80s Dance Moves You Can Still Do Without Pulling Something

On May 16, 1983, NBC aired Motown 25, and somewhere in the middle of "Billie Jean" Michael Jackson slid backward across the stage for a few seconds. Something like 47 million people saw it. A fair number of them spent the next week trying it on the kitchen floor in socks and found out that it's the hardest move of the decade. It's also the one everyone tries first.

So this list goes the other way. It starts with moves you can do after one drink and saves the moonwalk for last, with a rough idea of what each one will cost your body.

The Cabbage Patch

Difficulty: one drink. Injury risk: none.

The move is named after the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, and it got pinned down for good in 1987, when Gucci Crew II released "The Cabbage Patch." The lyrics walk you through the steps, so the song doubles as the instructions.

Make two loose fists and hold them in front of your chest. Move them in a circle together, like you're stirring a very large pot, and let your shoulders and hips follow. Bounce a little at the knees. If you can stir soup, you can do the Cabbage Patch.

The Safety Dance

Difficulty: easy. Injury risk: whoever is standing next to you.

Men Without Hats released "The Safety Dance" in Canada in 1982, and it reached number 3 on the US charts in the fall of 1983. The song was a protest. Singer Ivan Doroschuk wrote it after a bouncer threw him out of a club for pogo dancing, and the band answered with a dance that was, officially, safe.

The move is an S shape made with both arms, one curving up and the other curving down, snapped into place while the chorus spells the word out. Add a little skip in place if you want. The video was shot in an English village with Morris dancers and a maypole, none of which you are required to bring.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Difficulty: easy, until the head part. Injury risk: a stiff neck.

The Bangles' song hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1986 and stayed there for four weeks. The dance borrows the flat, sideways poses of ancient Egyptian wall paintings.

Bend both elbows at a right angle. One hand points forward with the palm down and the other points back, like you're carrying two trays at different heights. Walk in profile with small steps. The advanced version slides your head side to side while your shoulders stay still, and most people can't do it without their whole upper body coming along. Practice in a mirror first.

The Robot

Difficulty: medium. Injury risk: low, but your dignity is exposed.

The Robot is older than the 80s. Dancers were doing it in the late 1960s, and Charles "Robot" Washington is usually credited as one of its pioneers. Michael Jackson put it on national TV in 1973, doing it on Soul Train to the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine." By the 80s it had spread from dance crews to wedding receptions.

The trick is moving one joint at a time and stopping each movement dead. Raise the forearm, stop. Turn the wrist, stop. Turn the head, stop. Keep your face completely blank, because a robot that smiles is just a guy moving slowly.

The Running Man

Difficulty: medium. Injury risk: your calves, the next morning.

It took off at the end of the decade, and nobody can prove who invented it, though MC Hammer usually gets the credit. It came back in 2016, when two New Jersey high school students, Kevin Vincent and Jeremiah Hall, posted a clip of it set to "My Boo" by Ghost Town DJ's. Basketball players at the University of Maryland picked it up, and by April it had made it all the way to Ellen, almost 30 years after the move's first run.

Stand on your left foot with your right knee up. Put the right foot down in front of you and, at the same moment, slide the left foot back along the floor. Lift the left knee, put it down in front, slide the right foot back. Pump your arms as if you're running.

The Roger Rabbit

Difficulty: medium to hard. Injury risk: the person behind you.

It's named after Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), even though Roger never does it in the movie. Dancers borrowed the name for the energy, and the move spread around 1989 with Bobby Brown and the New Jack Swing crowd.

Think of it as the Running Man in reverse. Instead of sliding a foot back while you run forward, you hop and kick one leg backward, land, and switch, so you look like you're skipping backward. Your arms swing back with each kick, a bit like a bird trying to take off. Check behind you before you start, because this move travels.

The Worm

Difficulty: hard. Injury risk: your chin, specifically.

The Worm came out of breaking, which went mainstream fast in the early 80s. Crazy Legs of the Rock Steady Crew was Jennifer Beals' body double for the breakdancing in Flashdance (1983), and he played himself in Beat Street the next year. That summer, breakdancers also performed at the closing ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympics during Lionel Richie's "All Night Long." One of them was a teenage Cuba Gooding Jr. Forty years later, breaking was an Olympic sport in Paris.

Lie face down with your hands flat under your shoulders. Push your chest up, let it drop, and as it lands, lift your hips so the motion rolls down your body like a wave. Keep your chin up. Every party has one guy who tries the Worm, and he is almost never the guy who can do the Worm.

The moonwalk

Difficulty: the hardest thing here. Injury risk: your tailbone, if the floor is too slick.

Michael Jackson made it famous, but he didn't invent it. Cab Calloway was doing a version in the 1930s, and when he saw the moonwalk in 1985 he said they used to call it "the buzz." Tap dancer Bill Bailey was caught on film backsliding into the wings in 1955. Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar performed it on the British show Top of the Pops in 1982, about ten months before Motown 25. Who taught what to whom is still argued about, so we're staying out of it.

Start in socks on a smooth floor. Put your right foot flat and your left foot up on its toes. Slide the flat right foot straight back past the left, keeping it on the floor the whole time. As it passes, drop the left heel and pop the right foot up onto its toes. Now slide the left foot back. Your weight always sits on the foot that's up on its toes. It takes most people days to make it look like anything, and on carpet it doesn't work at all.

The two group dances you'll be made to do

The Electric Slide. Choreographer Ric Silver says he created the steps in the 70s, and the song people do it to, Marcia Griffiths' "Electric Boogie," took off in the US with a 1989 remix. Everyone faces the same way. Three steps to the right and tap, three to the left and tap, walk back three and tap, rock forward and back, turn a quarter to the left, and start again. In 2007 Silver sent copyright takedowns over YouTube videos of people doing the dance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued on behalf of one of the people who filmed it, and Silver backed off.

Thriller. Michael Peters choreographed the 1983 video and played one of the zombies in it. The mass version has a Guinness record: 13,597 people did it together in Mexico City in 2009. Learn the claw hands and the sideways zombie shuffle and you'll blend in fine, since nobody else at the party rehearsed either.

Two that aren't actually 80s

The Hammer dance belongs to 1990, when "U Can't Touch This" came out. Voguing grew out of New York's ballroom scene through the 80s, but Madonna's "Vogue" is from 1990 too. Do them anyway. Just don't claim they're from 1985 in front of someone who was there.

Before you hit the floor

If you only learn one, learn the Cabbage Patch, because you can do it sitting down. Wear something you can sweat in, and shoes with a smooth sole if the moonwalk is on the program. A light windbreaker like the Color Block Windbreaker 1984 ($79.99) looks right for the era and comes off fast once the floor heats up. The full outfit rundown is in our 80s party outfit guide, and for the backstory, here's how 80s dance culture and the great breakdancing craze played out.

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