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How To Do The Prep Dance Move

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How To Do The Prep Dance Move

Charise Roberts
January 23, 2024
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This move was named after the preppy college kids who were starting to go to clubs in the 80s.

The kids would do this easygoing rock move in order to keep themselves from sweating in their nice clothes!

Watch the move demonstrated here:

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If you’re more of a reader, keep scrolling and follow along with the steps below!

How to do the Prep

  1. Start by doing a basic rocking motion with your torso, bending at the waist and rocking your shoulders back with the beat.
  2. Now that you’ve got the base motion down, let’s start adding in the details! First, turn your body about 45 degrees to the right with your right foot about six inches in front of your left foot.
  3. Now, as you continue to do your backward rock from this position, you’re gonna pop your front knee (right) and bring your heel off of the ground with each rock back.
  4. Now turn and do the same on the left side! This time, face the left, bring your left leg out in front, and do the rock and knee pop.
  5. Once you have this rock and pop motion down, let’s practice it at tempo. You’re going to rock to the right for beats 1 + 2, then turn and rock to the left for beats 3 + 4. Keep in mind that you have to slide and turn to the left on the “and” between beats so you have to be quick with it!
  6. When you feel comfortable doing it at this pace, double your speed so you're rocking to the right on beat 1, turning on the “and” beat, and rocking to the left on beat 2.
  7. Now you’re ready to add in the arms! Starting on the right side, bring your right arm up and bend it at the elbow so your fingertips are facing the ceiling. Bring your left arm up in a similar shape, but lower down (closer to your waist). Now, as you start doing the rock back and knee pop motion, you’re going to switch the orientation of your arms so on each rock, you swap from right arm up and left arm down to left arm up and right arm down.
  8. Practice all of the movement together (rock, pop, and arm switch) on both sides slowly until you’re able to do it smoothly. Then work your way up to tempo again!

All done!

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