Hagfishes possess a flexibility that allows them to form body knots and then slide the knots along their body. This behavior enhances the hagfish’s ability to clean mucous off their body, escape tight spaces, pull prey from burrows and possibly replace the leverage commonly generated by an opposing jaw. Despite the importance of this knotting behavior to the survival of hagfishes, very little has been reported in the literature. This is probably due to the difficulty of studying the behavior in the wild. Using a novel hagfish restraint device, consistent and reliable knotting events were captured with high-speed bi-planar video. I used these recordings to characterize the type and kinematics of knots made by three species belonging to the two families of hagfishes: Eptatretus stoutii, Eptatretus springeri, and Myxine glutinosa. I found that hagfishes statistically preferred simple knots despite the higher internal stresses that these knots theoretically induce. Also, despite the behavioral stiffness (does not coil) of E. springeri and M. glutinosa when compared to E. stoutii (coils) there was no statistical difference in looseness of knots tied when comparing radii of loops between species. However, decreased stiffness may be beneficial: E. stoutii was able to tie more complex knots than the other two species. The hagfish body represents an extremely flexible hyper-redundant system that may require a high level of neural input for control. However, kinematic video analysis reveals a potential elegant solution: hagfishes seem to employ only three body movements (crossover the body, tail-wrap, and tail insertion into a loop). These three motions can be re-ordered to create the entire diversity of observed knots as well as more complex theoretical knots. Furthermore, statistical analysis suggests that these motions were performed in the same manner across all species. This study suggests that knotting may be efficiently controlled by motor primitives and sets the stage for neurophysiological investigations.