Hip Hop Dance Moves Step by Step

The uber cool moves, the attitude, the swift and agile steps, foot tapping music and overall a great experience. Does this ring a bell in your mind? I think this is what hip hop is all about, and probably, this is what makes it such an awesome dance form. This form of dancing has taken the world by a storm, and many countries in the world have people dancing it. As most of us know, this dance is an umbrella term for several styles of dancing - breaking or breakdancing or b-boying, popping and locking. Hence, it is actually difficult to describe about it.

Hip Hop Dance Moves for Beginners

Popping

• Begin with putting your right hand in a flat karate chop position. It has to be below your chest, about a foot and a half away from your body.
• Now, the key is to slowly move a certain part of your arm.
• Drop your fingers till your middle knuckles, for them to form a 90 degree angle.
• Follow that up by dropping the rest of your fingers till your real knuckles. Avoid moving anything else.
• Your hand has to be dropped straight up to your wrist.
• At this point, your elbow should be underneath your waist, and the hand should be pointing down. This forms a slight triangle.
• Raise both your palms and elbow and drop the wrist.
• Now raise that shoulder and then the opposite shoulder.
• Here, by the time you raise the opposite shoulder, the arm you started with has to be straightened out.
• To come to the end, you are going to do the exact opposite, raise the elbow, keep the wrist down and fingers up and then switch.
• Follow that by rolling out the fingertips.

That was the basic popping step in hip hop dance style.

Moon Walk

• The first step is to get your feet in a position closer than shoulder width apart.
• Get your right foot toes in line with the central part of your left foot.
• Lifting your right heel, put the weight on your right foot.
• Slide the left foot straight back, while keeping it absolutely flat on the ground. This has to be done till the toes of the left foot are in line with the middle of the right.
• At this stage, drop your right heel to the ground and simultaneously raise your left heel.
• This is the crux of the moonwalk, the switching part.
• Again, slide your right foot back till the toes reach the middle of the left foot. Switch, once again.

These are a couple of steps which characterize and are inherent to hip hop.

Heel Toe

• Start with your feet shoulder width apart.
• The next thing you need to do is jump up, not very high. You need to land aligning your right foot directly in front of your left.
• The ideal way would be to land on the heel of the right foot and toe of the left one.
• Here, at this point, turn your right foot to the right with the heel firmly on the ground.
• The earlier step would probably lead you to fall to the left a bit, do that, but stop when your left foot is about a foot to the left.
• Jump once more, get your weight back to the center and land with your left foot this time directly in front of the right, on the heel of your left foot and toes of your right.
• Do the same on the other side and then, when you jump again after turning your right and left feet, you need to land with your right foot crossed in front of your left and do that again.

All these dance moves were just a glimpse of what all exciting moves hip hop dancing has to offer!

Some more steps are Crip Walk, Harlem Shake, Glide, Walkout, Cupid Shuffle, Soulja Boy, Sponge Bob and a few more. You can get the descriptions of these and many more by checking out online, or through free guide books.

This dance is best learned along with a proper instructor, as these are a real challenge to learn. Just describing the steps is not giving enough justice to them. It has to be done on the dance floor, with full elan and enthusiasm!