The Indian Step: Breakdancing

Series Summary

Breakdancing first appeared in 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. Today breakdancing is leading to even newer forms of dance such as krunk.

This free video series is great for the beginner and expert breakdancer. Our expert, Jonathan “Xcel” Escotto, has been "breaking" for years and will show you basic moves and how to mix them with more challenging ones. He demonstrates the foundation of break steps such as freezes and the hang glide that you’ll need to ensure you don’t “get served” during your next battle.

Video Transcript

"Hey, how you doing? This is Jonathan Escotto also know as B-boy Xcel on behalf of Expert Village and today we're showing you breaking tips. The first thing we're going to start off with and one of the most important things in beat-boying break dancing is top rock. Top rock is your basic introduction, how you dance to the music before you go into the ground, before you go and do all your crazy moves you want to dance, you want to show your movements. Now the most basic top rocking in breaking would be a step called the Indian step. Now, the Indian step is called the Indian step because its derived from Native American or as we call them Indian dancing and I'm going to demonstrate the step, show you what it looks like a little bit and then I'll break it down for you. Okay this is the introduction, one, now that's a basic back and forth now that can also be changed around in a circular motion. So we can change it up this way, okay. Now, we're going to break the step down, it's a pretty basic and simple step. We're going to start off with our right foot first and you just want to step at a 90 degree angle and you want to make sure you're not flat footed and you're on your toes. You're going to take your right foot, lift your knee up, step at a 90 degree angle and your hands have to come wide open like this. Take your right foot, lift your knee back up bring it back to the beginning position. You're going to repeat the same motion with your left foot the opposite direction, again at a 90 degree angle, hands open, step, step and come back. Now you're only moving one foot at a time, let's try to combine those two steps in a slow motion, here we go. We're going to bring it up, step, hands closed when you come back, same thing knee up, hands open and back. When you put it together it looks some thing like this, step-back, step-back, okay now we want to be careful that we're not turned too sideways or too forward, it has to be completely at a 90 degree angle. Again this is what it looks like to a rhythm, a basic rhythm would be so, one back, two back, one back, two back, one back, two back and again that's the Indian step."