Mosh

This article is about the type of dance. For Eminem's song and music video see Mosh (song). For the professional wrestler, see Charles Warrington.

Types of Moshing

Moshing is a catch-all term for any dance performed in a mosh pit. Certain moves are seen with certain passages of music (for example the "two-step" for floor-tom breakdowns).

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Moshing can be referred to by several different names, depending upon the subculture in which it is found: hardcore dancing, throwdown, mashing, or most simply, moshing. Slam dancing is characterized by its aggressive nature: the movements consist of violent contact with other dancers - pushing and shoving other dancers and body-slamming, or throwing your body into another dancer are the normal forms of slamdancing.

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Moshing means different things within different genres of music:

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• Breakcore, a genre of extreme electronic dance music, attracts many ex-punkers or metal heads and also their mosh-pits.
• Grindcore also has its own style of dancing, often referred to as the grind (not to be confused with the highly sexual urban dance style), which resembles a blend of skanking and more of a slower mosh.
• Grunge
• Metal performances tend to the have a much larger mosh pit as these shows draw a larger crowd.
• Punk rock moshing generally involves aimless slamming into one another, the pogo (jumping up and down into other people, invented by Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols according to hearsay), and circle pitting, and is generally much less violent and dramatic than found at hardcore punk shows.
• Hardcore: Hardcore dancing is much faster and formulaic. It also includes people windmilling (rotating their arms in wide circles in time to the music), moves resembling aggressive breakdancing, and solitary martial arts maneuvers. These are often frowned upon by other dancers, especially if attempted at a non-hardcore concert. Another form of hardcore dancing which involves the whole mosh pit is the circle pit, in which people skank at running speed around the circumference of the pit. It can include two-steps, windmills, and swinging the arms and legs violently.
• Hip hop related
• The Gangsta walk is now seen in rap shows in the Memphis Tennessee area.
• Skank slam dancing is now seen in ska or ska-core shows.