Among the great variety of circus arts, there is hardly an older genre than the one that is still called "rubber" behind the scenes. The earliest information about it dates back to a very, very distant time.

The mysterious and mesmerizing genres of plastic acrobatics - contortion and hand-balancing - have existed since ancient times.

It seems impossible how the performers, curled up in rings, fold in half, while smiling charmingly, send air kisses to the audience. Women are snakes, goofy boys, children without bones - people have come up with many names for this phenomenon.

Interestingly, rubber is the oldest form of acrobatics! It emerged as a term in the early twentieth century and is associated with the introduction of rubber products into everyday life; the poster name "rubber" replaced the former names "Gutta-percha boy", and "Rubber Woman"! What are contortion and hand-balancing? If you want to learn, join Capital Circus and acquire new skills and become stronger in these disciplines...

Then, the main thing began - the most prepared of "muallakchi", standing with his back to the basin and trying on it, again and again, lowered himself to the "bridge", dipped his face into the water, and managed to get coins from the bottom with the eyelids of his eyes.

Flexibility training for contortion act as well as handstand classes in Capital circus school, Kanata, ON.
The flexibility training of Nello, the hero of the famous novel The Zemgano Brothers, began at the age of four and a half, "before the bones lost their infantile flexibility...

Read more HERE 

https://capitalcircus.ca/circus-blog/the-art-of-contortion