My rig starts to bend strangely when rotating across an axis while posing

My character’s armature is working fine at the beginning, but after I start to pose it using Pose Mode, the axes seem to be “thrown off” somehow.

More specifically, once I’ve rotated the waist along multiple axes (slightly tilted to the left along the Y axis, twisted towards the right along the Z axis, and bent forward along the X axis), the hand, now in a different position because of the repositioning of the overall upper portion of the character, seems to be following the “world axis” when I click on a bone in pose mode and click R for rotate, followed by the key corresponding to whichever axis I’m trying to rotate on, instead of rotating on its “individual axis.” This causes weird distortion when rotating, and prevents me from rotating the way that I’d like to.

Hopefully I’ve explained that clearly enough. I’ll answer any questions if further explanation is needed in order to get the answer. It’s tricky, but I imagine it’s a common problem that is resolved regularly, since I can’t find any way around it.

Thank you to anyone who can help.

Oh, never mind. I figured it out on my own. Just press the key for the axis you want to rotate on a second time (eg. R for rotation, then X for global X-axis, then X again for local X-axis.)

There’s the solution, anyway, for anyone else who might have been wondering.

There are the common mistakes right there. First is to assume the problem is a common problem and that would somehow make it easier to answer, and if you just explain it well enough, that will produce an answer from someone.

It’s not how well you describe your problem that gives answers, it’s what tools you leave to

  • get the context of your problem description
  • jump into your workflow and see what you’re actually working with, repeat the problem and then find the cause
  • help writing a clear answer that will help with that particular problem, instead of guessing

That’s because what you describe with words is only clear to you. No one else knows or sees what you’re doing, with what, how you build everything and what options you’ve included. Only someone who has been sitting next to you the whole time would, and they might need to point at the screen to show you what causes it. People on the forum aren’t sitting next to you so they need to get that information remotely, and have the option to visually point out the cause so you get the information back.

So how to do that? Use full interface screenshots to help you explain the problem. Clearer, less writing, and you’re including feedback from the interface without writing anything. Then prepare an example .blend that contains enough to be able to repeat the problem and upload that. Every time.
More detailed instructions about that in https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?322623-How-to-ask-questions-effectively-on-blenderartists-org-support-forum&p=2547191&viewfull=1#post2547191

If it’s a common problem, you could type your thread title in google search and get your answer right away, instead of posting a new thread.