, exactly, stretchy stuff. So, yeah, 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.239 that's very interesting because usually something came out of China 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.320 and it influenced Europe rather than going the other way around, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.760 especially that far back. So I'm yeah, as a person 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.800 of European ancestry, I'm quite proud of that. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.560 Of course, you know, you would think India is probably 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.440 a pretty obvious spot for contortionism, and you would be right, 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.920 because there are sculptures in temples from India these date 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.800 to tenth century CE that also show women in contorted poses. 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.760 This time it got a little sexier though. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.520 Yeah. I think a lot of times you think about 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.600 something like the Kamasutra, and there are definitely contortionist poses 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.480 in the Kamasutra. Yeah, but there's the to just think 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:38.200 of it as like, oh, this is just, you know, 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.320 like you said, just sexy. There's a spiritual aspect to 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.360 that whole thing too. It's like a tantric yoga practice, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.880 but it is also sexy, just admittedly. But there's this 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.040 that maybe kind of wonder Chuck like did, like yoga 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.680 and Buddhism and Hinduism and the incorporation of all these 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.240 physical movements that include contortionism. Did that kind of come 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:07.280 out of this contortionist? I guess heritage or whatever that 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.600 dates back to at least the hit Tights, or was 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.400 what the hit Tights were doing essentially the foundation for 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.400 what would later become, you know, Buddhism and Hinduism. 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.080 Yeah, and to be clear, when we say sexy, we 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.520 mean they're depictions of actual intercourse because oh yeah, thanks. 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.080 One of the things that's really annoying to me about 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.800 all of this, and Lyvia picks us up sort of 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.240 at the end of the article, but I'm going to 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.880 go ahead and address it now, is that if you 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.840 get you know, one hundred people in a room and 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.800 there's a contortionist, there's probably going to be some dim 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:45.920 witted man making some stupid sexual reference about somebody being bindy, 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.560 about a woman being bindy, and that's just dumb. So 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.800 that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about, like, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:55.000 you know, actual pictures of sexual positions. In this case. 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.600 I think that was great because you could interpret it 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.039 away where we sounded like thirty old men essentially. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.120 the guys who like kind of elbow on another like huh, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.560 check it out. I mean come on, so some people 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.560 have further way to come than other people. You know, yeah, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:18.920 that's true. So back to India itself, there's a clear 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:25.120 like comparison between contortionism and yoga today. And actually it's 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.800 kind of neat because if you go online and you 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.800 look up like contortionism or training or something like that, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.800 it's essentially people who are into yoga and they're trying 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.080 to figure out how to go even further. So they're 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.000 following ancient practices that have been around for hundreds, if 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.720 not thousands of years, that are contortionists by nature. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.720 Yeah, for sure. England might not be the most obvious 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.480 place to think about men doing contortionist poses, but that's 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.880 exactly what happened in seventeenth and eighteenth century there in 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.000 the form of posture master masters. Posture master is what 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:01.360 they were. 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:06.320 That sounds like a mattress, a posture master, but that's. 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.320 What was going on. It's a little odd to think 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.240 about now, but there, you know, it might be like 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.040 an actual performance. Maybe sometimes it was something that they 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.120 would do on the street to raise money, like busking 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.840 or maybe to trying instead of like holding a sign 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.360 outside your business. There might be a male posture master 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.520 sitting outside your tavern to try and get people in there. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:28.840 But it was kind of a big deal and they 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.720 kind of became sort of famous in England at the time. 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.600 Yeah, I mean this was before TV, radio, internet, even 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:40.040 newspapers in a lot of cases, and there you could 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.400 as a male contortionist in particular because it was a 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.920 male dominated field at this time, at least in Europe, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.520 and it seems like basically throughout the world that you 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.760 could become distinctly famous, like a guy named Joseph Clark 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.640 who apparently in the late seventeenth century was a very 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.160 very famous contortionist in England, so much so that his 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:06.000 last name was Shorthand for contortion in England and then 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:11.480 eventually would morph into Shorthand for giving somebody something that 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:12.000 they want. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:16.760 That's right, the circus is obviously going to come into play, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.120 and that is when the circus came into play. And 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.800 that was and you know, we've done quite a few 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.080 episodes on the circus back in the day, but as 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.839 a reminder, this was late eighteenth century when Philip and 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.959 Patty Astley they had a you know, a lot of 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:35.360 the early circuses were like horse riding tricks like equestrian stuff. Yeah, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.480 and there's definitely formed out of that, out of their 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:42.160 Astley's riding school in London. And you know, once the 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.760 circus started spreading around, it came to the United States, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.240 and within that circus world contortionists started kind of performing 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.640 on the regular. But you know, it started to get 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:55.920 and which is like it is today. It gets kind 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.000 of mixed in with other sort of acrobatics. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.839 Yeah, just something back a couple of paces. Once it 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.280 reached Europe in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:09.480 there was no spirituality associated with it. Once it reached 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.280 western Europe, it was performance from that point on, you know. 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.840 And yeah, once it hit the circus, it's really started 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.320 to morph into what we understand is contortionism today. There 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.760 was one trick I have to say that Patty Astley 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.240 did on her horse in the very beginning of circuses. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.280 She would ride her horse really fast and her arms 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:32.600 would be covered in bees. 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:34.240 Yeah. 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.000 That's a wild ride for that's a wild ride for 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:37.959 everybody involved. 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.000 Yeah. But you know, maybe she was a beatkeeper. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.760 It doesn't matter what she was doing, Chuck. She was 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.760 riding full throttle on a horse with bees all over 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.120 her arms. I mean, I'm assuming like they changed like 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.160 the shape of her arms because there were so many 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:56.839 bees that kind of thing, not like two or three 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:57.800 bees on each arm. 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.400 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that wouldn't have much impact. I don't 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.560 think that impressed me quite a bit. It's pretty good trick. 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.720 So the actual word contortionists that came around in eighteen sixty. 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.960 Before then, you know, it was just called other stuff 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.800 depending on what culture it was coming from. But if 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:18.599 you were in the US or if you were in 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.120 England performing as a contortionist, you probably said that you 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.760 were either Chinese or Turkish, or German or French, or 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:27.880 maybe you were you might have just claimed to be 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:29.640 one of those things because it had such a rich 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.760 tradition in being BINDI like that. But at this point 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.200 it started to be mainly women who were hired by 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.120 male circus owners and a lot of times performing exclusively 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.040 for male audiences, right. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.360 And so yeah, it kind of evolves even further. And 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.920 luckily that went from like the point of a contortionist 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.400 act eventually evolving to you know, a couple of dudes 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.360 in the audience like elbowing one another, where most people 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.560 are like getting what the point is. But that said, 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.480 there are contortionist acts today that are very much geared 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:15.040 toward the sexual nature of the whole thing, and you know, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.400 they're performed by women who are doing that on purpose, 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.679 so you you know, whatever, more power to them. There 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.760 is like a thread of that. Like you can't just 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.120 be like, no, that doesn't exist. Stop stop saying that. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.679 But the point of most contortionist performances, it seems like, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.720 is not that that's a very niche thing these days. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.160 Yeah, for sure, there was one, you know, kind of 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.520 notable early contortionist. We got to mention here a name. Well, 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.000 her real name was Beatrice Mary Claxton, but Beatrice Claxton 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.240 isn't the best name for a contortionist, so she went 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.920 by Nna Bertoldi, which is much more of a sort 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.920 of a circusy name. And starting at like age eight 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.720 years old, she was touring around and as we'll see, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.520 you know, contortionism is is mainly a sport of the young. 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.280 You can age out of it like ballet in a 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.760 lot of cases. But she was a kid doing it 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.680 and she performed all over Great Britain and then eventually 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.800 traveled to the US in eighteen ninety one. And one 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.720 of the reasons we mentioned hers because she was very 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.840 famously one of the early people that Thomas Edison filmed 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:20.960 with his kinetoscope. 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.079 Yeah, which is pretty cool. I mean, you have to 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:27.280 be pretty famous in and of yourself to do that, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.600 but to be memorialized in one of the earliest film 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.640 strips is definitely going to help your fame later on 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.680 in history. As a contortionist, I would think, yeah, for sure. 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:39.839 So you want to take a little bit of a 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.160 break and come back and talk about the epicenter ground 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.199 zero of contortionism. 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:46.719 M where could that be? 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.520 Okay, So we're back and I talked about the epicenter 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:18.280 of contortions and I'm just gonna reveal it now. It's Mongolia, everybody. 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:23.960 That's right. It is has long been that sort of epicenter. 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.600 It still is that epicenter. And we're going to tell 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.920 you why. Because one of the reasons it started as 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.400 a big deal there is, or at least we think 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.000 that it, you know, had to do with sort of 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:40.440 meditative practices and also like a dance, a Buddhist dance 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.000 known as the somme, which is you know, also you know, 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.440 it's very religious, obviously tied to Buddhism, but has to 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.680 do with, you know, training your body and mind to 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.440 work together to do incredible things. 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.440 I also saw that has secret meaning meanings that you 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.800 have to be a very high, highly advanced Buddhist monk 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.680 to you basically be let in on, which is pretty neat. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:02.320 Oh cool. 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:07.000 There's also a folk dance in Mongolia that's indigenous to 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.960 Mongolia from what I understand b LG b I y 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.800 e l G e E. And as far as folk 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.520 dances go, I'm not usually a huge fan of folk dance, 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:18.720 Like I wouldn't go to a community center to see 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.760 a folk dance performance, but this is a pretty cool 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.960 folk dance to just check out on video, in part 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.640 because of the movements, which include contortionism, including full back 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.520 bends to where the dancer's back is like flat on 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:36.440 the ground while they're on their knees, but also just 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.120 the incredibly colorful costumes that they wear too. It's really neat. 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.200 What is a folk dance performance? Like, what are you avoiding? 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:45.080 I don't even know what that means. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:52.040 It's kind of like when when people from different cultures 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.240 perform traditional dances. Oh okay, it's a folk dance. I 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.520 got you, Okay, I mean, what do you think like 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.480 square dancing? I guess probably a type of float dance. Yeah. No, 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:07.200 it's just you know, any kind of cultural dancing. For 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.000 some reason, it's never floated my boat. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:09.720 But I gotcha. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.040 I'm not yucking anyone's yum because I couldn't do a 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.760 single step of any folk dance. And I'm usually impressed 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.120 with anybody who can dance in any way, shape or form. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:23.160 Yeah, me too. So twelfth century is when it starts 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.840 to become a really sort of mainstream thing in Mongolian culture, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.680 basically at you know, festival's court appearances obviously. And then 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.600 seventeenth century is when there was a Buddhist leader named 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:43.080 Ondoor Gigeen's and Zavar who inspired these contortionists with these 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.560 I guess there were was it like just art sculptures 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:50.680 basically the people like in Ul sorts of kind of 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:52.680 contorted positions. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.880 Yeah, he was like do that position, I dare you. Yeah, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.000 he would make sculptures of him. Yeah, that was yeah. 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.440 And the guy was so I guess popular that like 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.840 he actually advanced contortionism by pushing them to their limits. 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.720 I guess as a sculptor. Yeah, you know. 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:12.480 I mean you can bend clay in ways you can't 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:13.280 bend the body. 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.640 That's right. That's why I can bend it like gumby man. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:17.280 That's right. 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.760 So Mongolia is and I thought this was pretty interesting too. 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.000 There's like contortionism evolving in different places around the world, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.879 you know, kind of simultaneously, but Mongolia basically took the mantle. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:32.879 And one of the reasons why is because they became 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.920 a Soviet state in the forties and as part of 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:42.320 the USSR, the government bankrolled the Mongolian State Circus, which 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.879 became world renowned traveled the world. That's one of the 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.199 ways it became world renowned. But also because they were 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.840 really really good and one of the center pieces of 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:56.040 the Mongolian State Circus was contortionism, and from that it 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.159 grew in popularity very very quickly because there's a lot 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.000 of funding for it, a lot of publicity for it. 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.840 But that created a mushrooming of contortionist schools in Mongolia, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:08.800 some of which are still around today. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.400 Oh yeah, for sure. The first one and the first 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.080 sort of you know, superstar of that circus was a 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:20.359 contortions name Sendayosh and that was the first school. But 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.000 like you said, there's a lot of them still there. 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:28.320 And it's not just like, hey, if you're from Mongolia 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.040 and you're a young girl and your parents think you're 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.800 like pretty flexible early on, they may send you to 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.439 this like that certainly happens, but people from all over 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.840 the world, like gymnasts, will go and train. Like anyone 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.679 who wants to sort of increase your flexibility in an 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.480 extreme way, there's no better place in the world to 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.840 go than contortionist school in Mongolia. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:51.920 No, they know what they're they're doing. 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.280 In other words, yeah, for sure, their circus isn't nearly 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.200 as big ever since they peeled away from the Soviet 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.040 Union in the early nineties, but it's still like a 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.280 big kind of rich tradition in that country. 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.960 Oh yeah, big time. Right now. The biggest school, I 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.080 think the oldest school is owned by a former sumo wrestler, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:17.240 and he is Mongolia's most famous, most revered sumo wrestler. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.440 He got out of the sumo game and bought the 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.119 school for contortionism. The thing is, it's kind of in 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.879 this decline, so much so that Mongolia has been trying 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:35.720 to get UNESCO heritage protection for Mongolian contortionism because it's 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.240 just not quite as widespread, even though there's more schools 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.280 than ever, it's just become much more diluted. I think 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.800 there's a lower barrier to entry for being like say 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.040 a teacher or a school owner or something like that. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.719 And then simultaneous to that, a lot of Mongolian contortionist 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.880 trainers are going abroad and so they're taking it with them. 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.480 But at the same time, someone in say like England 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.600 who sees an English contor, they don't are They're not 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.480 regarding the idea that that person was trained by a 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:10.040 Mongolian contortionist teacher. They are looking at the English contortionists, 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.359 and so in that way, it's becoming less and less 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:14.440 identified with Mongolia. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:16.680 Yeah, and it's kind of a I was kind of 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.320 disappointed that UNESCO turned them down. They try to get 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.080 you know, it added as a list of intangible heritage, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.760 which it seems very clear that that's the case, but 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.080 they rejected the proposal. This was in twenty eleven, and 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.400 they said that advocates didn't make a strong enough case 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.480 for its significance in Mongolian culture and society, which just 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.200 I don't know. I'm not on that board obviously, but 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.159 it seems pretty obvious to me as an outsider that 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.639 it's like super tied to Mongolian culture. 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.000 Sure, well, you will be heartened that the Mongolian folk 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.840 dance Bilg is protected under UNESCO heritage. 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:54.879 I'll just take it one step further UNESCO. 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.680 That's right. One is also, what's the big deal? I 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.040 don't know. I was trying to think about that. I'm 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.399 sure that they have a kind of mentality that's like 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:06.879 we don't want to open the floodgates or else, you know. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.720 But I mean, there's plenty of stuff that I'm sure 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.040 deserves protecting that they're turning down. And you know what, 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.200 I'd be interested to know about that. I'm going to 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:16.919 look into that and we'll do short stuff on all 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.520 the stuff you neesco's turned down for heritage protection. 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.840 Well, if you want to learn about the mechanics, now 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.800 is your time to listen closely. This is the point 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.439 where you were probably talking about maybe looking up pictures 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.840 and stuff. But you know, I think a lot of 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.000 people have seen a lot of this stuff. If you've 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:41.080 ever watched when we were kids, that's incredible or America's 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.359 got talent these days, they'll have acts like this or 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.680 certainly if you've ever been to like Circsole or something. Yeah, 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.320 but backbending, there's like kind of six main sort of 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.600 overall things you can learn, and then within that you 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.320 can do all sorts of stuff to incorporate little side 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.840 tricks and then you know mix these together for you know, 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.040 performative purposes. But back bending, that's sort of the classic 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.880 place that you start the classic back bend. Yeah. 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.440 One of the things is the chest stand, and essentially 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.920 it's where you're on your chest. See, so I'm gonna 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:17.040 like everybody get in this position. I'm gonna walk you 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.200 through it. You're on your chest flat I guess it's 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:25.000 prone on the floor, and you bend yourself at the 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.920 waist and you bring your hips back back, back, back back, 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.840 and then you have your feet on either side of 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.640 your head. You can do this everybody just hanging there. 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.520 And then your feet are fat flat on the floor 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.840 on either side of your head. Remember you're still on 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.720