The Foundation of the Robot Dance: The Dimestop–What It Is

If you’ve been in the dance world for a while, you may have heard the term dimestop being thrown around. But if you’re new around here, it might just sound like some clothing brand you’ve never heard of.

Either way, there is a lot of confusion over the term dimestop. Is it a move? A style? A technique? Well, the answer is not really, kind of, and closer, in that order!

On a very basic level, dimestop means “to stop on a dime.” In other words, a dimestop is a clean, sharp, quick movement that stops with no jerk, no recoil, no bounce. It is the essence of the robot.

The dimestop in action

The easiest way to tell a good dimestop is to contrast it with a bad dimestop. A bad dimestop will generally create an effect that looks sloppy or too lifelike. In life, we do not use dimestops when we move. This is why utilizing them creates the effect of looking robotic. We’re not used to seeing people move like that.

Here are some examples of dimestops that could use work:

Example 1
Example 2

You’ll notice that they may have been “doing the robot,” but they looked like people “doing the robot.” They didn’t actually look like robots.

Contrast this with Tyson from How To Do The Robot. You can see how quickly and sharply his movements start and stop. This is because he has practiced his dimestops.

In the next lesson, we’ll learn HOW TO DO A QUALITY DIMESTOP.