Gadling

To get you ready for this Oktoberfest season, we've advised you on what to wear-- Lederhosen, given you instructions on how to eat a Weisswurst, shown you the best carnival rides to try, and pointed you towards the best beer. To recap, we've hit dress, food, entertainment and libations. What's missing from this Oktoberfest round-up is dancing. To prevent the situation where you are left standing in your Lederhosen gazing into your beer mug, unsure of what to do on the dance floor, here's a lesson on the Chicken Dance. Any Oktoberfest celebration wouldn't be complete without it. Perhaps, you've seen it at a wedding. Even when guests are sloshed, this one is doable.

For the easy version, all that's really required is that you:

1. Put the fingers and thumbs of each hand together so that you have two chicken beaks--sort of
2. Raise your beaks to at least shoulder level to look engaged an interested--higher is better--and open and close them four times to the other dancers
3. Bend your arms at the elbows to simulate bird wings and flap four times.
4. Wiggle your behind as you bend and your knees so you lower to the floor and comeback up as you continue to wiggle. (Try to do this to four beats in order to look like a pro.)
5. Repeat the steps, but going faster and faster until the song ends.

Here's a Chicken Dance how -to run down, complete with an animated chicken, and a You Tube video with a variety of Chicken Dances performed last year at the Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, Washington. As the video shows, you can do this dance several times in a day and it's just a little different each time--as in a tad different, as in almost identical.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Festivals and Events, Food and Drink, Video