Pop & Unlock: The Energy Within Vol. 1

Yin & Yang, as you may have heard from the ancient Taoist Philosophy, is a fundamental principle of how the Universe works. It is not a dualistic view of life, but rather a way of seeing how the polarities of life depend on and rely on each other to create the ultimate balance and perfection that we see operating in Nature all around us. Yin is likened to the polarity of the feminine, the cold, the dark, the subtle, the yielding, the water, ect. Yang is likened to the polarity of the masculine, the hot, the bright, the aggressive, the forceful, the fire, ect The dance of these two energies is what creates supreme harmony and balance in infinite manifestations of life as we know it. And within yin and yang is a small piece of its opposite, which can be seen in the small dot within each side. Within Yin, there is a small part of yang, and within Yang there is a small part of Yin. There can never be one without the other. When we ignore the yin and yang dance of life and do not go with the natural balance of life, we become unbalanced and cause suffering in the form of disease and unhappiness. 

So what does this all have to do with Dance? Well in order to be a true balanced dancer and movement artist, one must truly understand the way of Yin and Yang and apply it to their dance. The way of Tao-Pop sees the Yin/Yang as the ultimate ideal of achieving true perfection as a dancer. Meditating upon Yin and Yang when it applies to dance, one can conclude that the most basic understanding of dance can be broken down into two of it's most basic components:

Yin is the Groove. 

And Yang is the Move. 

The Groove is dancing, feeling, free from play of movement. The Move is technique, thinking, and a disciplined approach to movement. All dancers, no matter what the style, is dancing between grooving and technical movements. You feel with your heart to the music and allow it to give you the groove, then you think with your mind to apply technique and the special moves you have practiced over and over again. Groove is the Heart. Move is the Mind. When Heart and Mind come into unity, true balance and harmony is achieved in the story of your dance.  

Groove is the feeling and emotion one feels in the heart and soul when the music turns on and you dance naturally. There is a small technique to different types of groove and how you want to groove. But the foundation of groove is to be free and allow yourself to truly let go into the music, regardless of technique. To Groove is to move from the heart and soul. If you have no groove, but have tons of moves, then you are not truly dancing. Your dance loses a type of spirit or soul. Without groove there is no feeling, it becomes stale and lacks emotion. To groove is to freely dance with your emotions and set your soul free. 

In this tutorial I also share with you a basic beginners exercise on how to groove with different parts of your body. We cover grooving with the head, shoulders, chest, hips, legs, and feet. This is a great practice for those with no previous experience in grooving at all. So if you are beginner with little to no dance experience, this is a great place to start. 

If you are an already experienced dancer, then feel free to move on to the next tutorial.  

In this tutorial we will do a basic-to-intermediate level Groove Warm-Up. Unfortunately during the recording of this video my audio went out, so instead I edited the video with visual instructions. Do your best to follow along! This tutorial is less about getting the grooves down perfect and more about simply warming your body up, getting your blood flowing, and your energy awakened. So lets get to dancing!  

Move is the technical application of movements and dance. It is the disciplined approach to the movement and what makes one a “refined” Dancer. Anyone has the ability to groove, but only the most dedicated dancers can truly have good moves. Move is proper foundation, technique, and form. It is your specialized styles and blowups which take time, dedication, and practice to master. When a dancer has no Move or technical ability, they can just be an average person simply dancing and having fun. But when a dancer has good technical ability, they rise above the masses and step into an elite world of true world class dancers. The Yang-Move aspect is directly linked with the Mind, for it is the Mind that aids us in perfecting the movements and guides us to when we properly apply the move in our groove. 

In this tutorial you will learn THE most fundamental aspects of technique training within the Popping and Animation styles. We call it: The Dimestop. 

The Dimestop is simply a clean-technical stop , using any body part or the entire body at once. Continue on with the tutorial to learn some drills and exercises to help develop and train your dimestop ability.  

In this tutorial you will learn one of the most fundamental aspects of the Popping and Animation dance styles: The Isolation. The ability to isolate different parts of your body at will is one of the greatest keys to obtaining movement mastery and high-level of illusion in your dance. In this course I teach you an amazing drill/exercise that has been passed down to me from previous Dance Masters who also use this in their own practice (I learned this from a dancer called Jsmooth - an international dance champion, who learned it then from Poppin' Taco - a triple OG legendary dance figure, considered to be the best dancer of the 1980's era). 

I call it: The Isolation Drill Exercise

​Enjoy~ 

Now that we have defined each individual side of Yin and Yang, we must now explain how the two interplay with each other and how a dancer can achieve total balance. For Example, when the music comes on, you first allow yourself to relax and drop into your body, drop into your heart, and allow your soul to come alive with the Music. The music starts to guide your body to move, based upon how your heart-felt emotions react to the music, and thus the Groove begins. The Groove can be anything, any repetitive movement that your body feels naturally inclined to dance in and sets the stage and the theme for your dance story. But if you simply stay in the groove and don't apply the Move, you can only stay at a certain basic level with your dance. Do not allow yourself to get so “lost” into the groove that you start to lose all form and technique. At some point your Mind comes into play and starts to apply the Move. The Move begins to come in, strategically at a perfect moment, ideally matched to a transition in the music.

As you allow yourself to first groove and build up the energy, you then use your training to apply a Move (whether that be a blowup, or a unique style, or something else). Your dance then goes into a higher level of evolution. The story evolves, and now you are truly dancing with the Yin and Yang energy.  

In the popping world, there are two classifications of dancers, The Boogaloo'ers, and the Animators. The Boogalooers are the Yin-Groove style dancer because they mostly rely on a feeling and groovy/funky type of approach to the dance. The focus is more on feeling rather than high technique. It values more loosness and relaxness in your body and interpreting the music with your emotions and heart rather than the mind. The Groover type dancer is able to go deep into their emotions and dance with their heart. But too much groove and the dancer can get too wild and lose all sense of technique. Remember, there is a small amount of Yang within Yin, and such...there must be small amount of technique in the groove so that there remains a clear visual of what the dancer is doing rather than just “flopping around”. 

In our example of the Groove Dancer we have here Hoan from Korea, considered to be one of the best poppers in the world. Although he displays here a ridiculously high level of technique, the underlying essence of his dance is in the groove. Notice how he effortlessly captures the feeling of the music. Even though he technically hits every little sound of the song, in between the movements is a beautiful grace in his groove. 

Enter the Water-Waving style – an illusional dance that creates continuous waves traversing through the body. It utilizes liquid like isolations and undulations to create a very flowy and watery effect through the body. 

The Origins of the waving style are very mysterious and date back to ancient times. It is said ancient storytellers would imitate legends and mythological creatures by doing arm wave isolations in the arms (Example Medusa). Also belly-dancers and African tribal dances have been known to do these styles by imitating the snake.  

In the Modern era, many pioneers rose and applied popping techniques to further advance the style, especially inspired by electronic dance music. Notable pioneers of this day and age are: OG Waveomatic, Skywalker, Elsewhere, Boogie Frantick, G-Style crew, Popntaco, Stokes, No Bone Tyrone, Bishop, Funktion, and Jsmooth. 

Waving is associated with the water element because of its liquid and flowy-like nature.  The Skill to seamlessly link one wave to the next with smooth transitions and flawless technique is the mark of a true waver. To become a true waver, one must not just memorize all the techniques and moves of waves, but more importantly be able to enter and become the “feeling” of the wave. It is a truly felt intuitive experience that cannot be described in steps, but rather a state of being which one becomes water itself.  As one gazes upon the infinite waves crashing on a beach shore, so to can the waving style become a never ending dance of one understands the language of The Wave.  To wave is to imitate the flow of creation, for everything is fundamentally waves of vibration.

"Everything is a Wave" - OG Waveomatic (My mentor)  

The first lesson of your journey into the Waving style will be The Arm Wave. The Arm Wave is the most key fundamental move that will lead you to all the other more advanced concepts within this style. Many beginners fail to take the time to truly practice the drills that are required to make this movement truly watery and liquid like. Be sure to devote time for practice and have patience to develop the musculature and mind-body connection it takes to master this move. It will serve you well in your dance expression and never fails to awe viewers. 

The Trace Wave is the illusion that one of your hands is control the direction of a wave passing through your body. It is one of the most commonly used moves within the Waving style but also has one of the most amounts of variations. The Trace wave is a very versatile concept which can be utilized in a multitude of ways during your dance. But first, you must learn the basics of the Move! So lets begin.  

Now that you have learned 3 of the most important and fundamental moves in the waving style it is time to learn how to combine them together! The ability to connect different waving moves and concepts together is a very important skill. Much of the beauty of this dance style occurs in not just the moves, but within the transitions of the moves which are equally important.  

Enter the Wind-Tutting Style– A geometric dance that utilizes the body to create patterns of straight lines, 90 degree angles, and any mother shapes.  Tutting moves along the Grid, a geometric plane consisting of the x, y, and z axis which naturally sounds everything in creation. The tutter is the artist of the Grid. Tutting consists of many combinations of various tutting sequences that are formulated together in a continuous story of geometric equations. Tutting Is often quick, swift, creative yet logical, and has to “make sense”. 

The first appearance of tutting originated in the times of Ancient Egypt, which is how it gots its name. Tutting is in reference to King Tutankhamen and its infamous representations of hieroglyphic figures posed in large 90-degree arm angles with flat hands. It is not known if these images were practiced as a dance or something else but dancers of today have used these as inspiration for moving in geometric ways. Notable tutters of today are: King Boogaloo Tut, Bugs Bunny, Tetris, Radukin, Mr. Re, Pandora, Future, Tutat, and Icon. 

The wind element is often associated with the swift, the intellectual, the creative, the sharp, and the unpredictable – which are all traits of the tutting style. To first study tutting is a very mental process. One has to study and memorize many patters of movement and understand the language of geometry.  Cleanliness of Angle is a very strict rule in tutting, so having flexibility in wrists, arms, and other joints is essential to mastering the style. To witness complex tutting patters truly stimulates the intellectual side of the brain . To have high skill is to be sharp and quick with the execution of patters, with proper form, clean angles, and creativity of patterns.  As one deepens their language of tutting, unpredictable new patters may emerge which surprise both the watcher and the mover.  

The first tutting style that one should learn in order to honor the traditions of tutting is The King Tut style. The King Tut is considered the first style of tutting that came out during the 1970's era. It is also considered the "biggest" of the tutting styles in that it utilizes the largest of body angles. This concept is very great for beginners to learn because it trains your arms to increase musculature and flexibility in order to have angular integrity. Be sure to not get discouraged if your angles are not perfect at first. It takes weeks, even months to gain the flexibility it takes to obtain clean angles and proper body-geometry.  

The Box Tut concepts is the ability to create various square and rectangular box shapes with your body. Box Tuts are one of the most commonly executed concepts within this style, and yet can be done in an plethora of ways that can still be unique to you. This style is also one of the best ways to start training you to think geometrically and moving with angular integrity.  In this tutorial I give you 3 Box Tut combinations to work with. You then can go and create your own from there.  

The Grid Tuts are one of the most important tutting concepts to start teaching you about "The Holy Grid". The grid is our geometric map that helps us stay in geometric and angular integrity while also helping us uncover a multitude of tutting combinations.  In this tutorial I share with you one of the first combinations of the Grid Tut category. From here I teach you ways you can create your own combinations and start being creative within this style.  

Now that you have learned the 3 main concepts of the Tutting style, we now practice ways to combine them all together. Just like in Waving Style, Tutting is also a style that values the transitions between concepts and not just the concepts themselves. In this tutorial we combine all the tutting combinations we have just learned into one large tutting combination that can be used for your own dance expression and/or to help you uncover your own unique combinations within the Tutting Style.  

Enter the Fire-Popping Style – the original un-altered dance forms of popping that utilize the continuous “hitting” technique. The dance form itself uses very angular and lose type of angle forms with the groove inspired by electro-funk music of the 70's and 80's era.

Boogaloo is a very funky and groovy dance, also born out of the funk music that has its own sets of sub styles.  It is known for its classic moves such as the boogaloo roll that dance the legs to look boneless and very loose. Popping and Boogaloo, fused with strong hitting technique, can be very fire-like, strong, intense, powerful, and even aggressive.  The boogaloo style is very spirited, joyful, based on feeling, and much like the essence of funk music itself.

The Origins of Popping and Boogaloo style is said to originate on the Californian west coast which blossomed may variations.  The Bay area is said to the oldest, and executes many of its own unique lineage of Bay Area styles such as Strutting, The Filmore, Saccin', ect. In the middle of California was born the Fresno Boogaloo which is the most prominent style of popping today. It was pioneered by a group called The Electric Boogaloos with its own unique sub styles brought to around the world.  In the south was born the Los Angeles Pop-Lock style, which is the most, raw, street, and diverse of the 3. It has its roots in gang culture and inspired a lot by G-Funk music and gang dance styles such as the "C-Walk" and Gang Signs.

The Hitting technique itself has older origins and was found to be practiced in ancient times by hidden martial art cultures of the east. We see it most prominent in the internal kung fu martial arts , specifically Chen Style Tai chi, Bagua Zhang, and Hsing – I.  Even some of the arm angles in the martial art forms are similar to some angles in Popping/Boogaloo.  These ancient, and still to this day martial artists used the hitting technique to summon internal power to increase their attack, sending vibrations of energy not just to their opponent but to beyond. 

Popping and Boogaloo are associated with the Fire element because of its power, explosiveness, and high spirited feeling of dance.  When a popper has a powerful Hit, you can feel the explosive power radiating from their body like tiny explosions.  Also their body begins to heat up and they can even heat up the environment.  It takes a ton of power, discipline, focus, strength, and energy to have good hits, much like the characteristics of fire itself.  As the arm and leg movements of Kung fu are used to strike and defend, so too do the angles of popping and boogaloo give a similar effect, especially in battle culture.  

Hitting is what gives the "Pop" in the word Popping. It is the most crucial and fundamental of techniques within the traditional popping style. Hitting is what creates the Pop like effect in the body by utilizing the quick contraction and release of various muscles in the body, usually done continuously by accentuating the clap of a beat. In this tutorial I share with you the 4 most important Hits of the body along with drills and exercises to help you start mastering this most crucial technique.  

Popping Angles are the basic movement vocabularies of the dance itself. These specific angles and poses are what have been traditionally done since the beginning of the Popping Dance style. By executing these forms in your dance you are paying homage to the traditions and lineage of the entire Popping Culture. In this tutorial I share with you a combination that is packed with some of the most basic popping angles to help you understand the way in which we move and the essence of the style. 

Boogaloo is the funkiest of all the dance styles within this system. It is the most "feeling" and groove based of each of the styles. It is also one of the most popular styles within the Popping Culture as a result of the Electric Boogaloo's who helped spread this style world-wide. In this tutorial I share with you 3 of the most fundamental moves within Boogaloo such as: The Walk-Out, Twist-O-Flex, and the Boogaloo Roll.  

Now that you have learned some of the basic moves in Popping and Boogaloo, I leave you with some lasting words of advice and wisdom to keep you moving forward with this style.  

Enter the Earth–Footwork style – a lower body dance style that is not specific but in reference to the world of footwork and ground-work dancing.  Footwork in popping is commonly very basic, ranging from simple stepping patterns, marches, slides, to advanced moves such as balancing, spins, moving along the ground on knee, or lying completely on the ground.  A common popular footwork style in popping is called Gliding – an illusionary trick of the ball and heel of the feet to make it seem like one is sliding on ice. Footwork in popping is fundamental to the dance, for without it the popper would be a static dancer. Footwork is very diverse and can range from super simple to complex movements.  Footwork is very grounded, stable, shifting, centering, and balanced – all markers of the Earth element. 

The history of footwork is vast and hardest to determine because of its diversity. There is a different history for each of the methods of footwork one is referring too. Traditional Popping footwork uses feet movements inspired by many military like marches, drills, and stomps.  All ground and floorwork type movements have their origin in bboying and capoeria ground dance styles, which have their own roots in Africa and Brazil.  The most popular gliding and sliding style became most popular when Michael Jackson did the moonwalk, which was already done many years before. Pioneers of the footwork styles in popping are Boogaloo Kite, Green Teck, Tien, Tabo-san, Mr. Wiggles, the Jookers, Bruce Ykanji, and Nonstop. 

Footwork is connected with the Earth element because moving your feet is fundamental to dancing in general. Your feet are your direct connection to Earth, and to have good footwork one must be stable, grounded, and have a good sense of balance. The earth teaches us to be grounded and deeply in touch with our bodies, for without it we risk being too mental and in the clouds. All dancers must learn to be grounded to achieve Mastery.  When in the middle of dancing, we must be grounded and aware of our surroundings , aware of what we are capable of, and more importantly what we aren't capable of. If we are not grounded we risk doing something stupid and risk severe injuries.  You cannot build a strong house without a stable foundation, if you focus on building a fancy house without a stable foundation, it will easily crumble and all your efforts are wasted.  To build the kingdom of your dance, you must have solid footwork to move with grace across the earth.   

One of the best places we can start training when it comes to footwork is learning how to control the Heel and the Toe. Especially within the Popping dance styles, the Heal and Toe are used a lot in a variety of ways. These techniques and drills have been passed down to me from Tabo, a master teacher within Popping Culture that has trained some of the worlds best dancers. These drills in this tutorial will give you the proper foundation to start having better body control in your feet, while setting you up for excellence in more advanced styles such as Gliding, Sliding, Floating, and many other variations.  

An educational course on footwork cannot be successful without the teaching of The Glide and the Slide. These footwork movements are some of the most popular and well-recognized within these footwork styles. Made most popular by Michael Jackson who coined the move "The MoonWalk", these movements are actually much older and contain much more complexity and variations even beyond the popular move.  

Rather than making dozens of tutorials teaching you a variety of simple footwork moves, I decided to create a choreography that contains many of the most popular footwork elements within this Dance. In this tutorial we start with the basic walk-out move which you may or may not have learned from the Fire-Popping styles, then we branch out into new and unexplored footwork territory. These movements will give you a basic groundwork (no pun intended) to get you started on your mastery of the footwork styles.  

This last video within the footwork styles is just a short video on some lasting advice to help you stay within the Earth element as you continue to progress on your dance journey.  

Enter the Lightning-Animation style – the most technical of all the Dance styles.  Animation usually refers to the world of all illusion (Yang-Move) based dancers, when in reality it can be viewed as its own unique Umbrella style with its own set of sub-styles. Animation is considered to be any technical movement that creates an "unreal" and "CGI" type of effect. It uses movements such as speed changes, ticking & strobing, vibration, claymation and much more. The most archetypal of this style is the Robot Style, which we will focus on mostly for this tutorial series. 

It utilizes various isolations, high body control, and gimmickry to capture the look and feel of a robot. Robot consists of many various robotic feels (such as the cyborg, the terminator, the android, and the mannequin).  Robot is also considered to be the most fundamental of the Animation Path of Popping dancers. Reason being is because many of the techniques and skills used in robot are also applied to all illusion based styles and typically the underlying groove for hardcore animators has a robotic feel.  Animation & Robot can be electric, metallic, technologic, subtle to explosive, and flashy, which are all characteristics of the Lightning (and Metal) elements. 

The history of the robot is the most modern of all dance styles, for their would need to be the invention of the robot before a dance could be based off of it.  The first to be seen doing the robot was Charlie the Robot from the 60's dance group The Lockers.  The robot style is a representation of the modern technical age and we celebrate this technological revolution in this dance.  We look to the old industrial era of having slow, heavy, and rustic mechanical techniques, to the new, sleek, and advanced mechanics of future cyborgs and super computers.  Pioneers of the Robot & Animation style are Robert Shields, Madd Chadd, Poppin John, Bop'N'Andre, Flattop, Mori 516, Pop N Todd, and Megaman. 

Animation is associated with the Lightning element because one of the most fundamental concepts within Animation is Vibration, which looks as if you have been struck by lightning or electricity. Animation and all its sub-styles are mostly considered to be electric in nature, and are responsible for creating the Electric-Boogie style of New York. Also, we bring in the Metal element of Robot because in order to wield lightning and electricity we must have a conductive element to harness it. Robot is associated with metal, not only because of its obvious nature, but metal can also be very rigid, mechanical, technological, and fueled by electricity.   To do the Robot style correctly one must develop great patience and slowness, just as it takes millions of years for metals to form within the Earth.  The Robot style teaches us to be patient with our actions, and also the master of our emotions. To become the robot one must step out of their ordinary personality and into the cold, emotionless, thoughtless nature of the Robot.  To be a master of our emotions and not be swayed by the environmental distractions, while having amazing high technique, slow to fast computer like intelligence, and proper form is the true marker of a master Robot.  

In order to move like a Robot, we must understand how to think and act like a Robot. In the beginning of this tutorial I share with you concepts and ideas on how to best embody the essence of a Robot. From mind-state to meditation exercises to keep you in character. 

In the second portion of this tutorial I share with you the basic movement vocabulary of the Robot Style. These movements are considered to be the basic and most traditional of the Robot Form. This is a great way to teach you about the essence of the style and get you started on the path of Animation.  

In this tutorial I share with you one of the hallmark moves of the Robot style. It is commonly known as the Head-Neck isolation. This movement creates the effect that your head and torso are disconnected yet connected, creating a very illusional look. This movement is a classic move and is a great move to have in your arsenal.  

In the first segment of this tutorial I share with you a concept called Hydraulics, which is inspired from the animatronix robots of theme parks such as Disneyland and Rainforest Cafe. This is an amazing effect to add on to all of your robotic movements and further captures the look and feel of being "unreal".

In the second segment of this tutorial I share with you one of the most fundamental moves within Animation, and that is Ticking & Strobing. It is the technical stop-and-go effect created by your movements. The idea is to look like you are under a strobe light. This movement is one of the greatest first movements to learn on the animation path, for it will help you not only look unreal but also be able to interpret the music in a variety of ways.  

Now that you have learned some of the basic elements of the Animation and Robot styles, we will now cover everything we have learned in a quick combination. I also end with some lasting advice and wisdom to keep you going on your Animation Dance journey.  

In this brief video I share with you the idea of storytelling in your dance. This idea is basically the way in which you dance and how to take all of your concepts and put it in a story that makes sense.  

Musicality is one of the most important aspects of Dance. It is the ability to correctly interpret the music. How you interpret the music is up to the dancer and there is no "standard" way to interpret a song, but there are a few guidelines which to go by. In this video I share with you some of the main skills it takes to develop good musicality.  

Congratulations on completing the course! It has been quite a journey. This video contains my last words of advice for this volume of the course.