American mosh pits

[lmwhitter]

Back in my days we called it po-go dancing....make sure your bladder is empty before doing it!!!

I have a feeling this is one of the hardcore dancing kids we are talking about. Hardcore dancing can go fuck itself right in its emo arse. There is no excuse to be flailing your arms around amongst others that will probably get hit. Anyone who is trying to kick the air is either going to kick air or kick me. If they are kicking air, in the middle of the pit, they are taking up too much room. Kicking me is self explanatory.

I hate it when people even so much as raise their hands, especially when they raise their fists up and down. That is always elbow in the eye territory and it sucks.
Arms down. Legs together. Jump up and down.
Surefire way not to hurt others, and still get into the vibe.

[lmwhitter]

right on!!!! Well put!!!! I want to stand by you at the pit!!!

I have been in/started/had the best and the worst of just about any type of mosh pit on any scale you can think of, and regardless of the style of moshing, be it pogoing, old school slam dancing, a circle pit, a skank pit, or even (jesus I can't believe I'm saying this) hardcore dancing, the deciding factor in whether or not people get hurt is just plain old maturity. from experience, you can launch yourself off of a stage waering nothing but shorts into a circling hurricane of two or three hundred metal spike adorned punks and emerge when you want to, unscathed.
unless people are being vicious and immature.
and sorry harderino, this is where the "but" comes in for you. eighty of my top 100 arsehole at a concert moments have involved hardcore dancing myspace dwelling retarted scene fucks who I usually had to have a hand in removing.
let me make something clear. there is only one appropriate setting for deciding to "giv'er" and start "throwing down" with your "bitches":
while at a concert featuring from first to last, or any of that punk-and-metal-ruining, creatively empty BS that can be categorized as "emo", "screamo", "scene", or any other stupid-ass "core" or similar pigeon-hole.
rage against the machine does not stand for abusing your peers, and coachella is not the place for a type of dancing that's rooted in destructive violence, instead of expression (and if you argue you don't even know your own fucking "culture", scene fucks).

type of moshing appropriate for RATM: move with the beat! stop when they stop if you know the songs, try not to go in one direction too long, and don't throw any kicks or punches. there's a difference between shoving someone (which is fine) and STRIKING someone, which is not.

if you don't like it, fine. do it. go ahead and swing your arms around like some softball picher's warmup on triple speed. and when you hit me, don't expect me to do what you want and get into a fight. back in my punk band days I beat up nazi skinhead fucks who didn't like that me and my bassist were jews about every week. we can handle just about anyone. but you dumb emo dorks aren't worth it. expect me and my friends to hold your dumb ass down while we get security.

[algunz]

In my younger days, I used to love to mosh. I am a relatively petite girl. (Don't let my domain name confuse you, it's short for Alessandra.) Despite my size and gender, I felt relatively safe. Yes, there were some mishaps - a boot to the face resulting in a split lip at a Beastie Boys show, a bruised rib after falling at the Violent Femmes, and a scary fall to the ground in the middle of a pit at Fishbone. But, in each of these incidents people were immediately there to help me before things got worse. (And at the Fishbone show it happened to be Vernon Reid's beuatiful big hand that pulled me up and out like I was a fragile doll - too dreamy) Unfortunately, things began to change around the mid '90s. The energy and the intent went sour and it sucked. A good mosh pit can be such an awesome communal experience - just packed with adrenaline and a shared love of the music. Too bad a few dipshits had to ruin the chi.

[boarderwoozel3]

The pit is good fun. It does seem like more and more frat boys get the worng idea about it and think its an excuse to beat people up to music. A long as paople are looking out for one another its all good.

[Havocquarm]

I think the best natured pit I have ever been in would for The Offspring. Everyone was jumping around, bouncing off each other, and singing along to every song. No one was out to hurt and everyone had a smile on theirn face.

I thought Children of Bodom was a surprisingly tame pit. I hate the douchebags that just run through the crowd with their head down shoving people, usually drunk rednecks. They are easy to trip though.