If this is your first time here, let me introduce myself: Marcus Ooi, clubber. I like house and trance. I go to clubs and I go to raves. I don’t really know any moves but I’ve had random strangers come up to me before and said that I look good dancing.

I think it’s because I’m good at feeling the beat and following the rhythm. The rest just comes naturally. I can’t do fancy stuff with my feet – sometimes, something wicked would happen but I wouldn’t be consistent with it. I’d be like, “Hey! That was cool …. oh shit, I can’t do it anymore” and I’d lose my rhythm and then I’d quickly do a spin or a stupid hand movement to get out of it. Hah!

So what I’m mostly good at is my upper body movement. A lot of it is projecting an illusion – faking walking or running movements with your arm, swinging your head around or bopping it up and down, and occasionally drop your shoulder and alternate. Turns your palms up or down, and point here and there. If you can move your neck like a Bollywood dancer, throw that in as well. Mix it all up and keep up with the beat and almost anyone can look good doing it.

Lately I thought I might improve my feet movement. I decided to look up the Melbourne Shuffle. I’ve actually seen people do it before but I never knew that that was what it was called, until I saw it on Youtube recently. Here’s a great clip showing the basics (4:00).

Here’s the same dude doing it to some music (2:27). I move my arms, head and shoulders pretty much the same way but I can’t move my feet as good as he does.

Here’s him again doing some funky hand movements (8:18). Stay till the end for “The Bus Driver” – it’s hilarious.

I like what he says at one point here (2:42). Paraphrasing it: if you are having fun and got the rhythm, who cares if your steps are correct or not, or if you look good doing it. Be silly and have a good time. :)

So I’ll be practicing the Melbourne Shuffle the next few months, preparing for Paul van Dyk’s gig in December. It’s a good way to keep the weight off too. Woohoo. :mrgreen: