{"id":1238,"date":"2014-05-14T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T01:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/blog\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2019-01-29T18:31:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T11:31:34","slug":"phare-will-bend-your-mind-the-lowdown-on-contortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/phare-will-bend-your-mind-the-lowdown-on-contortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Phare Will Bend Your Mind: The Lowdown on Contortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"contortion(4)\"<\/a>Contortion may be the most mysterious art in the circus. Contortionists are often viewed as having some sort of genetic, or physiological gift. Most people assume you have to start practicing as a child to build such skills.<\/p>\n

Well, it will certainly help to start young, and being born with higher than average flexibility can help, but no one is born a contortionist.
\nNo, this artful skill is inevitably reduced to and born of one thing \u2013 consistent practice.<\/p>\n

\"contortion(2)\"<\/a>Regardless of their genetics, rest assured that any contortion you see in a Phare production, or any on Earth for that matter, are the product of hours of daily practice and took years to produce the results you see.<\/p>\n

Now, note the word consistent. We all have routines\u2026 Maybe you have coffee every morning, or cereal\u2026 maybe you exercise several times a week, pray, or check the news\u2026 whatever it is, the chances are you occasionally miss a day. Circus artists training in contortion do as well, only when they\u2019re learning the skill, this dramatically delays their goal of greater flexibility. Depending on which coach you ask, some will tell you that missing ONE day of flexibility training can take as long as a WEEK to make up for! Fortunately for the rest of us, missing a cup of coffee one morning doesn\u2019t mean we need to drink 7 the next day to get the same result.<\/p>\n

The art at first tends to seem like a practice of simple yet extreme flexibility. However, it also has a great deal to do with strength. While you\u2019ll often see contortionists move into intense bends, little thought is usually given to how much strength the posture takes. Give it a quick try, try leaning backwards as far as you can go\u2026 maybe put your back to the wall and press your hands over your shoulders \u2013 then, try inching your feet forward and walking your hands downward along the surface of the wall towards your feet. It won\u2019t take long for most of us to realize how much leg and core engagement is required to balance.<\/p>\n

\"contortion(3)\"<\/a>Handstands are another requisite skill in a contortionist\u2019s movement vocabulary that requires substantial strength. Sure, with a bendy back, any person flexible enough can kick up onto their hands and flop their feet over onto the ground. But the strength and balance of a trained contortionist gives them the control to stop their movement in the handstand position and demonstrate their flexibility simultaneously\u2026 and sometimes they can even do additional tricks that require a whole other set of skills \u2013 like marksmanship!<\/p>\n

\"contortion(1)\"<\/a>While we won\u2019t promise contortion in every Phare show, it\u2019s a common part of many of our shows and students from the PPS circus school are always making sure they keep up with their daily practice. Come catch a show \u2013 every night at 8:00pm. Check TripAdvisor and you\u2019ll see how worth it is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contortion may be the most mysterious art in the circus. Contortionists are often viewed as having some sort of genetic, or physiological gift. Most people assume you have to start practicing as a child to build such skills. Well, it will certainly help to start young, and being born with higher than average flexibility can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-circus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pharecircus.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}