Everyone try and get under the limbo stick and have some fun with limbo. Limbo is a dance type activity that requires you to get under a stick that is consistently lowered until no one can possibly get under it. The fun limbo comes when you realize that you cannot bend forward to get under the limbo stick but you must bend backwards. Needless to say that people with bad backs will not have any fun limbo and should probably avoid limbo all together. Take heart in the knowledge that watching fun limbo is not only more entertaining that doing it but watching fun limbo is a lot safer than actually doing it as well. The best limbo dancers can sometimes get 18 inches or less off the ground and it just does not look like a real person pulling that off but they are indeed real people and it is a pretty fascinating thing to watch.

Limbo dancing is traditionally associated with the islands whether they be the Hawaiian islands or the other tropical islands off the coast of the United States. A Hawaiian luau is a common place to find a limbo dance and it always becomes a great big game that everyone eventually tries to get involved in whether they really should or not. Limbo can get serious though when the natives of the island that have years and years of limbo experience light that limbo stick on fire and then do their limbo dance wearing only a loin cloth or, even worse, a grass skirt. Just watching brings a tear to my eye when you realize that the dancer’s chest is not the part of his body that would require the most concern when limbo dancing under a flaming limbo stick. Let us just say that I hope the dancer is thinking pure thoughts when he is doing his flaming limbo stick dance or else it could be something he regrets for the rest of his life.

Really low limbo dancing requires a sense of balance that most people do not have at all and if you really tried it most people would fall to the ground. Try it once for just a couple of seconds. Bend backwards starting at the waist and as you get lower it becomes more a knee bend. You will have to consistently move your feet apart as you get lower because you will need to try and get your body as low to the ground as possible. Now, after you have tried this for a few times and you finally have yourself at a point where you can stand there bent backwards without falling, start walking forward and shake your body like you are shaking to the rhythm of native drums. Now that you have seen how easy that is try and get to the position that the real limbo dancers get into. See if you can get yourself down so low that your back is only a couple of inches off the ground and your knees and stomach are in a parallel line while you are bent backwards. If you can do this without any discomfort then head to the islands now because you have a future as a limbo dancer.

Limbo dancing is found at places like luaus, cruise ships, and even some corporate parties. When average people do a limbo dance the goal is to not fall and hurt yourself while you are all bent over backwards and trying to dance under a limbo stick. When real limbo dancing professionals limbo they are out to do it for real and they get only inches off the ground and limbo under flaming sticks. Some native traditions on the islands are easy to understand, dancing under a low limbo stick while it is on fire is definitely not one of those native island traditions that many people can understand.