Daniel Browning Smith, the worlds most amazing contortionist, can actually stick his ankles behind his neck.
Most of the rest of us struggle to touch our toes, or sit cross legged.
History
Daniel Browning Smith is an American television actor born in Meridian, Mississippi on the 8th May, 1979.
He is the current host of Stan Lee’s Super humans, which is a television series.
The show searches around the globe for real super humans with extraordinary mental and physical abilities, many of which feature on this very site.
Daniel Browning Smith, our super human contortionist, has been nicknamed “the Rubberboy” due to his amazing ability.
Since the age of four, Daniel developed a fascination with contortion and decided that he wanted to become one of the greatest contortionists the world had ever seen.
At the age of eighteen, he had mastered many of the usual contortionist tricks and ran away to join a circus.
He can do literally anything with his body including bending backwards and forwards, dislocating his arms and legs and rotating his trunk 180 degrees.
Apart from holding the Guinness World Record for the most flexible man alive he also holds another six world records for equally amazing feats of contortion.
Image: flickr
What is his super power?
He is, quite simply, one of the world’s the most famous contortionists.
Daniel discovered his unique ability when roughhousing with his siblings in Meridian, Mississippi as he jumped off the bunk bed to land in straddle split.
Intrigued by Daniel’s ability his father decided to collect photographs of contortionists from a library to show his son.
In order to complement his contortionist skills he went to train with Master Lu Yi at the San Francisco School Of Circus Arts in the ancient art of the Chinese acrobatics where his body bending skill shocked his own teacher who had never witnessed any ability like that displayed by Daniel.
Daniel Browning’s extensive training has enabled him to expand his limits and he uses his contortionist skills as not only a stunt performer but also has made appearances in many shows and sports events such as; Oprah Winfrey, Cirque du Soleil, The Discovery Channel, Men in Black 2, ESPN’s Sports Center, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Jay Leno and the HBO’s Carnivale.
He has featured in many multinational companies marketing campaigns from Kansas City, US to Istanbul, and even Turkey.
Movies he has appeared in include; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in 2005 hence the nickname Rubberboy, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan in 2008 where played a real estate agent and in Food fight in 2012 as Cheasel T. Weasel.
His skills continue to amuse, and amaze us all.
There was one particularly memorable moment, while doing a motion-capture for a video game, Daniel’s super human range of motion blew up the software and filming need to be rescheduled to allow for reprogramming of computers.
What can we learn from Daniel?
Daniel has performed live at many concerts, trade shows and colleges and is living proof that anything is possible.
We can all take a lesson from the way he has diversified into acting, hosting shows and appearing in a multitude of events.
He shows us that sometimes it is not enough just to have a flexible body, keep your mind also flexible.
He keeps his options open, as we all should. This has rewarded him with a very successful career.
Genetic or Learned Super Power?
Smith spoke to ABCNews and told them that his amazing flexibility is in some part due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).
Smith said “It’s a collagen disorder, and it makes me very, very flexible”.
With this in mind we would have to say overall, it is a genetic super power.
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