The Contortionist’s Handbook version 2.0

The exercises used in contortion (and yoga as well) is used by various circus artists, dancers, gymnasts and many others. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to move the body without any limitations and the goal with this page is to show you how to do it and most important: how to get there. Having practiced myself as well as trained others me and my co-authors have noticed that much of this is kept almost like a trade secret and believe it shouldn't be. An other reason is that there are many "schools", more or less experimental, that also should be mentioned as they can have the effect that you search for, but can't find. There can also be the situation where you don't have a coach or school in your area. In the process of writing and publishing previous versions of this handbook me and my co-authors have received numerous of mails from all parts of the world. We want to share that experience as well as it might be of use for you in your training. So one of the most important reasons that this handbook is published is simply: we don't want the knowledge to be lost. It should be available everywhere.

 

This handbook was written by somebody who is unknown to me. But the above paragraph exemplifies the reason why I'm re-publishing it under its original form. I discovered the website hosting this e-book about two years ago. I thought it was a very good source of information about contortion training, so I put it in my bookmarks. I've changed computers since then and subsequently lost the bookmark. But, today, I wanted to find this site again. Sadly, I discovered it had disappeared about a year ago because it got hacked. I believe that such sources of information should be maintained and shared, not lost. So I did my best to retrieve the website from cache servers. I managed to get almost every picture back, with a few exceptions. I included a list of the missing content below, including the reason why it's missing. I hope it can be of use to others.

It is important to note that I am not a contortionist, nor do I  teach contortion. While I think that the training methods described in the Contortionist's Handbook are an accurate description of how certain contortionists actually train, I cannot verify or guarantee that these methods are safest or surest for the average individual.

 

Read the Contortionist's Handbook v.2.0

 

Missing content

• balletboots.htm - Missing a few pictures, 2 were not originally found on the server (probably because the filenames contained spaces), one wasn't saved by the cache server (learn2walk.asf).
• contortion_barre.htm - Missing all images (their filenames contained spaces).
• me.htm - This page about the author is missing, and it seems like it was missing on the server as well.
• Twists.htm - Image missing because it wasn't found on the original server.

 

Lastly, I would like to invite the original authors of the Contortionist's Handbook to please contact me.