- What's up? It's Chris Harriott.
I'm in Las Vegas right now and I've been staying
at Resorts World Hotel.
I wanna give a big shout out to Resorts World as well
as Ronn and Jared for hosting us.
There's over 40 restaurants.
The gym is amazing and there's so much to do here.
If you're ever in Vegas, definitely stay here
at Resorts World.
It's been an amazing stay.
Now let's get on with the vlog.
What's up? It's Chris Harriott.
I'm at K-Star Training Academy and I'm right about to
try contortionist training for the very first time.
I'm linking up with Ulzibayar who's been a contortionist
since she was five years old.
She has an amazing story and her skills are some of the top
in the world,
so hopefully she can teach me a thing or two about
being a contortionist.
Hi guys, my name is Ulzi and welcome.
This is my husband and I training academy that we own
and help for the next generation for the martial art
and contortion.
I've been doing contortion since I was five years old.
Started with Cirque du Soleil when I was nine years old.
Real contortionist, it's about you have to lift yourself
in someone's leg or someone's arm, like can do
any places do handstand one arm and contortion poses.
That's the real contortion of Mongolian contortion base.
So you can work with any partners
like threes, fours on top of each other.
Do solo on canes.
I was like, "this dude should be contortionist
because the way that his body
and the strength was exactly like similar to us, you know,"
I feel like Chris can be contortionist for sure.
Just a little bit of bending and there you go.
- Wow. Ulzi, it's an honor to meet you.
- Hi! (laughs)
Sorry I cannot shake my hands.
- No, it's fine. - Little busy.
- That is so impressive.
Am I gonna be doing of this today?
- Let's try.
We will try a little bit
but we going to be working a lot of flexibility today.
- I've always wanted to give it a try 'cause I've seen it
and I know it looks really, really difficult and I know
for sure that if I can increase my flexibility,
I'll increase my strength.
- Yes, that's what it is basically.
You just need to have both on this art.
You have to be really strong, which you are
but we just need little bit of flexibility with that.
- A lot of it.
I know we're more flexible the younger we are.
Is this something that is best to start young
or is it something that you can only do starting young
or can you learn to be super flexible
like that from an older age?
- I think it really depend who you are as well too.
How committed you are in this.
Some of the people are gifted genetically as well too
you know, but if you really want to willing to learn,
it's never too late.
- I know that you've been a contortionist since you
were five years old.
Can you tell me a little bit more about that,
how you got into it?
- I just always wanted to be a contortion as a little kid
especially when I watched this video
of this beautiful lady in the TV.
I was a 100% sure what I wanted to in my future.
I was lucky to actually join one
of the best coach in Mongolia.
I graduated contortion fully.
I could do all the master trick after two years.
- Wow!
- So at seven years old.
Then I start to travel the world with Mongolian
State Circus already working and helping for my family
- [Chris] Like seven, eight years?
- [Ulzi] Seven years old.
- [Chris] Providing for your family with your new skills.
- [Ulzi] Yes, so I had like income coming every month
for my dad.
- [Chris] Wow!
- When I was nine years old, actually
Cirque du Soleil founder and co-founder came
to Mongolia to audition, you know, whoever is talented
and they choose me when I was nine years old.
So I begin my journey with Cirque du Soleil at the age
of nine years old, yes.
- So how about we get into some training?
- Let's go.
First thing we as a contortionist has to do is warm up
the body.
Once it warms up, then we go to strengthening.
What we do usually is that we warm up the hip, like--
- All right. A couple warm up stretches.
That shouldn't be too hard, right?
- Gonna start to do the front, but you basically
put your legs straight and then yes, my dear,
I have some blocks for you.
So you have two blocks.
Put your hands and kind of give little pressure on it.
What our goal is here is that we have
to push all the way straight.
- Whoa! Oh my God.
- This has to really touch, you know, and that's
- Got a long way to go! (laughs)
- A little bit back on the knee. There you go.
You feel that?
- Hell yeah.
Okay, that's a pretty painful warmup.
I guess I am a lot less flexible than I thought.
My legs only go this wide. Is that okay?
- Now you're gonna go down, like that.
- Oh, that's not impossible. (groans)
- See, that's where I wanted to
stretch all the inside muscles here.
- Try to keep this leg as straight as possible.
- Yes. And knee has to go straight.
So basically our goal is this has to go all the way in here,
in the side.
Yes. So you going to do with blocks now,
which we called it frog.
- Okay. - And a split.
So you just put your knees in it and then just basically
you see that arch so that it'll open up exactly
the same spot, but you have to go--
- Low.
- Yes. There you go.
You feel that?
- Yeah, I definitely feel that.
- There you go.
Good. You're doing really good job.
- Really? - Yes!
- Thank you.
- Actually you have a pretty good middle.
- Well I actually feeling myself getting lower.
- Here you go lower.
- Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
- So basically that's your three basic stretches you can do.
- Anybody watching can do from their home.
All right guys, so there you have it.
If you wanna become a contortionist or train
like a contortionist, the first three warmups
you're gonna wanna start doing is the front split, straddle,
and the frog split.
These are all gonna be pretty uncomfortable
and possibly painful with little range of motion
when you first start off.
But if you stay consistent, it's gonna be a lot easier.
- Let's open up your shoulders a little bit.
So you go back up little bit and then you're gonna
straighten it up,
and make sure elbow is in the edge and then just sink down.
- This stretch completely opens up your back
and your shoulders.
And what I'm now starting to realize is the more flexibility
you have, the more of your muscle and range motion
you're able to use.
- I as an artist working 10 shows a week for 27 years,
I figured those things myself.
Then after that, my dear, we going to open up
the lower back.
All right, now that we're done with the warmup,
let's start with some basics.
- Bring those legs up and stretch those slower back
and quads.
- Oh my god, that was probably the most--
- Right? Just breathe slow.
- Yo, that is so painful.
I'm not sure what's more painful:
Holding a really hard exercise for time
or pushing through one of those stretches.
- Now we're going to open up the whole spine right here
and work on our bridge, which is really important
as a contortionist, they have to have a good bridge.
Hands up.
Then you have to push your hips out, ribs open.
Then you just slowly use the wall as guidance.
You see that? - Mm-hmm.
- Hold it, hold it slowly.
Then you grab at the edge.
Then what are we going to do is...
- Okay, now these things are all starting to make sense.
At first, when I saw contortionist training
I thought this was just impossible.
Like you had to be insanely flexible, but you can actually
just start off as a normal person and do a lot
of these drills and movements,
of course at a lot lower of a level.
And you're about to see me do that.
Start at the hips.
- Hips and arm. Go slow.
Go grab the bar slowly and now--
- All right, for sure, this is tough, but I can definitely
see myself improving if I do this consistently over time.
If you guys wanna see me take this contortionist training
to the next level, just let me know down on the conversation
below and I'll be sure to continue this training
and link back up with Ulzi again.
And maybe one day I'll be doing handstands
with my feet on my head. Just like Uzi.
As you can see, I'm so unflexible, but it is doable.
You guys should also give it a try.
- That was really good.
- I love that.
It's definitely a brand new challenge for me
and I can definitely see this improving my handstands
and the handstand pushups and stuff.
Okay, now I'm so excited to take my flexibility
to the next level to unlock even more strength
and eventually apply this to some of my other skills.
I really want to improve and start taking this serious.
So I had a bunch of questions for Ulzi
on how I can start incorporating this into my routine.
How long do you spend on flexibility training?
- Whenever I can that would be good.
- How would you structure it in terms of like stretching,
flexibility and then strength training?
- About 45 minutes to an hour stretching.
- I love how contortion is just like calisthenics.
You start off with something basic and you move on
to harder and harder progression and you're never stagnant.
The goal is always to improve your skills to move on
to a harder variation.
That keeps me motivated to stay training and improving.
- You have to work on your one arm.
- Can we learn some of those one-arm techniques?
- I mean, yeah, I can show you some for the string
you go up...
- For example, once they apply this flexibility
to their handstands, they do it on one arm.
Uzis gonna show us how it's done.
- You just bent. It's to protect you.
- Ulzi showed me some tips to strengthening my one arm
handstand and there's actually a lot of similarities
on how I teach handstand.
Starting beginners on the wall, improving your whole time
and shifting your body side to side
to unlock your one arm hold.
- So that's basically contortion.
Okay, handstand.
Yes. Now go to straddle, which is open those legs.
Yes, you need I need those flexibility, see.
Everything has to be tight connected.
Good. Now it's nice.
You feel that? - Yep.
- Yep, that's it.
You're doing really good right now.
You already got it.
I want you to do a little bit back
before we doing any back exercise on the wall
let's just little bit warm up on this one.
So you just go like put your elbows and just relax
for me to pray in position and then reach your chest
to the floor and just breathe. - Like this?
- Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
- I feel like-- - Perfect.
- My left is easy, but my right,
- This is so tight.
- Block it. Yeah.
- So now relax, chest toward the floor and then
we are just gonna go slowly.
Yeah, this is it. Yeah, I feel it.
'Cause of right here you're probably very tight.
1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Okay, good.
So that was just warming up your shoulder
and upper back area.
And then from here you can go on the knees and then hip
toward the floor.
So relax it and then just bring the head all the way back
and we're gonna warm up.
So you have knees that is touching and then relax the hip
flexor all the way down.
Head back and bend the knee slowly.
Good. Now we are doing lower back and hip
- And in case you're wondering how to apply this,
Ulzi showed us even harder progressions to take those skills
to the next level.
- Okay, good. All right.
So let's start with our stretches.
The first stretching
what we are going to do is hugging the wall.
So it's like you hug the wall,
you basically have your belly button touches the wall.
So what we would like to do is that open up the lower back,
this is the whole lower back right now action
and hip flexor right here.
And just hold the wall.
And the goal is to go head back
and bring the legs and push the wall.
Slide. Slide.
Yes. Good.
Nice, nice.
Still we have to go little bit more, there you go.
This is it.
Okay, that's our spot.
Now I want you to relax.
- There's no way I could relax. (laughs)
- (laughs) So this is opening up the whole spine.
You see that?
It's just you like it or not it'll push you back
into the place and this is the lower back.
And then if you can go straight those arms for me?
Good. And head, good.
And then slowly you going to feel it's gonna start to
open here and then just slide it more and more and head back
and bring me their legs.
That's the next challenge too. Just like that.
Yes. That's your lower back and shoulder stretch.
And you can totally do it because whoever cannot
do bridge like this.
- Yeah, with the pushing.
- And that's really important flexibility to have.
And that means--
- In case you're wondering how to apply this,
Ulzi showed us even harder progressions to take those skills
to the next level.
- Up and down. Boom. You see that?
- Yeah. You can put your feet on your head literally?
Oh, oh my god, that's so crazy.
You've really inspired me to really take my flexibility
to the next level and incorporate it with calisthenics.
Like this is the first time I'm really seeing it in person
and ... - It's so important!
- It's so impressive!
- Thank you. - To be honest.
And now I'm really realizing it's just equally as important.
And that's what I really got from this experience.
To be a complete athlete and to unlock your full
capabilities, you need to have all three: strength, skill,
and flexibility.
If you're missing one, you're never gonna be able
to utilize either of them to its fullest potential.
- Let's do the contortion real stuff right now.
Nice. Yeah. This is what I've been waiting for.
- Okay. So this stretch, you can use this straps
on it to really pull you and make it--
- Ulzi says when it comes to contortion,
it's not just about holding the stretches
you always wanna try to push past your limits
just like in calisthenics.
And one way they do it
in contortion training is with straps.
And Uzis gonna show us how it's done
with these next stretches.
But first I gotta get this chin stand without straps.
So this is basically like the gateway exercise too.
- Yes.
- Open the world to control. - Open the, yeah
because you are going to feel like you going
to like pass out, you know
it's not an easy kind of stretch.
- Okay.
- So you have to be mentally really ready as well.
Although muscles has to be really relaxed on this one.
From here we're gonna go straighten it up the legs.
Now push yourself back.
Back. (laughs) Pull yourself back.
Yes. And back.
And then you have to touch all the way your belly button
and hips to the wall.
From here my dear, you're gonna feel stretching
on your neck, stretching everything.
And you're going to green here
hands and relax, and then straight those elbows.
Good. How you feel?
- This is so painful.
- (laughs) So what do you think?
- That's quite the challenge.
This is definitely gonna strengthen your lower back
like crazy.
- You can always use a strap with it too
like two legs like that,
and then slowly gently pull it from it
and then just go one, two.
Yes. And just bring your legs to your chest.
You can use the straps and pull it.
There you go.
That's a good stretch.
After the big stretching of spine on lower back.
Okay, good.
- That was actually a super good stretch.
So really with these exercises that you just showed me
basically are the basics.
And as long as I improve with these,
I'll be able to progress more,
and to being a contortionist and eventually see you again.
- Of course.
- Take it to the next level. - Of course.
- Alright, if you're gonna start this contortion journey
with me that we all have some homework to do.
At least three to five times a week, we're gonna focus
on the main warmups, the front straddle and frog split.
Then we're gonna go into hugging the wall stretch.
Second, we'll work the wall stretch,
and third we'll move into the contortion stretch.
- That's your first step.
- Awesome, Ulzi, thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
I really, really enjoyed that and you really inspired me
and hopefully you inspired a lot
more other people out there as well.
And if you guys enjoyed it too,
you can also come here and try yourself
at K-Star Training Academy right here in Las Vegas.
And you guys also have a show coming up May 13th
where you have all the athletes from K-Star Training Academy
called The Seven Elements.
- [Ulzi] Yes.
- [Chris] More info on the show, K-Star Academy and Ulzi,
just visit KStarlv.com and Ulzi,
how can we find you on Instagram and YouTube?
- For Instagram,
I'm Coach Ulzi and for YouTube
I'm Ulzibayar Chimed that's my full name.
- Make sure you guys go on over to Ulzi's page
and hit that subscribe button.
Ulzi, again, thank you so much for teaching me the ways.
And if you guys enjoyed this video,
check out the vlog where I train with Trish
and Denell from the Cirque du Soleil where they have
me attempt some other crazy moves for the very first time.
And I'll see you over there.
Mad love, peace out.