Duckwalk
walking while partially squatting
The duckwalk is a form of dance performed by assuming a low partial squatting position and walking forwards, maintaining the low stance. It is similar to stalking and prowling. It is most widely known as a stage element of guitar showmanship popularized by rock and roll guitarist Chuck Berry.
It is also a physical exercise commonly used in military training.
Chuck Berry's other guitar playing stunt, his one-legged hop routine with the other leg waving in the air is also known as a duckwalk.
Origins
According to Levon Helm, drummer and singer for The Band, traveling medicine shows and music shows such as F. S. Wolcott's Original Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, established in 1911 and featuring African-American blues singers and dancers, would put on titillating performances in rural areas: "After the finale, they'd have the midnight ramble," Helm told Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz. With young children off the premises, the show resumed: "The songs would get a little bit juicier. The jokes would get a little funnier and the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times. A lot of the rock and roll duckwalks and moves came from that."
Others who perpetuated the duckwalk included T-Bone Walker, who already during the 1930s performed dance moves while playing his guitar. Ultimately, it was Chuck Berry who made the duckwalk popular and who is often credited as the inventor.
“Duckwalk” enters the record as walking while partially squatting. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Duckwalk, walking and while can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1263550. The first chronological checks are 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Duckwalk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.