popping

What is popping?

From wikipedia: Popping is a dance style and one of the original funk style of dance that came out of Fresno, CA in the 1970s. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop, tick or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.

Well i think that popping is one of the coolest dance styles because even though it looks really stunning, most of the moves have astonishingly easy steps. Popping is just making an impressive illusion into dance, like for example a head isolation which makes the head looks like its dislocated. Haha, this is just one of the reasons i dance, to see people's jaws drop open and say,"Omigawd, is he human?". An example of a popper would be Madd Chadd, remember him from the previous post?=9

Jerking

Sort of a the main thing in popping. Its done by contracting and relaxing your muscles on the part of the body thats moving and stop the moving. So it looks like as if your hand or body knocked into some invisible solid. It also can be used for robotic actions. You know how sometimes a robots in a sci-fi movie moves? It has a stiff feeling to it and the robot sort of jerks to a stop whenever it moves. That's what some dances do, and thats ultra-cool and what i do too=)

Waves

This is the exact opposite of jerking. It concentrates on being smooth and "inhumanly" liquidy(if there is such a word). The illusion here is that the popper moves his fingers, then his wrists, then his elbows, then his shoulders to his other shoulder and down the opposite way in a upward direction. With this sequence, when done quickly, it creates a illusion of a wave through the hands. This concept can also be used for other variations like from head to toe or linked from hand to toe.

Isolations

These moves are illusions which look like the persons head is dislocated from his body. Like when a person move his head to one side sort of like a indian dance move and his body moves in the opposite direction he looks like his head is dislocated.

Feeling skeptical? watch this tutorial i made=)