Tutting is a delicate technique that comes handy with popping and freestyle dance. It skillfully manages hands and arms in sharp angles.
The basic movement of tutting is usually simple. You can probably remember most in 3 minutes. But to make it look good is often challenging.
For those who have never heard of tutting, I found a short tutting tutorial video by Nathaniel. I like his video because the camera angle is a close up of the upper body making it easy to see the actual angles, when many videos shoots the whole from the high up or the low. He also has 24 tutting tutorial videos. Each is broken down into 2-3 minutes pieces. You can go ahead and walks through the videos.
In this post, however, I will try to break down the concept around tutting at the more fundamental level instead of just movement or combos.
Tutting as dance
Tutting fully utilizes your wrist, and there are advanced performers who even use fingers and craft a masterpiece.
Dynamic dancing style like break dance also has a upbeat vibe that attracts your attention. On the contrary, delicate and polished techniques like tutting have a completely different deep impression.
In popping and animation style dance, you can incorporate the knowledge of tutting easily. So if you are learning human art type of dancing, you can do it quickly.
Wrist stretch to increase the basic strength of Tutting
Good tutting performs with good form and shape rather than dancing. The tips to show it well is on the wrist.
Here is a little pop quiz for you.
How much can you bend your wrist?
There are two test items. One is a range of bending motion up of your hand to the point where the muscle is fully extended by pushing hard with the other hand. Another is a range of motion that can be moved by itself without an auxiliary hand.
You would feel it naturally if you practice tutting. It would be definitely better if there was flexibility around the wrist.
It is easy to fold on the palm side, but there are individual differences in the available angle for the back. If it does not go too far, it is better to extend the bending range with stretching.
However, since the wrist is very delicate, be careful not to stretch too much (Please take responsibility for your actions).
You can extend the repertoires of ways of doing it even by yourself. Tutting beginners can make it look good with the style that focuses on the 90 degress of wrists and elbows.
You can try increasing the tutting pose from 6, 7, 8 poses gradually. For the sake of incorporating into dancing, if it is in increments of 8 counts, it suits with the composition of the song as one unit.
Tutting is dancer-friendly because you can practice this while sitting at your desk in your room. It might be inappropriate but it is almost like killing time. Tutting improves itself as you make an effective use of the time, like when sitting in the toilet or taking a long bath. Let's practice.