WINDMILLS

Windmill Glossary

Posted by Krayz E Kujo on Thursday, 8 January 1998, at 7:51 p.m. (www.bboy.com)

Genies -- windmills with your arms crossed over your chest.

Nutcrackers -- windmills with your hands covering your nuts (or whatever else you might have down there).

Airplanes -- windmills with your arms straight spread out to the sides as high as you can get them.

Barrels -- windmills with your arms rounded in front of you (like you're carrying a barrel).

Sumos -- windmills grabbing your knees.

Supermans -- windmills on your chest and arms reaching out to the front/sides.

Eggbeaters -- windmills with your hands high on your hips.

Confusions -- windmills with your hands over your ears and elbows straight out to the sides. This one causes death.

Body glides -- same as supermans.

Baby windmills/coffins -- windmills with legs curled up and crossed at the ankles. No hands used. Coffins is the same but without crossing your ankles.

Tombstones -- windmills with legs closed and body in "L" position. No hands used. Invented by Babak the Flying Monkey.

Cannonballs -- windmills done in cannonball position with arms wrapped around knees. Like jumping into a pool.

Eggbeater babies -- baby windmills with hands high on hips. Invented by Infurno.

Double windmill -- while doing windmills without hands, skip your back once and a do full rotation on your head (NOT a halo). Example -- EZ-Roc.

I left one out last time:

Body flairs -- hopping supermans/body glides.

That's all for now. Peace.

Krayz E Kujo Soul Control: Slaves To The Rhythm

from www.bboy.com moves list

STABBED WINDMILLS

animation by aquarius

HOW TO WINDMILL 101

What's up, new breaker!?

I'm an "old breaker", 29 and still crankin' out some moves. I'm going to explain, as
best I can, the easiest way to learn "windmills".

There are several starting positions, but the best to learn with, in my experience is the following:
(Very important! These are counter-clockwise!)

Sit down on the floor with your torso and your RIGHT leg at a 90 degree angle with your LEFT leg bent at the knee so your left knee points straight up and your left foot is flat on the floor. Now place your right palm on the floor to the right of you and slightly behind you and lean and twist your upper body to the right, going towards the floor (bending your right arm altogether) to where your right shoulder and right/front of your face are almost touching the ground. Your right leg should still be straight, and your left leg bent. Now, a CRUCIAL move, you are going to "stab" your LEFT elbow into your stomach, between your navel and your left hip-bone, closer to your hip-bone. This is SO important, because your left arm is going to support all your weight. Now, twisting and leaning, stabbing your elbow, put your LEFT palm flat on the floor with your fingers pointing to your left. At this point you can visualize how your left arm will support your weight.

Next, the one, two, three kick. At this point you should be leaning to your right, with the frontal part of your upper body ALMOST facing the floor, and very close to the floor, with yor left arm ready to catch all your weight. ( Elbow in belly!) O.K. Your LEFT leg, which is still bent, is going to be kick ONE, your RIGHT leg kick TWO and your LEFT leg kick THREE. During this sequence, your body weight goes to your left arm. Now kind of finish turning your lower body over to where you are practically horizontal to the floor while KICKING your LEFT (bent) leg up into the sky (about 4 feet or so if you're average size) while pushing off HARD with your RIGHT foot (your STRAIGHT leg) (LEFT elbow in belly) Kick two-Kick your RIGHT leg (outstretched) HARD to your RIGHT (your legs will be OPENING)At this point(in full motion!) you should be facing the floor with your legs open and your bodyweight on your LEFT arm (elbow in belly!).

Kick THREE-this is where you develop your first bruises!-During kick three, a lot of things happen at the same time. KICK your LEFT leg HARD to your RIGHT, going UNDER your right leg. Your legs should still be open, with your right leg "circling" (imagine your legs are a drawing compass and your pelvis the pivot) AT THE SAME TIME of this kick, your entire body needs to roll onto your LEFT side, BUT your left upper body only should touch the floor (not your hips or legs!)This means, on kick three, your LEFT shoulder should touch (Hit?) the ground right about where your LEFT fingers are (I crushed mine several times) Now you should be rolling onto your back, of course your left arm no l onger supporting your weight. At this point, I STRONGLY urge you to pull your legs in and do a BACKSPIN. Many veteran will tell you the same. The reason being you should be able to do what I've already described with relative ease before moving on. But when you're ready...

O.K. Once you've got the previous down, do the following:

After kick THREE, you roll onto your UPPER back and quickly roll over your RIGHT shoulder to where you are going to face the floor again. At the same time, though, your RIGHT leg will be KICKING "Backwards and to your right". Just remember the pivot and the compass thing. As you are turning to face the floor, quickly STAB your LEFT elbow into your belly, just as before, because your left hand will have to support you. ( You know the routine). You are now at the most difficult phase of this deal. Linking them, when you stab your elbow put all your weight into it. As your legs come around, you will most likely hit your LEFT foot on the floor and get pissed because you can't get past there. Never to fear! Learn by "PAUSING" your windmills. When your left foot hits, just use it (LEFT FOOT) to push upward and OH!, you're back to KICK ONE with that push upward! Proceed to kick two and three and so forth, and when you come around again and your left foot hits the floor, well...do it again! And keep doing it that way. Trust me, one day you'll shock yourself and put three together without hitting your left foot on the floor! Once you get this style down, you can move on to STOP stabbing your elbow. It might take a while, but you'll get there. I know this is a long post, but I tried to be as detailed as possible so you guys can learn. To those that can do windmills already, this might seem like a stupid explanation, but I know all beginners will appreciate the detail. If this helps anyone learn, let me know.

George

from the bboy.com move list

Rolling Windmills

HOW TO WINDMILL 110


Now that you've read George's "How to Windmill 101", I assume that you're on your way to getting your windmills down. If you've gotten all you can as far as technique from "101", then you're ready to move on to the next class. Here you'll learn an alternate starting position, and from that position, how to go into your windmill from your six-step. Note: Like "101", these instructions are for counter-clockwise windmills.

First your new starting position (keep in mind, you can still practice with the old one, too). The position is the same one I gave for the six-step. Push up position, legs split, arms extended. Now, step one. You'll learn to roll off your shoulder. At first go VERY slowly, so you don't hurt yourself before you know what you're doing. From the push up position, you're going to collapse your LEFT arm (slow) so that your LEFT hand is right next to your LEFT shoulder, and your shoulder is almost touching the floor (Important: Your LEFT arm should not touch the ground, keep it about where you would when you're stabbing it for your windmill--but don't actually stab it, just roll). As you lower your LEFT shoulder to the ground, raise your RIGHT foot. You should feel your body leaning pretty heavily to the LEFT side. Now, just go with gravity and roll over your LEFT shoulder (you can use your RIGHT hand to push yourself over). You should feel yourself rolling over your left shoulder and across the top of your back. You should end up on your back. Make sure your legs are still split and straight.

Got that down?? Now, you're going to go one step further. You'll use the same position and technique given above, but now you'll put some power to it. From the push up position, jump up in the air with BOTH legs (this is important). You should be touching the ground with only your hands for a brief moment. Now, during that moment KICK your RIGHT leg backwards and to your RIGHT (remember the pivot and compass thing: don't just kick straight back, kick in a circular motion). As soon as you start kicking, begin the rolling motion described above by collapsing your LEFT arm, and rolling over your shoulder. When your shoulder first touches the ground (you're facing to your RIGHT), KICK your LEFT leg forward in the direction of your roll. At the same time PUSH yourself over with your RIGHT hand to gain extra rotational speed. This initial kick and push gives you the power of the spin. If you kicked hard enough, you should roll over your shoulders easily and end up facing the ground again. Note: The jump and two kicks described take the place of kicks one two and three of George's explanation. You can follow his directions from there because the rest is exactly the same. If it seems you can't get it, here's some tips. When you're rolling over your shoulder, make sure that neither your shoulder or your arm hit the ground with any great force. Concentrate on ROLLING (smooth) over your LEFT shoulder, and across the TOP of your back. If you feel yourself rolling on your lower back or your hips, it means you need to jump higher and/or kick harder (remember, you're rolling over your SHOULDERS not your whole back).

Now, the difficult part (don't worry, you'll get it). Combo: Six-step > Windmill. You're going to use all the technique you learned above to go into a windmill from your six-step. The part of the six-step where you sweep your leg around in the big arc (step 4 of the six-step article) is where all your power comes from when doing power moves from a six-step. You're going to do a regular six-step up to step 3. When you start to swing your RIGHT leg around in that wide arc, reach across your body with your LEFT hand and plant it on the ground (just like when doing a swipe). Now, before your right leg comes all the way around, jump up with your LEFT leg, so that your RIGHT leg (still swinging) sweeps UNDER your left leg (the same motion as a coffee grinder). Note: Until you stop your windmill, your feet should NEVER touch the ground again. Another note: Your LEFT leg was bent before you jumped, and you want to keep it bent for now, so you can use it to kick (you'll see what I mean). Use the momentum from the sweep to turn your body around, and HEY!! You find yourself that strange position from a couple paragraphs ago: hands on the ground shoulder width apart, legs in the air split and straight (except for the LEFT one, keep it bent for now). Now, collapse your LEFT arm like before, and roll over your LEFT shoulder (don't forget to kick, same sequence: RIGHT, LEFT). This time you can use your LEFT leg to kick even harder because it was previously bent. Extend it while you're kicking and you should really feel yourself spin fast. Lastly, don't forget to push with your RIGHT hand. After that, just roll, stab, and repeat following George's instructions. Let's examine all the momentum you've got now:

Momentum from the six-step
More from the sweep (RIGHT leg)
Kick RIGHT
Kick LEFT
Push RIGHT

That's a lot. Remember, the more momentum you have, the easier it is. If you can get moving fast enough it's almost impossible to hit the ground, but only if your TECHNIQUE is correct. Good luck and keep practicing. If you have questions, you can e-mail me at either: youngerkss@msn.com
or Scan1@bboy.com. Peace.

-Scan1 da Survivor

BABY WINDMILLS / FIRECRACKERS

Baby Millz - post from www.breakdanceincanada.cjb.net by kamikaze kid

Here I go running of my mouth again but I hope this helps.
I learned baby mills before barrel mills so maybe you can take what you already know and add dis ish up! Which ever way you start it there are things you need to remember.
1. if you don't start with enough power you will end up bouncing up and down like a basket ball landing like a suicide on each rotation.
2. Use as much force on your 1st kick as you would a backspin or windmill.
3. Once your shoulder touches, tuck those knees in and cross your legs at the shin bone
4. Keep your biceps parallel to your shoulders but your forearms at an 80-85 degree angle
5. When you comein for your 2nd rotation…this is the tricky part… where you would normaly use your legs for momentum during a regular windmill…pop up so that you can see the floor close to your face onto your next shoulder…and tighten your upper body for the next rotation and continue!
My explanation might want to be ignored if it is confusing you but that's how I do them fast, because the faster you do them the more (in my opinion) you'll get!
Peace and practise
OGK