Hip Hop Dance Benefits for Kids

Series Summary

Hip hop dancing covers a large range of styles and specific moves and techniques, but the cornerstone of the style is undoubtedly break dancing. Over time, that so-called old school way of dancing and participating in hip hop culture has evolved into many different off-shoots. Funk dancing, popping and locking, jigging, freaking, krump, and hyphy are examples of types of hip hop dance, and each style contains certain moves that distinguish it from other forms. There is no doubt as to the influence hip hop and that style of dancing have had on the cultures it touches. Here in the United States, many people opt to take hip hop dancing lessons, and although some critics believe that teaching orchestrated steps in that fashion is adverse to the true roots of the culture and the history of the dance, many people enjoy taking the lessons and learning how to break with the best of them. Does all of this sound like Greek to you? Turn on your favorite music video station and watch for ten minutes, you'll know exactly what you're up against. In this free hip hop dance video series, professional choreographer Yvonne Chow teaches kids how to hip hope dance. You will learn ways to get kids into popping and locking, break dancing, and other hip hop favorites. Teaching hip hop dance can help physical education stay relevant and teach self confidence, lifelong healthy habits, and how to have fun socializing. Teachers will learn how to get kids into hip hop dance with fundamentals, basic choreography, and application of moves.

Video Transcript

"Welcome to how to teach hip-hop dance to kids. Teaching hip-hop dance to kids is one of the most rewarding experiences because kids are really, really open to learning and they're always, always, always want to know more information. Hip-hop dance is a great thing for kids because it has so many different art forms within it. Therefore, you can take years, and years, and years to learn how to master it and it can become a lifelong process for people that start off when they're younger. They can do breaking, they can do popping, they can do locking. Also, in using the Blade technique you gain a lot of discipline so this could help them within school as students and in life as well. Also, hip-hop dance is a great tool for exercising. A lot of kids, maybe don't want to go running, so hip-hop dance is a great way to get out all their energies and utilize all their different muscles, and do different things with their body. (Hip-hop dancing demo)"