Did you know that there's a beginners guide to the Mosh Pit.

[trumad]

It's a comprehensive guide to all mosh related issues. It explains how to Mosh, how to stage dive and how to crowd surf.

Ahhh the kids today......:hippie:

http://members.aol.com/rik0lar/moshing/mosh.htm

[Arioch]

1. Bah...

We never needed no stinkin' manuals!

Dance hard and try not to break anything vital...
:P

-Veteran Pit-Master-
Boston 1988-1991

[ET Awful]

3. Agreed :)

We don't need no stinkin' how-to.

Step 1, go nuts.
Step 2, if you succeed in getting on stage, avoid bouncers.
Step 3, don't give the band too much trouble or you may get smacked with a microphone (trust me on this one).
Step 4, if it's Halloween in Bakersfield, California and the Vandals are playing at Mars, you might even get a dual stage dive with you and Stevo (both drunk off your butts) :)
Step 5, if there's a 6'5", 300 pound skinhead in the pit, it's best to avoid him (especially if you're a 5'11" 140 pound toothpick) :)

That is all.

[vi5]

2. Ugh...the whole concept of "moshing" sets me on edge....

...it wouldn't be so horrid if it weren't applied to all forms of "alternative" music and didn't amount to anything more than a bunch of meatheads running into one another. It started as strictly a heavy metal thing and then somehow the mainstream appropriated it to any and all forms of music no matter how inappropriate. When I started seeing people "moshing" and crowd surfing at Radiohead shows the urge to inflict pain was rising....rising...rising.

[wildeyed]

4. I am no expert on the history of moshing,

but it was big at the punk shows, called harDCore, I went to in the early 80's. It was a really small scene and moshing and stage diving was something done among friends, always male. They didn't like it when a non-scene person would try to take part and that was the only time there was pain involved. But otherwise it was a kind of tribal/fraternal thing.

[vi5]

5. I've been into hardcore and punk since the early 80's...

..and I still am....and there was pogoing and slam dancing and circle dancing and any number of things as far back as I can remember. But I don't remember ever hearing the term "moshing" to describe any of it until the metal/hardcore crossover in the late 80's when bands like Anthrax and Metallica started dropping the term. So I know that form of dancing has been around more or less since that time but the term "moshing" itself is something that at least in the circles I travelled was strictly a heavy metal appropriation.

[ET Awful]

6. Yup, it always just dancing to us, sometimes called the circle

I don't remember when I first heard it called the "pit" even.

[vi5]

7. Egg-zacly

The form of dancing has been around for more than 20 years now. It's just the idea that they marketed it as moshing that always irks/amuses me.

[wildeyed]

8. I guess you're right, it was not called 'moshing' early on,

probably slamming or something. But allot of the guys involved in that scene liked metal, too, so maybe that is why I am not clearly defining the genres. No pogoing in my group, though. That was for poseur new wavers.

[NamVetsWeeLass]

9. I was usually the only girl in any type of pit....

We didn't refer to is as Moshing either-- That came later. I recall it being either "the Circle" or Slamming. LOL, I can remember at Monsters of Rock in 88, I was the only chick with a Purple Mohawk, Standing on a Dugout at 3 Rivers Stadium going wild to Metallica-- Ya know, Before they were Sellouts... Everybody was looking at me like I was insane--they were mostly there to see Van Halen. I was there to see Metallica. But I digress.

[wildeyed]

10. good for you.

There were not all that many women even involved with he scene in DC at that point, and I was always fairly peripheral in my involvement. I knew some of the band guys from high school and my best friend was really active with that group, but I was always off in my own thing. It is sad when you are such a misfit in high school that you don't even fit with the punks. But I digress.....