I’m going to start by saying I was clipping my own ponies as a teen and later became a pro AA H/J groom. I can clip a horse to perfection.
Alas, cats are…liquid. Any advice? I have a grooming table, I have great clippers with various blades, etc. Ginger does not struggle; she actually checks out and is like a ragdoll.
It is just very hard to clip a puddle 
Pre-paying my picture tax:
I’m curious. Why would you wish to clip a cat?
You need a second person. Cat clipping requires 4 hands to stretch cat out, hold in place and clip without cutting them. Son helped me with our furry old girl so I could get the mats off her stomach. I comb her but she objects to stomach combing, hair pulling and two hands to hold her in place are not enough! She didn’t mind being held upright in place, stomach exposed, while we got comb under her various mats, then clipped them off. She does not like being put on her back with stomach exposed, but standing up on hind legs is fine.
Precautionary note is to clip claws short beforehand. She had gotten a bath two days previous, so the stubby ends were not lethal! But some cats are terrible when they have long claws and object!! She gets claws clipped regularly, a bath about once a month, no issues with that. She is REALLY hairy, and with age, 14-15yrs, she is not as good at self-grooming as she used to be. Cut off claws help prevent furniture damage too.
@Willesdon, she is very hairy, a little fat, and has trouble reaching her personal area when she is grooming. So at least the sanitary clip is needed because she gets poop stuck in her butt hair. That part I can actually manage quite well.
The rest of the body is difficult and much more visible, lol. When she is clipped it GREATLY reduces hairballs, vacuuming, and hair up my nose 
Can you just comb her every day instead?
The few cats I’ve seen clipped mat terribly when the hair grows back in. Winds up being this cycle of matted cat -> clip job -> naked cat -> matted cat. I don’t think it’s fun for anyone.
Surprisingly, mats have never been a problem with her. We do quite a lot of brushing already, but her hair is so long!
So I’ve done it -it’s adorable and functional - and my cat was chill enough I could do it on my own. I usually did the ‘lion clip’ where you leave the head, neck, tip of the tail, and feet hairy. If the cat is cool with it, clip with the hair with a #10 blade. Stretch their skin flat where needed, and be super careful with the clippers in the armpit area, they have a lot of loose skin and it’s easy to nick them. I think every cat was different, but I let mine lay on one side, clipped everything within reach, and then flipped him to the other side. To get the belly hair you can either hold their front feet in one hand and stand them up on their hind legs facing you, or put their back to your chest and hold them up under their front legs with your forearm, and then clip downward. They can be really sensitive to blades getting hot, so take breaks and do the touchier parts, like around the bum, first so the cat hasn’t lost patience and your blade is still nice and sharp while doing them.
Good advice! And I have Kool Lube and spare blades in multiple sizes so I can trade out while they cool down. I am going to try the ‘back to the chest’ method.
My old long haired cat used to get a “lion cut” and he looked so regal. He had to go to the groomers though. Other old cat we were able to do in small increments ourselves, but it took four hands and several days because “cats” 
. He’d tolerate maybe 5 minute or less then noped out.
I used to occasionally help the groomer at the vet clinic I worked at and the cats were so funny- they either hated it with a deep passion, or thought that they were getting the massage of a lifetime and purred the whole way through lol . She did all kinds of fun clips, like trimming the tail in a spiral or putting dinosaur spikes down their backs.
At home she’s in between. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t really struggle. When she went to the groomer she legit went catatonic. Think limp. It would take her hours to recover. I figure even if she looks awful, she’s much more relaxed and EVENTUALLY I’ll get better, right?
You know you need to post “after” pics… I can’t imagine clipping my cats. They won’t even stay still for brushing.
Grey
I used to give our Ragdolls a lion clip. It was cooler in the summer and one of them would get matted fur if you looked at her wrong. Luckily, she thought getting clipped was marvelous. And she loved being stroked when her hair was short. We had to do it over several days and it was definitely easier if my daughter helped.
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