--- title: "Learn baba karam dance steps" description: "Learn baba karam dance steps from a clip: hat, shoulder, and wrist. Zeybek is a different dance." canonical_url: "https://dancermirror.com/guides/practise-baba-karam-and-zeybek" md_url: "https://dancermirror.com/guides/practise-baba-karam-and-zeybek.md" last_updated: "2026-10-24" status: published --- # Learn baba karam dance steps Learn baba karam dance steps by watching the hat and the shoulder, not by collecting a whole Iranian wedding. The tilted hat, the shoulder pop, and the wrist have to agree across a line of bridesmaids or friends. A wedding zeybek is a slower dance with open arms. Do not drill them as one routine. **Short answer.** Learn baba karam dance steps from the clip you were sent: hat angle, one shoulder, then the wrist. A dancer facing the camera puts the tipping hand on the wrong side until you flip and look again. Do the group lineup only after one person matches. Zeybek is a separate, slower dance with wide arms and a bent knee. Dancer Mirror does not download videos. It does not include a knife. - Baba karam is a social dance with a hat and sharp shoulders. It is not zeybek. - A facing video swaps the hat tip and the wrist. - Do not practise a knife dance with a knife at home. **Takeaway.** One isolation at a time. If a knife dance is in the same wedding, leave the knife out of the flat. Learn the empty shape, if you learn it at all, from a person. ## What do you learn first? The hat, if there is a hat. The brim has a direction. Tip it the way the leader tips it, once, with no feet. If the video faces you, your tip will be a mirror and the line of hats will point two ways. Flip, tip again, and decide. Then forget the hat until the shoulder is honest. The shoulder pop is the phrase people recognise. Loop one pop. Name which shoulder. Add the wrist only when the shoulder no longer needs your eyes. Wrists at full speed are a scribble. Slow is how you see whether the hand crossed the chest or stayed wide. The picture flip is the [mirror guide](https://dancermirror.com/guides/how-to-mirror-a-dance-video). Hats make a wrong flip obvious. Use that. ## The lineup is the point Baba karam at a wedding fails when the person on the end tips late. You do not need a long combo. You need the same accent on the same count. Practise standing in the order you will stand, even if two of you are on a video call. The end person is who the room uses to judge the line. Fedora, scarf, or no hat: the head still has a tilt. A tilt the wrong way reads as a different joke. Watch the chin, not the smile. **Shoulder, then wrist, then hat** - 0.5×: One shoulder pop. Name the side. - 0.75×: Add the wrist. Stop if the shoulder changes sides. - 1×: Hat last. One tip. If the line would disagree, you are not done. ## Is zeybek the same clip? No. Zeybek is slower, arms wide, weight sunk, a bent knee that looks almost lazy until you try to balance on it. The Wikipedia description is the dance's reputation, not your counts. Your clip, if someone sent a zeybek, has its own supporting leg. Find that leg at a walk. Do not import baba karam's shoulder into it. A 9/8 feel is uneven on purpose. Counting it like a pop song in eight will put the knee bend in the wrong place. If you cannot hear the long beat, clap the clip before you dance. The knee goes where the clap sits, on the leg the dancer in your file uses. A short account of zeybek is [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeybek_(dance)). It will not teach the knee. The clip might. ## Leave the knife in the kitchen drawer Some Persian weddings include a knife dance before the cake. That is a skill with a blade, taught by a person, in a space with room. A phone tutorial and a kitchen knife is how a wedding story becomes an emergency. If you want the theatrical shape, trace it with an empty hand, far from other people, and stop. Do not 'just try' the real object because the chorus feels empty. Dancer Mirror will not make a blade safer. It can slow a clip of shoulders. It should not be the reason a knife is in your hand. ## One wedding, two files If both dances are on the same night, they get two evenings of practice. The hat dance is sharp and social. The zeybek is heavy and slow. Doing them back to back teaches your shoulders to pop during the slow knee, which looks like nerves. Dancer Mirror does not download videos. Keep each file named. A camera roll of 'wedding dance' is how zeybek gets baba karam's hat. ## Sources - [What the app does today](https://dancermirror.com/features) - [How it works](https://dancermirror.com/how-it-works) - [Zeybek, the slower Aegean dance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeybek_(dance)) Practise the side you see. Download from the stores linked on the download page.