How to Perform Robot Dance Moves

The robot dance, also known as the mannequin dance, is a style that imitates the motions of robots. In the late 1960s, Charles "Robot" Washington created this dance style, which then started gaining popularity. Today, there are various robot moves that are quite easy to learn. You can learn this dance form with patience and constant practice, and watch all the heads turn at you on the dance floor.

Robot Dance Steps

• There are two types of robot dance forms, viz., the conventional robot and the broken robot. In the conventional robot, you just have to move each joint slowly and keep shifting your moves to give the illusion of a dancing robot. 

• The second is the broken robot dance, where you have to lock and break, which gives the feeling of a machine moving abruptly, vibrating a bit, and then finally breaking down where you maintain a broken down still pose.

• The first dance form is easier to learn than the second. Follow these basic moves till you get hang of the robotic motion, and then include the robot-like moves given below to enrich your style.
• You need a bit of imagination to kick start, so imagine a robot and start moving your limbs.

• To do this, stand in front of a large mirror, and start moving each joint slowly and with an abrupt stop. This way, work with your elbow and then your shoulder. Then proceed to your neck left - stop, middle - stop, right - stop. 

• This way bend your hips, rotate them and then try with combinations of hand and neck motions. This will take few days of practice, but if you do it slowly and continuously you can achieve the perfect motion.

• After you know how to move your upper body, practice similarly with your legs.
• To learn more about leg moves, practice slow walk with abrupt stops, stepping with each legs, rising your leg to your arms, etc.

After you learn robotic motion dance style, here are few dance moves for you to practice.

• The Moon Walk:
  One of the most famous dance moves, the moon walk, takes a bit of practice, but is an eye-catcher when performed on the floor. For the moon walk, you need to move both your feet and ankles in a smooth way, to give an illusion of walking on the moon.

• Arm Swaying:
  For the arm swaying move, stand still and start abrupt robot motion from your left wrist. Then, move your elbow and then shoulder joints. Move over to the right side joints, and as you move your right wrist, give an abrupt ease-out motion. Keep practicing till you can perform this move swiftly and smoothly.

• Arrested Robot:
  This in itself is a variation of the robot dance style. For this style, you will have to arrest movements of various parts of your body, then shake them rapidly to give a feeling of breaking down. Then, with a lock and release motion, freeze in a broken down posture.

The Arm Wave:
This is one of the moves that uses the lock and release robot dance style. For this motion, do a bit of arm and hip robot dance, then slouch a bit by bending your hips and shoulders.

Hold your arm near your hip and move it a couple of times with up and down motions. Then, when it is at the top, let go of it and let it sway in a pendulum-like motion, and maintain the body in a frozen state.

To get inspiration for robot dancing, you can videos of famous dancers in this style. This way, you can also learn some more moves. Another inspiring video that is a must watch is the Michael Jackson and Usher moonwalking video. So, play, pause, rewind, and replay the videos and imitate the moves to learn better.

Now that you know what to do to learn the robot dance with the above tips, you can make your dancing look more cool and unique. So, look at a couple of videos of cool dancers, gather inspiration, play the above tracks, wear loose clothes and start dancing the robot style.