Aerobic Hip Hop Dance Moves: The Push Down

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. Throughout the world, there are competitions and 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. Hip hop dancing doesn't have to be something that's just done for fun in someone's free time. Conversely, working out and exercising doesn't have to be such a drag. In this free video series, a choreographer will teach you how to do aerobic hip hop dance moves to work out the muscles and flexibility while you're dancing. You'll learn the push down, turn step, hop step, pull down, candy man, MJ slide, and many more. With these tips, techniques, and lessons, you'll be able to have fun dancing and get aerobic exercise at the same time!

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Keith Fitzpatrick. This Hip Hop aerobic moves and we are going to go with something called the push down. So with this move you're really going to be pushing down with your arm, squeezing your muscles here and kind of squeezing your ab muscles here and raising your knees up. It's going to give you that crunch for your abs and pushing hard for your arms and your biceps and triceps back here. So push here and squeeze in here. This is something that I do in my warm ups before my classes. You'll squeeze down here and you just switch. You squeeze and then you do it twice. Here and here. You go - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8. And the main thing that you want to remember is to keep squeezing your core here and pushing hard here. Don't just get lazy in here because it won't do anything. Really push. Bring your knees up and your arms way down. You're here. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8. So in class a lot of times when we do it, we'll move here and you make your movement big. You want to really move. Here. That'll get you sweating and breathing. Here. And keep the squeeze in your stomach and keep pushing. This is called the push down. There you go."