What is the Limbo dance?

Question:I was woundering what it is and where it comes from.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I was woundering what it is and where it comes from.

You must be limber to do limbo the best, if the horizontal pole is set across two vertical uprights then as you approach the horizontal pole you start bending backward while you inch forward until your head clears the horizontal pole. To be successful you must place your feet apart and lean your knees inward toward each other and attempt to lay your feet on their sides and use your big toes to inch you forward. If you can bend backward enough to where your bee-hind is touching the backs of your legs and the back of your head is about 6 inches off the floor then you can beat almost anybody.

Where you bend over backwards and try to make it under a pole that is lowered a little bit more each time you pass under it.

"how low can you go", with two people holding a stick.

It's a fun/joke sort of dance, where you try to get under a pole without touching it by bending backwards. The pole keeps getting lowered until nobody can do it. It's normally done to a caribbean sort of rhythm, and I think it came from Trinidad.

It started with African slaves escaping from a fence.
They would not crawl under it, they had more respect for themselves so would walk, under it?
From there it has become, something people that like a challenge, would try to do.
Regards Keith

its a fun "dance" often done at Hawaiian themed parties. two people hold a wooden pole while others bend over backwards to see who can go under it when it is the lowest. you cnat touch the pole or the floor (except your feet) and you must be bending over backwards.
to be specific:
Limbo is a novelty dance that originated on the island of Trinidad, though Hawaii is often mistakenly associated with limbo. The dancer moves to a Caribbean rhythm, then leans backward and dances under a horizontal stick without touching it. Upon touching it or falling backwards, the dancer is "out". When several dancers compete, they travel in single file, and the stick is gradually lowered until only one dancer — who has not touched either the stick or the floor — remains.

In recent years, limbo dancing has been conducted as a social "icebreaker" game for tourists at Caribbean and other tropical resorts. The winning dancer often receives a prize.

The name comes directly from the Trinidad dialect of English; Merriam-Webster lists the etymology as "English of Trinidad & Barbados; akin to Jamaican English limba to bend, from English limber".

(from wikipedia)

links to pics of REALLY GOOD limbo dancers
http://www.bispp.com/images/wpe22.jpg
http://www.doe-mbi.ucla.edu/~pettit/pi...