How to Do Pop & Lock Dance Moves

Pop & Lock is a unique dance style, commonly used in street dancing and clubs. Few dance styles will wow a room the way Pop & Lock dance moves can.

In this free video tutorial series, we’re going to outline the most common arm moves, teach you how to bop, show you chest pops, and end with leg moves. Let’s get started.

How to Do Pop & Lock Arm Moves

Pop & Lock arm moves are fairly simple to pull off, so we’ll start with those. Basically, these moves are all about “popping” the muscles in your arms. It’s important to remember that this is different from flexing. In flexing, you use your shoulders. In popping, you only use the muscles.

The Basics

Starting Position: Arms at your side, and legs apart from each other.

Step 1: Extend your right arm out to your side and pop the muscle. Put your arm back down.
Step 2: Extend your left arm out to your side and pop the muscle. Put your arm back down.
Step 3: Put your right arm up above your head, elbow crooked. Pop the muscle. Put your arm back down.
Step 4: Put your left arm up above your head, elbow crooked. Pop the muscle. Put your arm back down.
Step 5: Put your right arm up and left arm down, both crooked at the elbow. Pop the muscles.
Step 6: Put your left arm up and right arm down, both crooked at the elbow. Pop the muscles.
Step 7: Put your left foot in toward your right foot.
Step 8: Extend both of your arms out to your sides.

This will take some practice, but like we said, it’s pretty simple. Feel free to play around with these steps and really get the feel for arm pops. Watch the Howcast video above, where pro dancer Jino shows you exactly how this routine is done.

How to Do Pop & Lock Bopping

Bopping is a bit more difficult than the arm moves we learned above. That’s because you’re basically doing twice the amount of popping. In order to really pull Pop & Lock bopping off, you need to have lots of control over your body and movements. To help you get started, you may find it useful to think of each “step” as actually being two steps: pop-pop, not pop and pop.

The Basics

1-2: Put your right arm in front of you and pop twice, quickly. Put your arm down.
3-4: Put your left arm in front of you and pop twice, quickly. Put your arm down.
5-6: Extend your right arm to the side and pop twice, quickly. Put your arm down.
7-8: Extend your left arm to the side and pop twice, quickly. Put your arm down.

Here, we’ve only outlined the arm moves because that’s what you’re familiar with already. But once you get the hang of chest and leg moves, you can start incorporating more “bops” into your Pop & Lock routines. To see how this would play out, watch Jino Fort in the Howcast tutorial above.

How to Do Pop & Lock Chest Moves

Let’s move onto some basic pop & lock chest moves. For these, you’re going to start out just standing still. Your chest is the only thing that you’ll really be moving.

The Basics

Step 1: Pop your chest outward.
Step 2: Pop your chest back to its starting position.
Step 3: Pop your chest to the right, and back a little.
Step 4: Pop your chest to the left, and forward.
Step 5: Pop your chest outward.
Step 6: Pop your chest back to its starting position.
Step 7: Pop your chest to the left, and back a little.
Step 8: Pop your chest to the right, and forward.

This can be tricky to get the hang of, but once you do, there are all kinds of things you can start throwing into the mix. Two popular examples are the cobra king and ticking. To see what these moves look like, and how to perform the eight-step above, watch the tutorial video at the top of this section.

How to Do Pop & Lock Leg Moves

We’re going to end with pop & lock leg moves. Leg pops are what give the rest of your routine the energy it needs to thrive and shine. There are tons of things you can do with these leg moves, but for the sake of this article, we’re only going to cover the basics.

The biggest thing you need to remember is that to do a leg pop, you use your heel. Your heel gives your leg the “bounce” it needs to pop.

The Basics

Step 1: Pop your right leg.
Step 2: Pop your left leg.
Step 3: Repeat.

Once you have the basic movements down, you can try more complex leg moves like the ones Jino does in the Howcast tutorial video above.

You’re Ready to Pop & Lock

We hope you enjoyed learning the basics of Pop & Lock dancing with us today. A lot of these moves will take time to master, but with enough practice and self-confidence, you can get there. And it will be so much fun!

Howcast is your source for more simple, detailed dance tutorials. Whatever your dancing goals are, and whatever level you’re at, we’re here to make learning easier and more fun. Explore more dance video lessons here.