How to Krump Dance for Beginners

If you’re a fan of street dance or hip-hop, then we’re sure you’ve heard of krumping. Here’s a quick and easy guide on how to Krump dance for beginners, full of free video lessons! Let’s get started.

History of Krumping

Krumping is unique in that it’s a constantly evolving dance style and has been from the beginning. It originated from the African tribal dances as well as the more traditional hip-hop styles. This blending of styles gave kids from the inner-city a way to express themselves. Over time, krumping spread from city to city and became very popular, especially on television. Today, you can find krumping lessons just about anywhere, and its popularity continues to grow.

How to Do Krumping Footwork

Footwork is the foundation of krumping. Without fantastic footwork, the rest of your krumping routine will crumble. So, what does that footwork look like?

Michael Jackson is a great example of someone who had the footwork down. He used sharp, smooth, and gentle movements, which is exactly what you should aim for. One notable aspect of Jackson’s footwork was his knees. He often lifted his knees up while dancing footwork.

The footwork brings flair and intricacy to your dance routine, so be sure to include some fancywork:

Sharp steps
Smooth slides
Lots of rhythm

Watch some of Jamal Cumberbatch’s footwork in Howcast’s tutorial above, and try it out yourself!

How to Do Krumping Chest Pops

When you’re doing chest pops in krumping, the most important thing to have down is your foundation. This means a wide stance that allows for good balance and gravity. A chest pop is essentially a move where you “pop” out your chest, and then push it back in.

The Basics

Step 1: Breathe in, and push your chest out.
Step 2: Breathe out, and push your chest back in.

As you can see, this is a very simple move that anyone can do with a little practice. Just be sure to keep it quick and clean. Once you get the rhythm down, you can start adding in some arm moves. To see what we’re talking about, be sure to watch Jamal’s performance in the video above.

How to Do Krumping Battles

After you’ve been practicing for a while and have the different krumping styles down, you may want to show off your stuff in a krumping battle.

Krumping battles are very versatile, considering the broad range of styles that krumping houses. As such, there aren’t too many rules of etiquette you need to worry about—except for one. In a krumping battle, you need to stick to krumping. It’s not fair to your competitor(s) or the audience if you switch to another style of dance. People will come to think of you as a “server” if you do this, and that’s not a label you want to own. So, in short, stick to krumping and you’ll be fine.

You can hear about this etiquette rule in more detail by watching the Howcast tutorial video above.

Start Krumping Today!

We hope you enjoyed learning how to Krump dance with us today. Krumping can be difficult to get the hang of, but once you do, we promise you won’t regret getting started. For even more lessons, explore the rest of the free videos in this guide below!