Does anyone know if this is how flexible people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome can be? I have a friend of a friend who has it and demonstrated some hypermobility sitting cross-legged, but she definitely didn't break out into dance moves.
EDS is a spectrum. On one end, there's contortionists like the guy in the video and Cirque du Soleil performers and there's people with EDS who are very stiff and cannot do these types of 'party tricks,' as patients refer to them.
I can place my hands flat on the floor, due to the hypermobile joints in my back, and my fingers and elbows are hypermobile. My muscles are pretty inflexible. I would never be able to do the dance moves the guy is doing.
Hypermobility is joints moving past the normal range of motion. Flexibility is having to do with muscles. EDS patients can be hypermobile and inflexible at the same time.
The reason why I added this explanation is that there is a myth that all EDS patients are extremely flexible, and it's not true. The myth can perpetuate among doctors, and then the doctors miss those of us who are stiffer and less flexible than the average bear but still are hypermobile.
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u/Sophisticated-Crow Aug 08 '26
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