Hey, all you swinging kids, on this page I'm going to lay the basics down on some dance moves. One of the things I love to do is dance, whether I'm in the halls at school, at the dancehall, or just in my own room.
This month, I'm gonna start with the basics of skanking. Skanking is a form of dance associated with ska music. Ska is the grand father of reggae, and has risen and fallen in popularity in three significant waves and now with the death of Seattle Grunge, ska has caught the public eye with such new bands as Save Ferris, Reel Big Fish, and Goldfinger.
Anyway, on to the dancing. For the typical skank, you have to find the happy medium between running in place and giving yourself a hernia. It's a general arms bent position, with one arm going forward and one backward, and then switching positions, while doing sort of a running man, but more jerky.
Another way you can skank is more of a kicking out of your legs, while standing up hunched up, with your arms in. Either method is fine, what you truly need to do is find the moves that are comfortable for you. You have to try and move your body with the quirky beats of the music.
Take what I said as an idea, but make up your own moves, and feel the music going through you. Deep down, ska is just all about having a good time. Check out Hepcat, Stubborn All Stars, the Pie Tasters, the Toasters, or the Specials for good ska. Alt.Music.Ska
is a good place to go for the history of ska, and has an extensive faq. Or I can e-mail u a copy of the Faq if u ask.
Now, I have a little new move that sort of bridges Hardcore and ska. Caitlin calls it "Blind Wind Mill" which is a good name. What it is, is you bend your arm and put your fore arm on your forehead. You crouch a bit, and then you take your free arm and you swing it around in a giant circle
To make it more of a swing mover, you bend at the knees, but keep your upper body straight, bring one arm up to your forehead, about 3-5 inches away, and then swing the other arm. Then, with your hips bust out a little Elvis type move and sort of rotate your hips. It looks cool, I may do a gif of me doing it sometime soon
This next move I want to intro here is called "Loose Change", and it's pretty basic. You bend over like you are touching your toes. Then, you move back and forth in a straight line. While doing this, you striking the floor with alternating blows, like a piston. It's a lot of fun, come back soon and I'll have more moves and some animated gifs