Some might say that if you need a tutorial to learn how to moonwalk, you probably should not be doing it in the first place.
Well, I am not going to listen to my mom, or any of those other naysayers, because it looks like a whole lot of people have turned to YouTube to learn Michael Jackson’s signature move. The moonwalk tutorial remains one of the most popular instructional videos online with more than 33 million hits.
Does that mean 33 million people know how to moonwalk? I doubt it. You’d see more people moonwalking in grocery aisles, on subway platforms and when exiting voting booths. You don’t hide a talent like that away. I certainly won’t.
I have been thinking for a while that I need to freshen my dance repertoire. Some of the moves with which I dazzled my fellow concert-goers at the Police Picnic in 1981 have grown a bit stale. Yes, I know the moonwalk is not exactly new, hitting its zenith with Jackson’s performance on a Motown television special in 1983. Rest assured, I will make it virtually unrecognizable.
Many people attribute the moonwalk to Jackson but, it was not his invention. People insist he is the one, but that kid is not his son. Cab Calloway claimed the move was called “The Buzz” when he and others performed it in the 1930s. In the 1940s, French mime Marcel Marceau premiered his “Walking Against the Wind” trick, pretending to be pushed backward by an imaginary gust of wind.
When done correctly, the dance produces the illusion of walking forward while actually moving in the opposite direction. To enhance the illusion, you swing your arms with every step, or mimic Jackson and hunch up your shoulders while clutching your hat.
I choose not to wear a hat. To give the sense of forward motion, I am going to imagine that I am headed straight for the dessert table and some force – we’ll call her Jenny Craig – puts a finger in my belt loop and hauls me back.
The first rule of order is appropriate foot wear, specifically shoes that will glide over a smooth floor. I wear socks instead. My gym socks will make me look fluid and effortless, just like they do at the gym.
I’ve watched the tutorial’s directions a few times and they look simple enough. Easy-peasy. I am ready to put the moves into action. At the risk of going all Soul Train on you, I am going to drop it like it’s hot.
I’m off to a strong start. As instructed, my feet begin together and I pull my left foot back into the tiptoe position. I’ve created the L shape. The flat front foot remains on the ground and I slide it, ever so gracefully, past my tiptoe foot. Now I lower my front foot down and raise the back foot into a tiptoe position. Piece of cake. But my triumph is tempered by a complete failure to perform these actions simultaneously.
The famous “snap” also proves maddeningly elusive. Maybe you can’t snap with gym socks.
This is going to take practise.
I attempt to incorporate my arms into the walk. They’ve just been hanging there, unsure of when to start reaching towards the dessert table. They resist syncing with my other movable parts. As my left leg slides back, my right arm should be striding ahead as though it has places to go, people to see, but my synapses are not firing fast enough. Houston, we have a problem with the moon walk.
The blogger attempts to moon walk.
I begin to question my ability to walk at all. How have I being doing it all these years? Have I been walking like the Molly Shannon character on Seinfeld, the one Elaine said looked as if she was carrying invisible suitcases? Good God, is that what I look like?
I feel a mood coming on. I move quickly to the computer, like it was a dessert table, and shut the mocking thing off.
My Instructional Life 