How to Dance Liquid: Hand Wave -- Episode 1

[@kurtzimmerman7278]

Man, this is one of the best tutorials I've ever seen on KZbin honestly. You have an amazing perspective on teaching, keep it up.

[@catherineyen8265]

This is the most wonderful video on KZbin

[@addisonreagan5388]

This is fantastic! Great tutorial. This video is 7 years old and it’s still helping people get into liquid. Thanks man!!

[@soulfreq1]

Great job breaking down the basics of liquid hand flow in an accessible way.

[@Azur3Rain]

I've self taught myself for a long time but it's time to come to someone who knows what they are doing and learn from them! Rock on for making this! I am so happy you're willing to check out videos from your subscribers and give some feedback, because I may just need to ask you soon =))) Thanks Albert!

[@1roomof21]

This is my entry point to dance, thank you 🙏 now to take it slow and work it into my day

[@1roomof21]

Stop lights, traffic, downtime, in front of the mirror. Thank you, this was the beginning for me 🙏

[@myedroid]

The nose was my favorite! In all seriousness though.... when doing this, and watching my hands, my nose really does this. It helps me remember, and it makes me smile. Thanks Albert!

[@SybelleSilverphoenix]

I don't see many ppl do this any more. So happy to see this vid!

[@AlbertHwang]

Heya Snazzy -- 1) Try slowing down. By slowing down I don't mean "exert more control," I mean "relax & pretend everything is in slow motion". When you tense up the problem usu isn't that you lack control, it's that you're nervous or holding tension. Slo-mo, perhaps only work the one hand, and relax & remember to breathe. 2) I'd suggest getting good @ hands and dealing w/ arms later. I get to arms in a later vid (the advanced flow episode). But that relies on a solid hand flow foundation.

[@apxsports5904]

Learning in 2021, hoping to use this for auditions onto a dance course

[@Bookshelfization]

What a great tutorial. You've just gotten me into learning liquid. Keep these coming, please :>

[@thegoldenscript]

Best hand wave video Ive seen, my man. Thank you!

[@TwistedSisterK]

So useful and such beautiful hand flow - thank you!

[@travezripley]

Shout out to that Giant Robot Hat! Best Magazine ever, fan since ‘94!

[@Kris-cl5nl]

When I was in high school the town drug dealers older sister taught me this in exchange for some crochet lessons lol. In addition to these things she said visualize a string being tied to both hands and that helped a lot! The second hand has to follow the string of the first at the same distance of the string. So the string is the gap between the fingers.

[@macelius]

I remember the days when we used to stand around in a circle in front of the speakers and teach each other moves, and it was all good. I don't see the new gen doing that much, there's youtube now I guess. Glad you made these vids, I'm sure it's contributed to the odd newbie liquid dancer i see out and about now days.

[@cadenk.9092]

yeah i know what you mean. not like the golden days but the festivals are too massive now. too much dubstep. not enough hiphop ( what I call bebop) music to change it up abit. not enough trance since it quite apt for liquid. the girls are so poor at using their body I just bored already. if gals and boys can shred the floor then I also get pumped up and elevate my flow and orbits. Never seen one gal capable to sync with the music, in any genre. The guys are the same too.

[@cadenk.9092]

i fergot back in the days, we take turns like hiphop still does and show our swag

[@Catski1jedi]

I remember battling other krews in the circle. Especially when we had sick breakbeat DJs spinning the best tracks and white label dub presses. I could pop lock, tuts, liquid, robotic, isometrics all incorporated with gliding and sliding spins into other movements. We’d have friendly battles at times and there were always people wanting you to teach them how you do certain moves that looks sick because it’s illusion tricks their eyes. I just caught this on recommendation and brought back happy memories of dancing for the entire night. Learning new styles. Incorporated others to your own body of work. Thanks for sharing these. It honestly made me smile to see and happy some people still dance proper. Cheers and big ups from Mr Bad Vibe Krue LA-SD @Catski1

[@browhat7852]

I mean people in this gen think this stuff is pretty cool.

[@Aliciadcr]

I remember those days. It was all about the dance. Step into the circle and work on your game.

[@sarastoimenova2018]

such a beautiful explanation

[@HollyDollyTakahani]

Excellent video. Honestly I have seen so many and they are well alright. This tutorial helped me the most. Most teachers honestly forget to go SLOWLY. Teaching slowly allows students of all types to learn. So anyways, I wanna say thank you.

[@FlyingMandarine]

Great teaching skills indeed; good job! Thanks for the video.

[@user-ov6jx9qp7s]

You're a great teacher!!

[@stevenkoehler6018]

Thanks for this. You are a brilliant teacher!

[@raoroz3258]

great tutorial thank you!

[@yourcomb]

You are a great orator

[@heathernoji5618]

Heather Noji imma newbie to the world of liquid dance, and I think your vids are gonna be very helpful for me!! So thanks so much!! & I hope ya have a great one!!^.^v💖🎶

[@pieterlouw9073]

Really love how you define your terms. Very scientific. As an animator, I would've used the terms "keyframe" intead of "snapshot", haha. Also would've thrown in "interpolation" and "spline" if I were giving this tutorial to my friends X)

[@AlbertHwang]

Pieter Louw Ah interesting! Yes, keyframes are a great concept to understand, and there is a lot of crossover between the two fields. There is a related form of dance called animating, although it's interesting that I never hear those dancers use any of these terms either. Usually they speak in popping terms, like dimestops, ticking, facial expressions. Their history is more inspired by watching Loony Tunes than hanging around animators. Do you know of any good videos or channels that go over the 12 principles in a way that could be useful to dancers? Mostly looking for tips / tricks in the creation of those effects.

[@pieterlouw9073]

Albert Hwang There's bound to be something! You could check out the Alan Becker Principles of Animation or Illusion of Life videos as a start, and if you want to dig deeper pick up the Animator's Survival Kit app for iPad. I've only heard of the Animating style in passing, but I love dance videos in general because they exemplify the principles. But as your videos convey, the roots in geometry are equally important for both. I think the salient principles to consider in dance in terms of physical movement and poses would be your Arcs, Line of Action, Silhouette. For Liquid/Animating style I'd research Ease-In Ease-out, Overlapping Action and Follow Through. Staging, Timing and Exaggeration would play into the way you project your performance toward the audience. Animation is a performing art after all, haha :D

[@galaxyd4548]

Great lecture

[@Stylebyria]

I only watched 20 second and I already learned something.

[@thaniakendrick1616]

This was awesome, and I know this is old but, do you think you could do a video on drills to work on? Maybe a choreo to practice until we get it down?

[@Sektordigitz]

solid tutorial homey, good meeting you at axiom ^^

[@alaaa6715]

Can you please do a tutorial for the arm wave ?🙂🙂🙂🙂

[@PivotStickF]

Awesome video! I love your tutorials. One question, though: Whenever I do any hand wave, I seem to "lock" my knuckles or hyper-extend them - like locking your knees. It wouldn't be a problem except that I have to jerk them back to get them into a curved position which kind of defeats the purpose of "liquid" dancing... Is this something to be avoided and if so, how do I avoid it? Any help would be appreciated!

[@AlbertHwang]

Ooh, interesting question. Based on what you've written out, I'm guessing that you're applying a little too much force when making these shapes. If this is the case, then you have to relax. Unfortunately, getting yourself to relax is difficult to do and sometimes takes years to get good at. Maybe a good exercise for you to try would be for you to go "over 9000" on the level of tension (without hurting yourself) just to see how much it mucks up your fluidity. Then try varying degrees of tension. If you can get to "0" tension, I'm guessing the locking feeling will go away. Maybe another thing to play with is stopping yourself just short of your lock out position -- once again, not additional force, but with less. Lemme know how it goes -- am very interested to hear if that helps at all...

[@PivotStickF]

Albert Hwang Wow, that was the fastest response ever! Okay, so you were spot on about it being caused by tension. And, by relaxing my fingers, I was able to avoid "locking" (The "over 9000" thing helped). I think the tension occurred from a desire to bend my fingers backwards to make more of a curved shape - which I'm guessing is not a good thing to do. Thank you, that was a really helpful answer!

[@AlbertHwang]

Alex Lay Groovy! Yeah, I think it makes sense to curve your fingers backward if you can get in and out of it gracefully. Glad I could help

[@PrinceGorilla1218]

More please.

[@Grenadier311]

Brilliant.

[@t.0fu.]

I was horrible at the whole liquid thing and found your video happened to strike a key fundamental pov that some other videos leave out (from what I've seen up until watching this). Cool stuff, thanks ! The problem was I just needed to realize I was unawarely focusing on my dominant hand :P

[@AlbertHwang]

Yeah, with this form of dance especially, managing what you focus on is as important as managing where the parts of your body are. Glad I could help.

[@benoitfan672]

I can never break it off! I have perfect waving, I just can't make up my own combos and break off into other things!

[@TheManOfPokemon]

I understand everything in the video. I just have a problem with my left hand not being as coordinated as my right and its more difficult to coordinate my left hand unless I think about it. It also more a of a strain on the muscles in my hand. Any advice?

[@AlbertHwang]

Yup, it's very common for people to have agility issues w/ their non-dominant hand. Got two things to say about it: 1) I don't have any evidence, but I remember hearing that it was scientifically proven that if you can master something with your dominant hand, it becomes significantly easier to get your other hand up to speed. Get good at the right, and use that to guide your learning for your left. 2) Just take your time. It may be frustrating that the left isn't as quick to learn, but that's something you'll have to contend with for everything you do. Be okay with that and understand that no matter how good you get, you'll tend to prefer one over the other for certain things. One thing you may want to consider is to isolate just the right hand in the wave and use it as a template. So mirror your right hand w/ your left to give you a groove of muscle memory. When you feel confident, drop the right hand. Obviously this isn't a completely full hand wave, but it gives your left hand some muscle memory to work off of. Hope that helps!

[@bree7389]

Idk how i got here but the nose part was worth it

[@adoniswalker447]

Hey man I'm going to follow you and study your videos because I'm getting to learn how to dance because I want to start a dance crew. I'm not that good at liquid but I've been reading the comments so I think you can help me. I'll practice the steps you give me, and I'll let you know what happens.

[@ThatSnazzyGoose]

so far i've been trying this for about a day and i've found that 1) my dominant hand is way more stiff than my non dominant hand and 2) my focus is waaaay too into hands and i forget to loosen my elbows to make a more fluid movement. but i guess i should focus on getting my hands right before worrying about flowing with my arms?

[@Deesan95]

I hope you’re doing well bro! I just discovered this video and I’m glad I’m watching it 🫡🫡

[@shammoi]

question im doing the arm wave, but fingers are starting to hurt. Is that normal?!

[@AlbertHwang]

Hey Shammoi -- Nope, should be as easy as pie. You may want to read my comment convo w/ Alex Lay below on how to apply less force, as applying too much force might be one of the causes of your pain. Some forms of dance are very tolerant to pain (ballet, flexin...), but most liquid movements should just be easy.

[@passionheart5995]

great ..thank you ❤

[@Nasengold]

good tutorial

[@andrewmiller3640]

The word I think you are looking for that is having needed to know something prior to be able to move to the next steps. Or the needed knowledge that is required to be able to move to the next set of knowledge. The word is prerequisites.

[@sixflags11804]

Nice tutorial! I can tell you are a physicist/engineer.

[@Catski1jedi]

I almost forgot that we did sickass strobed waves tuts etc etc.

[@maelsoom]

Quick question bro - is there any special training you do to get your hands able to bend at the wrist in such a straight way? I have this problem where my hand tends to bend more at the knuckle than at the wrist (I can't get my whole hand parallel to my upper arm)

[@AlbertHwang]

maelsoom Hrm, not sure I completely follow what you're saying. I think you mean you can't get your hand *perpendicular* to your upper arm... If that's the case, no biggie, just practice doing your wave with your full range of motion with a straight hand and a bent wrist. Get them as close to perpendicular as possible w/out compromising the straight hand.

[@nurulsaidatul5212]

Omg so amazing

[@cherryxo76]

I would love some guidance but this was 12 years ago idk if you're still active 😭. I'm 16 trying to get into hip-hop and I'm starting off with liquid dancing

[@AlbertHwang]

Ay yo... I'm sorta around. Liquid is my jam but I also did some popping, and am actually pretty terrible at hip hop. I often hear that folks wanna learn hip hop, which is more about choreo and dancing in sync, as opposed to popping which is more about control and improv. Best of luck!

[@TheSubwaysurfer]

You're a New Yorker Too! COL.

[@animemefreak74]

How long did it take you to get this down?

[@AlbertHwang]

The Bass'd God 15 years and I'm still chippin away at it : ) To get to a point where it felt natural, it was a couple of weeks back when I was like 15 or so. Always helps to have someone around to tell you tips / tricks in person. If you wanna post a vid and send me a link I'd be happy to give you feedback.

[@animemefreak74]

Albert Hwang Thank you so much. I just started 3 days ago so I'm going to keep practicing it. I was just curious to see if I was concentrating to harshly on the move. It seems I'm starting to get a handle on the hand wave. at least in my dominant hand (right hand) but the left hand needs some more work. I'll contact you as I improve.

[@thebralleybunch5250]

i was always taught.....follow your fingers, let the fingers guide each other.

[@PoiseOnIvee]

Lol I'm so into you. Terrible. Awesome tutorial though :D I'm trying to explore different styles, and I really had no idea where to begin with liquid

[@Mugen24]

What about Tetris style!

[@ja920]

this is my introduction to 'liquid' and you made smooth undulation incredibly interesting and sexy...I'm hooked. Thank you for the great video.

[@User-wq9ri]

That's what I tell people. Just when you are sitting around or whatever just practice.

[@MsCerealKiller]

I can't get my palms flat without having to put my elbows up

[@LittleMeka]

Smooth

[@seytan286]

wow thankss

[@TheSubwaysurfer]

Incredibly detailed,idiot proof, well demonstrated tutorial.

[@eddiepetrini4314]

Actual liquid dancers be like.....

[@Mugen24]

Hardstyle my flame bro! Check out Blutonium Boy aka DJ Session One

[@giroporricelli3166]

Good flow. Just don't do it in a grocery store. Lol

[@basicdose.9872]

It used to be called break dance.

[@laz120]

LOL Asian guy named Albert

[@likeutubealot]

Asian stoner

[@archbishopmactasty76]

Damn dude my forearms are tired, i didnt realize how good of a workout this could be. Anyways great tutorial