About Unkink

Unkink is a stretching-sequence player. It does not stream video, it does not score your flexibility, and it cannot see you. It plays a timer over a written step table: one screen tells you which shape to be in, how many seconds are left in it, and what the step is supposed to feel like. That is the whole product.

Why sequences instead of single stretches

A single stretch held for thirty seconds rarely changes much on its own. What changes a stiff neck or a tight set of hamstrings is a sequence: several shapes in a deliberate order, with a long enough hold in the right one and a short enough hold in the ones that are only there to get you in and out safely. Order matters, and so does the clock. So every entry here is published as a step table with hold seconds and transition seconds already fixed, and the player simply executes it.

How a sequence is built

Each routine is written by hand around one body area and one length of time. Pick the length first — 5, 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes — then the area. The length is not an estimate: the steps have to add up to it exactly. A 10 minute sequence contains eight steps of roughly a minute each, transitions included; a 30 minute sequence contains fifteen longer holds. If the seconds do not add up, the sequence does not ship.

Every step names one shape, one hold time, one side (left, right or both) and one cue. The cue is written as a sensation, not an instruction to force: "a line of pull from the back of the knee to the sit bone", not "push until it hurts". Nothing here is measured, graded or compared.

Where the pictures come from

The figures on this site are drawn by the build script, not photographed. Each shape is stored as four joint angles — shoulder, elbow, hip, knee — plus the stance the body is in. The generator renders the finishing position in solid ink and the starting position underneath at 40% opacity, so you can see which direction the movement travels before you start the timer. Every drawing is machine-checked as valid SVG at build time; a broken figure stops the build rather than shipping a blank box.

How publishing works

Sequences are published on a schedule, not all at once. A small number are live now and the rest are dated into the coming weeks. Only sequences whose publish date has passed have a page, appear in the lists, or are listed in the sitemap. A scheduled sequence returns a 404 until its date arrives.

What this site is not

Unkink is general information about movement, not medical care. It cannot know whether a shape is appropriate for your hip, your disc, or your pregnancy. If a step produces pain, numbness, tingling or a sharp catch, stop and get it looked at by a clinician rather than by a website.

Contact

Corrections, unclear cues and sequence requests all go to [email protected]. Mail is read by a person, and a correction to a cue that reads badly is genuinely useful.