How to Do the Popping Breakdancing Move

Popping in breakdancing is a visual sensation of the mastery of the body's muscles. You can appear as if you are moving in a frame-by-frame film to floating off the ground. While popping is done during the toprock portion of breakdancing, the fluid technical aspect can be as challenging to get right as aerial power moves. Poppers look as though their bodies have a ticking, robotic type movement.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Tighten your muscles. Breakdancing has a fluid style to it, but when you are popping, you go from loose to tight instantly. Every muscle in your body should go rigid.

2. Work your body's angles. Arm work is where a lot of variety comes from in popping. Create your own moves that are unlike any others with different ways to hold your joints. Use the wrists, elbows, knees, neck, head, ankles waist and hips to create twists and bends that are uniquely your own.

3. Hit the pop. The secret of popping is the hit or hold. Move into the pop, tighten the muscles at creative angles and then hold it there. Move again, tighten, hold. Take this into patterns, of slower and faster holds. For example: tighten, hit, move, tighten hit, hit, hit.

4. Go with the music. Hip hop music is great for popping with the rapid beats and low base. How you put your moves together should reflect the way you are feeling and flowing with the music.