Russian step, or Russian, Russian kicks, no-hand footwork, footwork move where the hands don't touch the ground. The term "no-hand footwork" may include some kneerocks and, less commonly, backrocks.

Russian steps were inspired by Russian and Ukrainian dance . Spy recalls, in a 2024 interview with Norin Rad, "looking at the Russians doing their traditional type of dance steps and gymnastics [...] My family got videos of me when I was like 6, 7, 8 years old going down trying to do what the Russians used to do" . Frosty Freeze can be seen doing Russian steps in the early 1980s . Members of Battle Squad developed different Russian steps in the 1990s , and a chapter of Storm's Footwork Fundamentals is dedicated to "No Hand Footwork" .

While later dancers, particularly in Eastern Europe, would draw more systematically from folk dances, breakers in the mid-to-late 1970s like Spy probably encountered such dances only peripherally. There may have been occasions to see such dances in person—Only One New York (1964) documents a Ukrainian wedding in New York City where squatting steps are performed , and Holman identifies "Russian steps" in tap dance , following Stearns and Stearns, who locate the popularity of "kazotsky" from "1910 to 1925—primarily in vaudeville" . Squatting kicks associated with "Cossack dance" could also be seen on television or in film—for example, the Raduga Dancers on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 , or a 1975 television advertisement in New Zealand featuring the dance (accompanied by Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance"). Many would have seen the move animated in Pinocchio (1940), danced by Russian puppets, or Fantasia (1940), danced by flowers during the "Russian Dance" segment (Tchaikovsky's "Trepak"¹). Notable ballet renditions of the "Trepak" did not include the move, however, as in Alexandre Shiryaev's 1892 choreography, Balanchine's reproductions, or Baryshnikov's 1976 version for the American Ballet Theatre . Shiovitz speculates that it was rather Fantasia that would inspire later "Trepak" choreographers to include the move, further claiming that "its lexicon of dance moves has become synonymous with Cossack dancing" . At the same time, such steps featured prominently in other ballet, as of Vasyl Avramenko or Pavlo Virsky . Olson highlights the "Cossack and Russian folk revival in the twentieth century" which, through "professional Cossack choirs" and "Russian state-sponsored folk choruses," caused Cossacks to become "associated with swashbuckling sword twirlers and lithe, masculine dancers who could leap extremely high or perform innumerable prisiadki (low-squatting dances) in perfect synchronization" . For breaking, the appeal of the moves and their compatibility with others would have assisted their proliferation.

Illustration of plazunets by Verkhovynets (1920).

Although the above representations are not equivalent with the folk dances themselves, there are indeed connections between them. Olson points out that the state-sponsored groups were composed of "professional musicians and dancers, graduates of Soviet music and dance schools," and argues that their dance "did not reflect actual Cossack traditions so much as it borrowed from the traditions of Russian ballet that dated to the late nineteenth century" . Likewise, Shiovitz links the Fantasia choreography with Shiryaev's 1907 choreography of "The Fool's Dance," where he performs the move and variations . Yet while Shiryaev claimed the moves in "The Fool's Dance" as his own innovations, Shiovitz saw "a mixture of a Ukrainian hopak combined with elements he observed from neighboring national dances. Ironically this hybrid dance became almost stereotypically Russian to outside spectators" . The uncompromising Verkhovynets, who worked counter to the "пародистів украінського танка [parodists of Ukrainian dance]" , documented in his 1919 study of hopak ("гопак") both prysyudy ("присюди"), squatting kicks alternating with upright steps, and plazunets ("плазунець"), where one squats throughout . Shatulsky's 1980 work describes prysyadka and povzunets with slight differences . The Soviet Musical Encyclopedia (1973-1982) describes gopak ("гопак") as a Ukrainian folk dance whose movements include jumps, squats ("присядки"), spins and other virtuosic elements , and trepak ("трепак") as an old Russian dance, also widespread in Ukraine, consisting primarily of fractional steps and stomps demonstrating daring and virtuosity . These folk dance steps are the likely inspiration for the later presentations of squatting dance steps.

An early reference to vprisyadku² ("вприсядку") is found in Gogol's 1835 Taras Bulba, in a scene of Cossacks performing their dance, kazachka ("казачка"); his 1842 revision uses the names gopak and tropak ("гопаки и тропаки") when referring to the sound of the dancers' feet, replacing the earlier onomatopoeic description . Other early treatments are given by French authors. De Ménil's 1905 history, in discussing Russian dance, distinguishes between the Trépak, Korovod, Kanaïka, Kastachock, and lastly Hoppak, which he describes as performed by a crouching dancer who alternately throws their legs in front of them, parallel to the ground. De Ménil claims, "Les danses populaires russes sont, à proprement parler, d'origine kosake [Russian folk dances are, properly speaking, of Cossack origin]," and further speculates that hopak has Scythian or Thracian roots, with "un exemple dans la danse du Komos des satyres grecs [an example in the dance of Komos of the Greek satyrs]" . A century earlier, Despréaux's 1806 L'Art de la Danse (referenced by Desrat ) includes in a footnote, "Cosaque ; Danse triviale de Pologne [...] le danseur s'assied presque sur les talons [Cossack; Popular dance from Poland ... the dancer sits almost on the heels]" . An idea of who the French thought the Cossacks were is given by the Encyclopédie entry for "Cosaques," which includes, "nation située aux confins de la Pologne, de la Russie, de la Tartarie, & de la Turquie. [...] leur pays s'appelle l'Ukraine [nation located on the borders of Poland, Russia, Tartary, and Turkey ... their country is called Ukraine]" . Nahachewsky, who emphasizes the changing and overlapping character of folk dances, claims that squatting steps are common to multiple dances throughout Eastern Europe and neighboring regions, giving the examples of "Polish, Hungarian and Slovak peasant dance" . Kolberg's 1988 account of kolomyika contains, "they each place their hands on their hips and perform squats [przysiadają] or stamps to each other as in a kozachok dance [Kozaczku]" . Ling, citing a contemporary, says of halling, "just as in the Cossack dances, a sitting position and kicking legs are in focus" . Martin identifies "practically acrobatic jumping and squatting motifs" in hajdu dance, performed "among the peoples of the Carpathian Basin – Slovaks, Hungarians and Transylvanian Romanians," which he dates back to 15th century "herdsmen and armed cattle drivers (the so called hajdus)" .

• A variety of Russian steps

1. Various names have been given to this piece. An 1892 score for the suite (Op.71a) refers to it as both "Trépac, danse russe" and "Danse russe Trépak" . Tchaikovsky's manuscript for the ballet (Op.71) titles it "Трепакъ (Le trépac)" . According to Shiovitz, the movement was titled "Danse des Bouffons" at the ballet's Russian premier, while for Balanchine in the United States it became "Candy Canes" . The Fantasia animators seem to have called it "Russian Dance" , a common English translation.
2. Pushkin's Eugene Onegin also contains the word vprisyadku, without much description. Nabokov translated it as "the squat-jig."