Super bendy Liberty Barros wrapped herself around hula hoop sensation Mariam Olayiwola’s waist as they combined their unique skills for an incredible record-breaking feat.
Liberty and Mariam (both UK) teamed up to break the record for most double arm hula hoop rotations with a human belt in 30 seconds (team of two).
The record requires lots of skills; incredible flexibility, core strength, endurance, and of course, the ability to spin hula hoops around the arms.
As they met up in London, 16-year-old Liberty and Mariam, put their abilities to the test with this attempt.
To get into position, Mariam, better known as “Amazí”, got down on all fours and Liberty lay across her, back-to-back.
The teenager then bent her legs and torso around to meet at Amazí’s stomach, grabbing on to her own feet and pulling tight to become a human belt.
Amazí then rose to her feet with Liberty wrapped around her waist, amazingly not really requiring the help she was offered.
She was handed two hula hoops and when given the go-ahead by Guinness World Records Adjudicator Will Munford, started spinning one around each arm as fast as she could.
When the attempt ended, Liberty simply let go of her feet and flopped to the floor, bursting into a fit of giggles as she fell.
The minimum to beat for the record was 45, but the team smashed it with an incredible total of 79.
Looking back on her attempt, Liberty reflected on how practising her flexible moves had improved her health.
She told us: “When I was younger I wasn’t flexible at all, I actually had a breathing difficulty and I always wanted to be able to dance and perform and do all these things but I couldn’t really because the breathing difficulty sort of hindered it.
“Whenever I tried anything ‘gymnasticy’, I’d just fall on my face every single time.
“It was only when I was 10, I was watching a Rihanna music video and I copied a dance move she did in it.
“I bent my body backwards and then after this, through movement, it slowly sort of, I think, cured my breathing difficulty.”
Liberty, who recently starred in a Diesel fashion campaign with other record holders including Amazi, kept practising and added in more dancing moves after seeing some street dancers performing.
She calls her performance style “flexi-dance”.
Liberty, who has 3.2 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, also took on an attempt for the most splits in one minute, with a minimum to beat of 30.
She was nervous before starting and admitted she wasn’t confident she could do it.
Liberty explained that most people assume she was flexible from birth, but it actually took her a full year to master the splits after she first started practising.
She threw herself into the challenge though, speedily standing up and falling down into the splits over and over again.
She managed a whopping total of 42.
Liberty said: “Because when I was younger I couldn’t do stuff because I was ill, everything now feels like I’m living my dream.
“Being able to make fun videos that I love to make, being able to breathe properly, move properly, break these records, and just spending time with my family, these are all things that I’m loving doing right now.”
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