5 Ways a Dimestop Makes You Dope

The dimestop is like the crazy insider popper knowledge. Once you know what a dimestop is, what a good one looks like, and how to do one, you’re pretty much halfway there to being an insider. To being one of the real poppers.

Cuz before you know what a dimestop is, you’re just a raver, or a hip-hop dancer, or an amateur. The dimestop is what separates the men from the boys kiddos. It’s what makes somebody go HOT DAMN that boy is NIIIICE.

Hey guys, I’m Otis Funkmeyer, the professor of popping! I write an article about popping here at WCP every Sunday. I have lots of lessons, articles, DVDs, downloads, and music at my website www.funkmeyers.com!

What’s a Dimestop?

So don’t go getting all crazy. I’m about to explain what it is. A dimestop is pretty simple in theory. It’s just the ability to stop real-clean-like. To make your movements sharp and crisp. It’s the ability to STOP ON A DIME. That’s where the name comes from.

Anybody who’s got good speed control has a good dimestop. Or a good robot. These are the styles that show off the dimestop best. In a sense, they could be called dimestop styles because they’re all based on isolating and dimestopping.

Without a good dimestop you look like some person doing a robot or trying to move fast then slow. With a good dimestop, you look crazy, not human, and super tripped out. The dimestop is key.

How Do You Dimestop So Nice?

That’s the question you’ve gotta ask. My #1 answer is CORE STRENGTH AND CONTROL. That means your abs, your hip flexors, your glutes, and your serratus anterior, which are the muscles on the side of your ribcage. These muscles give you STABILITY. And stability is what gives a good dimestop.

So I would say it’s almost as important to do your crunches and your ab vacuums as it is to actually “practice” dimestopping. But notice I said ALMOST. To get the good dimestop, you gotta practice it. And the best way to practice it is…. THE ROBOT. Make sure you have some tension and just practice moving real-clean-like. Feel like there’s NO JERK and NO SHAKE when you move. It’s just START. STOP. START. STOP. That’s what a good dimestop is. The ability to START. STOP. So get to it.

How it’ll make you dope:

1) Clean
First off, a good dimestop will make you looks so fresh and so clean. People will REALLY be able to tell what you are doing and trust me, being able to understand what you’re doing is half the reason people applaud in the first place. They’re like, OH, I GET IT. In addition, when you’re clean, you seem more “professional.” You look like you know what you’re doing because most people CAN’T DO THAT. A lot of people can throw a busted arm wave but very few can move real-clean-like.

2) Hard
A good dimestop makes you look HARD. Like OUCCCCH. That dude is a monster. It’s intimidating and serious when somebody’s got a good dimestop. It’s like… this one is not for playing. He will hurt you. And trust me. That’s what you want to convey. That you’ll hurt on somebody if they call you out. Just one or two good dimestop movements will make everyone know real quick that you are for real.

3) Unreal
A good dimestop immediately makes you look unhuman, which is the goal of all good popping. Popping is basically the dopest dance in the world because you are doing things that most people think a human body is not capable of doing. You are moving into the realm of sci-fi and special FX. This also feels super cool to be the one doing it, because YOU DON’T FEEL HUMAN either.

4) Controlled
A good dimestop means you have good control. And good control means you can switch styles and freak beats and change tempos and change levels and do all of the good things that makes a good popper good. Without a good dimestop, your movements will just all blend together into a mess. It might be a pretty cool mess, but it’s still a mess. And trust me, I know this one from experience! This is one of the things I’m STILL working on!!

5) Rhythmic
Attention beat freakers. You need a dope dimestop. When you have a super clean dimestop, you can just make small movements really quickly, which is the best way to freak beats. Without that, again, you end up just looking messy and like a beginner. Basically, at this point, everyone wants to be a nasty beat freaker, so working on the dimestop is one of the absolute most important things to get there.

The Wrap-Up

The dimestop is not the easiest thing to put into words. It’s a real subtle movement thing that’s easier to see than it is to describe. But it’s one of the absolute foundations of the whole dance. All of the dancers I have danced with over the years–Tetris, J Smooth, J Rock, and Kid Boogie come to mind immediately–have all gotten MUCH better once they started incorporating more dimestop training into their dance. It’s almost like they went from good to WHOA. That was the missing piece.

And it’s the missing piece for almost everybody. Stay patient and keep practicing it because it will bleed into everything you do and make you the ill-nasty-dopeness that you’ve always dreamed of being.

SO KEEP IT POPPIN!!
Otis Funkmeyer, Ph.D. of Poppin’