An Introduction to Breakdancing: Free Online Dance Lessons

Series Summary

Breakdancing first moonwalked its way onto the cultural scene from the South Bronx in the 1970s. Hip hop and breakbeat pioneer Kool Dj Herc is generally credited with being the first to loop together sections of beats from funk, jazz, disco, R & B and early electronica to create a rhythmic base for dancers to showcase their skills. The innovative and complex combination of moves, which became what we call breakdance, was used first as a method of settling gang turf wars, but soon evolved into a pop-cultural phenomenon in which dance groups like the world-famous Rock Steady Crew introduced the dance craze to the mainstream.

The popularity of breakdancing waned by the late 1980s, but has been recently rediscovered by a new generation of dancers who compete in professional competition. While taking breakdance lessons might seem to violate the very ethos of the “streets” movement which spawned the genre, no one will ever know you learned the basics of breakdancing in a free online video course. Expert dance instructor Julie Urich demonstrates the foundation of toprock, downrock, and power move steps you’ll need to ensure you don’t “get served” during your next battle.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Lady Jules on behalf of Expert Village and I’m here today to teach you what is known to the masses as breakdancing. In our culture we call it B-boying or B-girling and the B stands for break boy or break girl meaning that we dance to the break of a song, the breakdown of a song otherwise known as break beats. So I am going to teach you four separate things. The first thing I am going to teach you is how to strengthen your body. You have to get your body in really good shape to do these moves and you have to know what muscles to use to be able to throw your body in certain positions and things like that. The second thing what we are going to learn is called top rock and this is the vertical dance of B-boying or breaking. And basically it’s what you do on top. So that is what is called top rock. Second thing I am going to teach you is something called go downs and basically this is the transition from going from a vertical dance to going to the ground. So you have to find different creative ways to get from the top to the bottom. So there are several different ways to get down to the ground. I’m going to teach you a couple of things one thing is called the sweep. This is the way to get down or funky zigzags, corkscrews and those are different ways to go from the top to the ground. The third thing I am going to teach you is what is called as footwork and this is what most everybody is familiar with, seeing people do foot work patterns and things on the ground such as six steps or three steps shuffles and sweeps. So I will give you a little demonstration, that is foot work and then very last thing that I am going to teach you today is something called the freeze and this is when you completely stop your momentum and you make a picture of some sort. So in this case I am going to teach you a baby freeze now that looks like this, and that’s what your going to be learning today."