ENTER THE
EARTH-FOOTWORK
STYLE

Ground Beneath my Feet
From Pebble to Mountain Top
Shaking the Planet ​

0. FOUNDATIONS

Did you learn your foundations yet? Click the image to get access to the free tutorials of Foundations and Fundamentals if you would like to get grounded in these concepts before continuing. ​

​1. EARTH-FOOTWORK: INTRODUCTION

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 becase of its diversity. There is a different history for each of the methods of footwork one is refering 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.  ​

2. EARTH-FOOTWORK: HEAL & TOE DRILLS

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. ​

3. EARTH-FOOTWORK: THE GLIDE & THE SLIDE

An educational course on footwork cannot be succesful 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. ​

4. EARTH-FOOTWORK: CHOREOGRAPHY

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.

5. EARTH-FOOTWORK: CONCLUSION

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. ​

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