How to go on your head dancing
10 Basic Dance Moves Anyone Can Learn
Do you ever watch someone dance and wonder how they come up with moves so easily?
Great dancers often master a specific set of moves that they can fall back on again and again.
Read on for 10 basic dance moves you can learn in minutes and use every time you wanna dance.
P.S. You can learn all of these moves for FREE on STEEZY Studio! No cc required. 😉
1. The Two-Step
When I first started dancing at parties, the Two-Step was the first move that truly came naturally to me.
It really is as simple as stepping from side to side to the beat!
If you're looking for something foolproof that allows you to just groove and enjoy the music...
Boom. Here it is.
2. The Monestary
This move was born in a club called Monestary out in St. Louis!
It’s built on a Two-Step, so if you took that class, you’ve already got a foundation for the footwork.
But rather than bringing your feet together, you’ll tap them to the front with your knee and foot turned inward.
Then, as you tap the feet, you’ll move your arms and shoulders in a circular movement.
3. Booty Pop (Side To Side)
Like the Woah, this sexy move is super TikTok-friendly – but with more feminine energy.
To do a booty pop to the side, you’re gonna bend your knees, put your hands on one knee, and then bring the other leg from bent to straight while turning your knee inward.
If you’re a long-haired baddie, be sure to keep all your hair on one side so it doesn’t flop in your face as you pop!
Read this article on How To Dance Sexy to get more tips on pulling off moves like this one!
4. The Billy Bounce
Surprise – this club-ready move is built on… a bounce!
But what makes it unique is that your knees will come inward on each bounce rather than just up and down.
Once you’ve got the funky lil knee bounce down, you’ll add in an upward kick on each side.
The best thing about this move is that while the footwork takes a few minutes to learn, you don’t necessarily need to add an arm movement to make it look cool.
Just keep your arms front and center.
5. The Woah
Even if you’re not actively involved in the dance community, you’ve probably seen people hitting the Woah – on TikTok, Reels... all over your newsfeed!
Whether you wanna make a viral video of your own, or you’re just looking for a fun, basic dance move to pull out at the clerb, this one is too good not to learn.
Since the locking arm motion is so sharp and pronounced, use the Woah to accent the heaviest bass beats in your favorite songs.
6. The Dougie
Yes, the Dougie is a real dance move!
Like the Two-Step, you’ll be shifting your weight from side to side, but this time, adding some shoulder movements and a lil more attitude.
Try this one out to some songs other than the one that made it famous – you’ll find it works with any hype beat.
7. Scoop Arm Into Hip Sway
Sooo this one is more of combo than a move, but it only takes a few minutes to learn and it works with any fun sassy song…
So it deserves to be here, ok?!
For this move, you’re gonna scoop your arm across your chest, then bring it over your head, and finally point it in front of your chest.
Once you point the arm in front of you, you’ll sway your hips from side to side and groove it out.
8. The Bust Down
The Bust Down was popularized by LA rapper, Blueface, in his 2019 club jam “Thotiana”.
You’re gonna grab your belt, put one arm in the air, and allow your body to dip with the beat.
Note: Licking your eyebrows like Blueface is fun, but not required. 😛
9. The Biz Markie
The Biz Markie is an old school party dance inspired by, you guessed it, rapper Biz Markie!
It rose to popularity in the 90s, when Biz Markie himself began performing it on stage.
As you practice it, remember to allow your shoulders to bounce – the bounce is what gives this move its cool, laidback flavor.
Wanna learn more about classic Hip Hop moves? Read this: How To Dance Hip Hop for Beginners
10. The Humpty
For this bouncy move, you’re gonna circle your hips to one side as your bend your knees.
Then, you’ll jump and cross your legs, allowing your feet to tap the floor briefly before you jump back to your original legs apart position.
Once you’ve got that down, you can complete the move by adding in a windmill motion with your arms.
The leg cross in this move makes it perfect for any Hip Hop song that features a double bass (aka that BOOM BOOM sound that you hear in songs like “Lip Gloss” by Lil Mama)
We hope you enjoyed learning some of our favorite basic dance moves.
Of course, this list is just a start!
In addition to the 10 moves on this list, STEEZY Studio has 100+ other FREE beginner classes where you can learn step-by-step from the world’s best teachers.
What To Read Next:
30-Minute Dance Workouts That'll Trick You Into Becoming A Better Dancer
How To Learn Popping
How To Start Dancing Hip Hop For Beginners
How To Learn Dance At Home
Making Headway: Tips to Help Your Students’ Head and Neck Articulation
Houston Ballet Academy Instructor Susan Bryant with students of Houston Ballet Academy. Photo by Amitava Sarkar (2017), Courtesy Houston Ballet
Making Headway: Tips to Help Your Students’ Head and Neck Articulation
For Amit Shah, a Bollywood and bhangra instructor and the founder of AATMA Performing Arts, the head and the neck play a central role in class, with numerous exercises dedicated to the placement and movement of the head.
“In classical Indian dance, a lot of head, neck and eye movements were really meant to tell stories, so in our training—whether it’s Bollywood or classical or folk dance—it’s extremely important,” he says.
But in styles where the head and neck don’t play such a central role, they can sometimes take a pedagogical backseat, what with all the other technical and artistic priorities on teachers’ to-do lists. And yet, whether there’s codified head movement in your style or not, giving students the tools to move their heads and necks freely and expressively can help them achieve a more full-bodied movement quality. Here are some tips on where to start.
Maintain the Chin LevelIn their efforts to have “good posture,” many dancers hold their chins too high, says Houston Ballet Academy faculty member Susan Bryant. But when the chin is already high, “it’s hard for the position to grow,” she says. This also shortens the back of the neck, which can cause tension and tightness, says Chicago-based physical therapist Julie O’Connell. Bryant says that some dancers will also jut their chin too far forward in an effort to get their weight forward.
Teaching your students proper chin and head placement can set them up to have a full range of motion at their disposal.
O’Connell suggests using the image of a candy cane hook from the sternum bone to under the chin, with the eyes looking straight on the horizon. Bryant asks students to pretend they are a Halloween skeleton, with the bones stacked and the top of the head in line with the ceiling. “Let gravity put you in place,” she says. “If you were hanging from a thread, all your bones would fall into place. Don’t use your muscles to hold the position.”
“The neck is easier to move when its role is to move the head and not hold up the weight of the arms,” says O’Connell. “So stronger arms are a better shelf for the head to sit on, rather than the head being so overstretched because the weight of the arms is pulling down and there’s no more room for the head to articulate.” To strengthen your students’ arms and shoulders, O’Connell recommends exercises like shoulder rolls and arm circles, or shrugging the shoulders up and down.
She also urges teachers to notice how they’re cueing students’ shoulder placement.
While it’s tempting to suggest that students pull their shoulders down, this can result in students pushing their shoulders too far too low, overstretching the trapezius and putting them in a position where “there’s no more down to go,” says O’Connell. “Where my shoulders should start from is a position halfway in between up and down, so that when I’m given a cue to go up or down, I have somewhere to go.”
Bryant says that the movement of the head and neck should come naturally, but that “when you put on a leotard and tights, people stop doing what is natural.” To counter this, Bryant tells her students to pretend that the chin has a plié, which encourages them to allow the chin to rise and fall.
Another way to help your students channel a natural sense of movement: Cue them to move their heads where they’re looking. “If you have real direction with your eyes, I think your head will go in the right place,” says Bryant.
For Shah, this often means instructing students to follow their arms. “Anytime there’s an arm movement, the head and neck will move in that same direction,” he says.
The same can often be said of ballet, says Bryant, who sees it as a way of dancing with the entire body, “from the inside out,” she says. “The movement has to start within in order to come out.”
Dance with feet and head
As a scientific discipline, dance studies are at least half a century old, but they have already influenced our understanding of both dance and why to study it. First of all, the Eurocentric understanding of what dance is was revised. Thus, in many cultures there are structured systems of movement that cannot be called “dance” in the usual sense of the word. Ballet ceased to be considered the highest form of dance and was put in its place - one of the dance systems. With the development of video dance - the art of filming a dance, making films about it - the choreography of not only the human body, but also other actors, animate and inanimate, became obvious.
And the digitalization of dance made us rethink the boundaries of the human body. Finally, such a seemingly universal sign of dance as movement was also questioned: the radical theorist Andre Lepeki argues that rest for dance is almost more important than movement. Modern researchers tend to talk about "dancing" instead of "dance". And the sociologist Randy Martin is interested in dance not so much as an object of study, but as a method, a research tool. Dance practices, he argues, will reveal how you can "think with your feet" and "theorize with your body." Such a message takes dance studies out of the art history ghetto and allows it to be connected with epistemology and theory in the broadest sense of the word.
The book, intended for both specialists and students, has fourteen chapters. An introduction by compiler Sherrill Dodds is followed by a chapter on the methods and problems of dance research. Its author, Rachel Fensham, addresses the question of the production of knowledge through artistic practice such as dance.
Some philosophers on the left, criticizing the capitalist exploitation of intellectual labor, see dance as an alternative. According to them, dance and bodily practices produce knowledge in a form that cannot be commodified. Thus, the understanding of dance and performance practices as research also acquires a political connotation. Sometimes these words are hyphenated: dance-as-research, performance-as-research, practice-as-research, practice-based-research. Thus, it is emphasized that we are talking about a new concept that combines practical and theoretical knowledge, artistic practices and academic research. The point, the author of the chapter believes, is behind the creation of such programs and projects where something (imagination, emotions, creativity, social interaction, etc.) will be explored with the help of dance. The practical Fensham hopes this will not only advance academic knowledge, but also help create jobs for dancers.
Edward Warburton devotes a chapter to dance pedagogy, which, in his opinion, is becoming increasingly reflective.
The teacher teaches not only dance techniques, but also makes the learning process more conscious, helps the student comprehend movements during the training process. Often the goal is to learn independence: to make independent choices, to make an independent decision, to resist opinions imposed from outside. Conscious dance and radical choice, the author believes, favor civil disobedience and activism. Wardburton classifies modern dance pedagogy into three types: one teaches inclusion and integration more, the other teaches to act in a situation of uncertainty, the third helps to find identity.
Continued in print and on Bookmate
How to break dance - advice for beginner break dancers from the Breaking Academy school
Breakdancing is actually not very difficult if you have the appropriate physical preparation and knowledge of dance basics. The main thing is to learn how to put together all the components of breakdance into one common dance sweat coming from the human body, transmitting vibrations from the sounds made by musical instruments to your body.
Of course, being able to break dance is a great pleasure for the soul and body. The feeling of how you convey the rhythm of the music with your movements is very pleasing and creates a feeling of happiness. The main question is how professional the dancer's movements are. And here it is important to find a specialized breakdance school, such as ours, in order to fully experience all the delights of controlling your body, music and energy of the audience.
In our classes, any student will learn how to learn how to dance breakdance, as our trainers, being, of course, professionals in their field, will tell you all the nuances and features of this dance. They will prepare the body for physical exertion, teach you to feel comfortable and not be ashamed of your dance. Every child who has applied to us will be able to go to the center of the dance floor after a month of classes and show, without any hesitation, what he has learned and show everyone how he dances.
What are the advantages if dancing break dance
- The child will be guaranteed excellent physical shape.
- The mobility of the body links will improve due to intensive stretching.
- Increases overall endurance to physical activity and increases efficiency.
- A creative approach and a view of the world around are being developed, because dancing is an art.
- The skill of feeling rhythm and music in general appears, after a while, the child will learn to dance to the music.
- Dancing is a way of self-realization, any dancing child will always be the center of attention and, as a result, will be self-confident.
How to start break dancing, break dancing
It is best to start by contacting specialists - people who have gone through this path and are ready to share it. Of course, it is more correct to start mastering breakdance with knowledge of the theory of dance in general. And only then work out the dance moves. If you do not understand what you are doing, then you can lose a lot of time for nothing, without learning anything or moving in the wrong direction.
To avoid this, we advise you to work with a trainer. A competent teacher will always tell you how best to develop a particular student, develop a special program for developing skills and gradually mastering the elements of breakdance. What is an integral part of the process of teaching break dancing to children.
What elements are important to learn in order to break dance beautifully
- The top dance is a set of dance movements in a standing position.
- Downward Dance is a squat-level movement.
- Racks and fixations are different racks, they can be at the top (on the hands), I can be at the bottom (on the head) and so on.
- Acrobatic elements - everything related to acrobatic stunts.
- Power movements - transitions from rack to another rack.
- Power rotational movements.
Why is it useful to dance break-dance, break?
Break dancing is quite a useful activity in terms of developing creativity and the physical form of your body, and it is also an indisputable advantage in the fight against excess weight, since a lot of calories are burned during dancing.
