Windmill (breakdance move)

The Windmill (or briefly Mill) is a popular b-boying move. The breaker rolls his torso continuously in a circular path on the floor, across the upper chest/shoulders/back, while twirling his legs in a V-shape through the air.

The discovery of this move is credited to Crazy Legs of the Rock Steady Crew from Bronx, NY. It was accidentally created when he overshot his chair freeze into a continuous back spin. From then on, it became a widely popular move. Some believe that it originated before that having been inspired by a Kung Fu kick from the ground.

The twirling of the legs is akin to twirling a math compass around in the hands; the momentum created by this twirling motion gives the breaker the majority of his power. The leg position and motion is seen in several other power moves, which makes the windmill an essential power move to learn first.

The basic windmill can either be "stabbed" or "unstabbed". The stab position helps to keep the hips up high which aids in momentum and execution of the move, especially during the first rotation. Unfortunately, it slows down movement when multiple windmills are performed as a "restab" must be done before each subsequent windmill, greatly reducing the fluidity of the motion. Accomplished breakers may stab to begin the windmill, but they will perform subsequent rotations unstabbed (sometimes called a "forearm mill"). The majority of breakers accustomed to the motion of the windmill will use a coindrop in order to bypass the "stab" motion completely while using the downward momentum to slide directly from the forearm to the shoulder to the back while spinning the legs in the usual v-motion.

It must also be noted that while the term "v-shape" is used, the degree of the split is directed correlated with how the windmill performs overall. The closer to a 180 degree split, the higher the possibility for a faster and cleaner overall performance.

Windmills performed without the use of hands usually rotating using the head as the pivot point; results in a much faster rotation. As power windmills free the use of hands, there are many variations corresponding to the location of one's hands.

There are many variations of Power Windmills, some of the more popular ones including:

...
Wikipedia