This epiphany is more of a recent refining I went through in my waving/snakin.

First lets go through SNAKIN:

Snakin can break your style away from the repetitive poppin and walking the arms routine. If you use snakin as a style it can be very impressive, but if you use it as a transition from some angles it will really break things up and make your movements less predictable.

A lot of people are not aware of how snakin IS A STYLE, and what its concept is. Snakin is a 3 Dimensional Wave starting from the head, when styling it constantly let it come from your head.

*You start this wave from your head. It then rolls down through your neck, shoulders/chest, upper abs, lower abs, hips, and then legs.

* When Snakin, the wave doesnt come BACK UP TO YOUR HEAD EVERYTIME, you can constantly "PUMP" waves through your head and let them "Tidal Wave" down through your body. You're not really snakin until you allow your head to break away from the basic Tidal Wave and let your head TILT and Turn creating a more dynamic tidal wave. (This is what The Mysterious Poppers were known for, DYNAMIC, CONTORTED, WAVES)

* This is how it became SNAKIN, a snake moves from its head and has NO LIMBS. Picture your body as one big ARM WAVE, and your head is your finger tips. Your arms and legs CAN REACT off this wave, but shouldnt dictate where the wave goes...your head should be in control at all times.

EXERCISES FOR SNAKIN:

• Basic Tidal Wave Down: People over look this prehistoric wave and the importance of mastering it. Stand in place and start the Tidal Wave from your head.
• Your head should look UP first
• Your head should look down at your chest as your chest comes up
• Your chest should push down and in (head still following by facing down)
• Your stomach should be out, and roll it down to your hips
• push your hip/butt back and out
• let your knees finish by coming back.

**This can connect to the one above**

• Basic Tidal Wave Up:
• Start with your knees back
• Bend both knees forward about an inch (depending on how big the wave will be)
• Push hips FORWARD, tuck your butt in
• Stomach ROOOOLLLLLLLSSSS Up, Try to isolate abs or get good fluid stomach roll.
• Stick Chest out
• Roll Shoulders forward (up, forward, down)
• Head Follows by reacting to shoulders (looking up, looking forward, looking down)

Now Try Snakin in Multiple Directions:

Now that you know the Snakin Wave Starts from the head, practice "Throwing Waves" in all directions from your head.

• Start off in a neutral position.
• Tilt your head to the left or right. (right for this example)
• So head tilt right
• Let your shoulders react, Right Shoulder goes down,Left Shoulder up
• (As your shouders were reacting your torso is also leaning or tilting out to the right, thats how far the movement in your head needs to be, your head PULLS everything behind it)
• Let your head tilt back to the left,
• Let your left shoudler react by going down, and right shoulder up
• Torso is now moving to the left (tilting out to the left)
• Now While leaning out to the left Start a Tidal Wave Down from your head start another one, leaning even further out to the left.

This is where words get confusing, but I will try. I will also film a short instructive clip tonight at my class. And post it on this thread to give a visual.

Basically while doing these exercises realize that if you were to TURN YOUR HEAD (not tilt) JUST TURN it in any direction, like look over your shoulder, or look left then look right etc...These head changes can all be connected by tidal waves and "SNAKED". This is missdirection and making your snaking unpredictable, and dynamic. You could bend over all the way from the waist then look up and let the rest follow and fall down through your body as a tidal wave.

This technique of just turning your head while doing this makes your snakin more advanced.

If you practice snakin every position possible then you can throw it in at any time in your poppin to SMOOTH things out. Or ride a melody in the song etc. Ive practiced mixing it in with my boog and robot.

Tips:

*Do some research on mime, they have a technique called "Serpentine" that is basically snakin, but less dynamic..but will teach you the proper isolations

* An Animated feel can also make it look more advanced

* Your arms and legs can react and have mini waves going at the same time as the larger snakin tidal waves through the body

*Try bending your waist and resting your hands on your knees (like M.Jordan used to do when he was tired) And start a tidal wave from that position, your hands will support you and allow you to experiment with different variations of that snakin posiiton

*The way your head turns affects what direction your snakin goes because everything follows the head...you can also change direction of chest and torso by rolling your shoulders forward or back while turning. If you roll your shoulder back this turns your chest OUT, if you roll your shoulder forward then this turns your chest IN. This is ONE SHOUDER AT A TIME. And like Cobra if both are rolling roll them in opposite directions.

*The more you exagerrate your head movement the better and more full the wave will look, In other words when you look up look as far as you can UP, and down make your head go as far as it can. The only way this will be possible is by "Letting Go" and not worrying whether it looks good or not, and not getting stuck looking in the mirror while practicing it.

*This is something thats gets better and better through feeling it, versus wathcing it in mirror, If you want to watch yourself use a video camera.

*Remember this is a STYLE not a move! Stay in the style and push your boudaries dont stop, keep going.

*Snakin is a style created by the Mysterious Poppers and perfected by dancers like King Cobra, King Snake (aka Bruno "PopNTaco" Falcon) they all had names like a snake to go with their style.

Snakin is all about torso,hips, and head, the arms are actually a distraction, if you can work on the technique of the body and improve on that, good arm waves can put a nice accent on good snakin. Crisp pops and dimestops can also make it all come together. This is a short clip of just snakin using all of the above techniques together and adding in arms and legs...and going full out and putting a little uummgghhff into it.

Article written by "Jrock ABM" referenced from Mr.Wiggles.biz