Can you hit it?

Remember the elementary schools days when the moves everybody wanted to bust out usually involved some form of line dancing? The Cha Cha Slide, Cotton-eyed Joe, and Macarena were the soundtracks of our childhoods; your feet are probably tapping now in yearning to “take it back now, y’all,” to when dance moves were easy to learn and fun to do. We may deny it, but how hard we went on the gym floors then totally helped determine our popularity now.

Once middle school hit, it was hip-hop that grabbed our fascination and never really let go. There was the Dougie, the Stanky Leg, and for a strange, dreamlike moment there was also Gangnam Style. The point is this: Americans, as a culture, love to dance. Add in the entire population sprinkle around mind numbing lyrics, and then shake until you’ve got yourself a dance revolution that doesn’t need to be plugged into a PlayStation. It’s how twerking became a real word, and why we spent hours trying to nail the whip and nae nae.

But it’s time to prepare ourselves for a new groove beginning to take the world by storm. We can thank artist iHeart Memphis for this new tune that’s inspiring more clusters of aspiring hip-hop enthusiasts. The song and dance is called the “Hit the Quan,” and done correctly, it’s enough to turn heads. Performed incorrectly, you’ll still turn heads, but only because you’ll look more like a drunken monkey than a professional. More and more people are taking the risk because if you can’t hit the quan, life will be rather pointless. You’ll find yourself pining for the old days of chaperoned line dancing even though you know resistance is futile. Welcome to the big leagues now.

So what is a quan, exactly, and why does it have to be hit? How does one “hit” it anyway? As for the former question, dictionary.com froze when I demanded possible translations and spontaneously combusted when I wanted a definition. It seems instead to be a product of fevered brains and happy feet, but no one seems to mind. In fact, there are multiple YouTube video tutorials for us sad folk who just can’t seem to hack in the hip-hop world. I studied several of these videos for the sake of my dedicated readers.

How to Hit the Quan:
1. Bend your knees like you’re about to hit a baseball, but know in your heart it’s a quan.

2. Swing your arms left to right so people will wonder whether or not you’re low-key flailing or actually dancing.

3. Move your torso back and forth like you’re trying to make your grandma blush and Miley Cyrus jealous.

4. Feel free to be crazy because from here it gets slightly dubious. If you feel like you’re hitting the quan, let no one tell you otherwise!

With that, it’s time for all you to jump out the nest and start hitting that quan. You will feel as uncomfortable as you look, but it’s part of the fun. Practice makes perfect after all. Until next week North Penn, I’ll be keeping an eye open for any more slick moves.