Does Anyone know what "poppin" is?

[JRockABM]

Does anyone know what Poppin is in this forum?
Just curious.

Any and all replies would be appreciated, if you dont know Id like to know...and if you do can you tell me a little about it?

Thanks

JRockABM

[Guest]

Check out www.dance101.org and look under class descriptions. There is a summary about poppin and you should check out the poppin class too. My friend Rebirth is a great teacher.

[h@LaZ]

poppin is when someone is doing dances like micheal jackson and justine timberlake, it is things like the robot and also stuff like doing the wave with your arms. it is that kind of stylish dancing you see on music videos, hope this helps HaLaZ

[scalawag]

Hopfully this should help,you out.

The most important thing, to me, is that
the hit or bang is clean and tight, nothing sloppy. Adding the effect of
being mechanical about it, depending on when it is done, makes the hit
and the transitions looker even more unreal. Being a pure OG popper, the
effect that you want to create is making yourself look inhuman, that is, not
just doing a bunch of moves, but rather telling a story if you will, having
the emotion and energy which expresses imagination and individuality, the
manner In which you perform. The hit is the foundation of that. To me, a tight and clean hit involves the tensing and releasing of the muscles on beat to the music. It includes the wrist, forearms, triceps, shoulders (NOT up and down, but tensing/releasing), neck, chest, torso, knees and ankles. Having the muscles all hit on beat and together gives the effect that you're hitting harder than you really are. You're not trying to hit hard with one or two parts of the body, but rather evenly and cleanly, all other parts of the body together to make the hit hard. It takes a long time to get the timing and execution down so that when "moves" or combinations are done, it looks unreal. Styles of popping (to me is hitting or foundation) include waving, floating, robot or manequinn, strobing and ticking. Again, by mixing up these various styles and executing each movement cleaning and tightly, gives the observer the look that you're not human, but rather a machine or otherwise. Part of that illusion is timing, execution and isolation. Timing is, executing a series of moves which fit the particular part of the song or rap that best illustrates the beats being heard. Timing is also knowing by instinct which moves are coming up next. I am not thinking when I am in the zone. I am just executing and dancing. The
music provides the vibe. Timing is moving to the beats and hitting to
perfection. Execution and isolation go hand in hand. Execution is doing
your moves to perfection. What that means is, say you are doing an arm wave to the body and down to the foot. That may lead to a sidefloat to a
dimestop, a quarter turn, and a wave from the foot back up the body and to the arm and fingers again, from which it originated. Notice that it told a story, it was more like a combination of moves put together. Execution comes in by making those simple steps look inhuman. The speed in which you wave the arm and down the body should stay the same speed, according to how fast the music is, and then the float should take long or short strides, based on what kind of music it is (planet rock vs so ruff so tuff). The arm wave will be one arm or two arms. If one arm, then the opposite arm is not to move. Use the neck when the wave gets there and continue the wave to where it's going. When the float is done and you're done floating, keep in mind that you're setting up for the next move. This move is the dimestop, which is executed by hitting when you stop floating. Then, the wave starts from the foot and travel up the body and then you can quarter turn now, in the direction in which you want to "throw" the wave. All the while, nothing else moves except that part of the body in which the wave travels. Cleaness, tightness and stiffness are key here. When transitioning from one move to the next, throw in a quarter turn or bang to make up for the change. For example, to continue the moves in the forementioned sequence, when the wave ends you can hit and then go into a robotic sequence, using isolated movements of joints, one at a time. I spend time looking and studying robotic things to get the exact idea of when one machine part moves, how does it look when it
"bangs" or stops moving? You want to emulate that "concept" as much as possible. You're a human, you become a machine. Floating is nice when the upper body does not do many distracting things while floating. You gotta be smooth and fluid. Walk on air and look illusional, watch your speed, keep it clean. You want the eyes of the observer on your feet, mainly. Then when you dimestop and bang, the eyes are on the whole body again. A quarter-turn or front/back step and hit keeps the eyes there, then follow up with your next sequence. Doing mis-direction gives an illusion that hey, the body and arms said it was gonna go forward, now the body is floating backwards or sideways, what happened? It's a mistaken perception of reality. Small steps in any direction combined with tight, clean hits give illusions. Mixing up glides which are short one time and longer the next keep observers guessing and exemplifies the illusions. In your transitions, when progressing from robot to ticking, for example, have your body end up in a pose or shape so that when the ticking starts, it looks like it "supposed" to start from there. Same thing when ending a sequence, end up in a pose which sets up your next moves. And be original with your flavor. Personally, I don't do tuts hardly
because so many people do them (they look tough and hard), but I have my own flavor. Why is this important? If you love popping as much as I do, you'll want to leave an impression. When I battle someone, I want the other person to remember me forever. I am going to etch in his/her mind what I'm made of, through popping. That means doing things or executing in a way that perhaps is rarely seen. Quality is better than quantity for moves. Clean and tight is the golden rule. Even if you only have a handful of moves, if you execute them perfectly and cleanly, you'll look better than someone who has a hundred moves, but it looks sloppy. In summary, popping is a dance in which when executed, makes the dancer look inhuman. Almost doing things that cannot really be "taught". Moves are not just moves, it's what happens you express yourself. Don't do too many things at one time so the moves can be seen. Going real fast to hide imperfections distort the beauty of this dance. Popping fast and cleanly on the other hand (or slowly for that matter) is beautiful when done properly and with emotion.

If you have any questions please send me an email at [email protected]

[stin]

This is poppin'

http://funny.ansme.com/videos/robotman.html

check this video link out (you may need broadband)

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

[admin]

Yea, his name is David "Elsewhere" Bernal. He is friggin amazing. Here is the first video I saw:
http://www.dance-forums.com/viewtopic.php?topic=44