Gliding..

I can home from a friend's place today and had the notion of gliding stuck in my head. I'm not sure why, the urge to move and think about dancing usually comes after I've been listening to really good music. Different genres of music obviously bring out different styles of dancing - breakbeat and drum and bass can give me the urge to use a lot of glides, but other than Friday night I haven't been listening to these types of music very much. Incidentally, if anyone is looking for good breaks, I'd recommend Z-trip, he's pretty ridiculous.

So yah, I pulled out my camera, set up the tripod, and started experimenting with glides. I've got a long way to go if I ever wanted to perfect my glides. The movement is a very tricky one requiring very good balance. When you walk normally, you have the freedom to move your mobile foot in a number of directions. Gliding requires that your stationary foot be the foot that is raised up on its ball (this greatly reduces the amount of contact you have with the floor, and thus your balance), and your mobile foot is moving while attempting to keep it as level with the ground and otherwise motionless as possible.

A few people have asked about this technique (probably because it looks the coolest out of the more commonly used techniques) - the illusion that the glide generates is caused by the motion I'm talking about above. When you walk or run normally, it is the foot that is inclined (relative to the ground) that is in motion. Think about it - your flat foot remains on the ground, with all of your weight on it, while your raised foot is generally in the air, moving, and bent at the ankle. The glide looks so crazy because your raised foot (inclined at the ankle, with your weight on it, only the ball of your foot in contact with the floor) is motionless while the flat foot is moving. The brain has a hiccup as it watches the raised foot for motion, sees nothing, then notices that the flat foot is moving. Your brain keeps switching back and forth trying to process this, and before you realize it, the dancer has moved a few feet further away.

This is such a tough trick for me because of the transferrance of weight. You stand on one foot, and slide your other foot along the ground away from you. Once you've moved it about two feet away, you have to raise this foot on to its ball, transfer your weight to this foot, lower the other foot, and begin sliding that towards your newly raised foot. This may not sound like much, but just give it a try and make it look smooth. The weight transfer is really tough.

All glides generally operate on this premise. There are a few other techniques that are similar but operate on slightly different principles - the one in particular that comes to mind is everyone's favorite - the scarecrow glide (also called the Wiggles walk, since I think Mr. Wiggles either created this glide or brought it to a lot of people's attention). The reason this looks so crazy is because all of the motion the feet make appear to be from side to side, with nothing to transfer weight and motion in a forward direction. If you look closely though, you'll notice that each foot is actually slowly being placed in front of the other. If you really wanted to break it down, the motion would be based on raising your feet just up on their heels and walking forward by placing one foot in front of the other. Throw in a bunch of side movement with your feet before you place it down in front of the other and you've got the basis for the glide. It looks so crazy because your eyes are distracted by the extra movement.

A few people have asked for some of the basics, which is cool - it's awesome that people are interested in popping because it's such an unknown on the island. Actually, breaking in general is pretty low key, but there are a few dedicated crews that I see out now and then. Popping is even less known, and locking almost completely non-existant (I think I've seen one person other than myself out actually doing it once). I'm trying to put together a video breaking down the glide into its most basic components. This is difficult because balance needs to be so precise with a normal glide, slowing it down requires even more effort.

However, that makes for a great goal to work towards, so that'll be what I'm doing in the next few weeks, as far as dancing is concerned. I'll post videos in a weeks time showing my progress as I try and break things down. Exciting!

Latest video of glides can be found here.