Alright, I've ressurected my famous guide and added on details to it so its easier to understand, and you'll be able to learn faster from it.

Since all ya peeps be askin bout the windmill, this post hopefully will help with all the problems you have and for all that have other tips and guides of windmill, post them here or site references of other sites that have good guides. Heres my NEW complete Guide, Some steps are still the same::

(Counter Clockwise)
___STEP 1___
Get in a kneeling position and place left hand on ground in front of you with fingers facing back towards you or to your left. Take right hand and place near where your head would be if you leaned over your left arm. (Experts have told me its easier to start in a kneeling position than that of putting alot of weight on your arm in the handglide position.)

___STEP 2___ - The Initial Kick
This is initiated by 1st picking your left leg up, (doesnt have to be straight out, or that high) followed by swinging your right leg directly up and to your right side, try to get it up high and directly to your right side of your body. This SHOULD now pull your left leg towards and below your right leg. Now swing your left leg hard and low under your right leg in a wide arc like your drawing out a circle with your foot. This action of left up right up and out and left under should be like a boxers 1, 2, 3 punch, fast and smooth to gain momentum onto your backside.

___STEP 3___ - The Collapse
While you are kicking your right leg up and sweeping your left under it you are going to "collapse" literally your left arm so that you roll to your left upper shoulder to your back. Pretty much this is like rolling off your arm and onto your upper back. The less weight you put on your left arm the easier it is and faster you will start the mill. Also, push off with your right hand to gain speed. Keep your legs open wide ALL THE TIME, and you should now be on your UPPER back with your legs wide open in a V-Shape. Not too high or low on your back, just so your hips are off the ground.

___STEP 4___
This is the part where you get your legs up behind you while facing down. When you reach the V-Shape position on your back you are going to roll over your right arm to get to your front side. To do this you must perform the most important 2 kicks of the windmill. The 1st kick is initiated by kicking your left leg high up while rolling over to your frontside, and hold that leg up, while swinging your right leg low under your left almost near the floor. (You also want to push up with your right arm as you roll over it and keep the left arm curled or stabbed in your gut depending on learning stabbing mills or no stabbing mills. I would suggest learning stabbed 1st however.)
IMMEDIATELY, when your right leg is passing directly below the left leg kick it hard directly up behind you, keeping your legs in that open V-position behind you. (This will be very difficult at 1st but once you get the feel of it from practicing lots you'll find its what keeps the momentum and form of the windmill.) Try to keep your legs straight and catch yourself with your left arm so your legs dont fall. Your forehead should also come within 3 to 4 inches from the floor.

___STEP 5___ The Final Kick - LINKING
Alright, if you are able to get your hips off the ground and your legs up while facing down you are ready to initate the final kick with your left leg. This kick is done by holding your right up in the air while swinging your left leg low and under your right, almost exactly like starting the mill. Remember to collapse your arm the same way and to roll onto your upper back again. That way you'll be able to keep going. Keep your momentum going so you'll be able to make the next face down part of the mill, and you should have it done!

Remember, keep your legs out straight and open WIDE! I cant say how much this helps your windmills look, and how easy it is to keep going once you learn them the right way without sloppyness.

Watch your wrist to make sure you take it away before you roll down off of it and twist it the wrong way.

Preview alot of videos on windmills, and study them to see exactly how your going to move your legs.

Remember, the windmill is not a spin, its a roll, and its done by multiple kicks/swinging of your legs. The better kicks you get, faster and better you'll get the windmill.

Concentrate while your doing the move to make sure each part of your body is doing what it should be doing. lol. Hope this guide helped.

Check www.style2ouf.com and www.Dafbreak.fr.st for vids on windmills from pros.

Check out www.dancestylz.com/sections/breakdance/
and click on BBoy Sparkz GUide To Windmills for slow movies on windmill and good descriptions.

Any other bboys that want to give extra tips or guides here feel free. I'll check this post every day, so if you have specific questions on windmill, and problems, just ask!!

Peace.
Bboy Drizzt.

Heres some basic problems peeps be having and how to fix them.

____Shoulder Hurts when starting:::
The easiest way to combat hitting your shoulder is to work on rolling out of the collapse smoothly. Try not to just bring your shoulder to the ground, try to swing it more along the ground so it doesnt hit down hard. If you collapse a little more horizontally instead of straight down vertically, then your shoulder will come down soft.

____Genie Mills:::
The genie, like nutrackers depends on your side of your arms. You have to rotate faster on your front side than on your backside to do them. And make sure you have enuf speed to get all the way over, cause genies and nutrackers right off are pretty hard, I start them on like the 3rd mill, but Im not that great at getting momentum.

Anyways, genies can be done with your arms crossed and out, or arms crossed and tucked. Tucked of course is much easier.
Tucked - The easiest way to skip your front section is when you roll to your side on your arm right before you reach face down you push hard off the ground and rotate to your other shoulder. (counter-clockwise) With genies since your arms are crossed you can push off with your right arm/left hand while you pull and twist with your left arm/right hand so you can reach your left shoulder when you leave the ground from your push off your right shoulder. You dont need to get off the ground very far, just enough to get to your left shoulder.

Trying to learn babymills can help you alot with this as well. Try entering a windmill with your legs crossed at the ankles, and then when you roll to your back kick out with your legs diagnal and push off and twist with your upper body. This babymill barrel roll teaches you to push off with your back and how to rotate over your front section.

On Genies, make sure you have your millz fast, cause if you dont make it you have a chance to hit your chin on the ground! Of course this wont happen with untucked genies.
You'll also have a bit of trouble with having your legs catch up with your upper body because you kind of skip your front section, but you'll get used to rotating your legs a bit faster, the timing is just a bit strange.

____Nutcracker Windmills:::
With nutcrakers (ccw) its all bout that left leg coming around and up hard when your on your back and when you reach your right shoulder kicking your right leg hard up when its passing below your left leg. Ive found it easiest to kick my right leg up hard right when I reach my right shoulder and push down and off the ground with my shoulder so I've got 2 forces getting me off the ground for a split second to help me get to my backside. Also what will help you with gaining momentum after your 1st one is when you jump your front section and land on your left shoulder you pull hard across the ground and your back to the next rotation. (Its like trying to roll faster across your backside, so you'll have more speed for your frontside)

____No momentum on mills:::
This is because you dont have any torque of your hips and long swinging arcs with your legs. You have to make sure they go in circular arcs, cause thats where you get all your momentum from. Keep your legs completely straight and swing them hard like how I explained it in my guide. To start a windmill it almost has to be like your twisting up a spinning top and then letting it go. You gain your most torque to give u momentum when your left leg is coming towards your right and passing below it. You'll feel your hips twist and when your collapse your arm and roll to your back you'll feel the extra momentum as long as you kick hard.

Momentum also takes some time figuring out, so dont be bummed out if you dont understand how to torque at 1st, its going to take some hard practice to start to learn how to do it right.

____Hitting back on mills:::
This has happened to me many times, and its because u dont have enuf momentum when u roll to your backside, and/or your not getting on your upper shoulders. In order to not hit that sensitive area, you must bring your legs (they stay straight) away from your head when you roll to your backside. If you lay down with your legs apart and pull your legs closer to your head you'll find that your on you touch your backbone down. This may only apply to skinny guys/girls though. Just remember, stay on your upper back/shoulders.

I'll post more help and variations later, this is too long of a post to keep it going. Ask any questions on problems or if your trying to learn a new variation and I'll help ya. Peace out bboyz/bgirls.

i can get about 10 rotations of windmills, but they look nasty. i bend my legs in too much. is there a way to fix this?

What i do is just keep doing it and remembering to straighten your legs. little by little it will work.

Best way is to concentrate on long arcs and hold your legs straight, even if you cant get around once, you'll soon find out how to keep them straight and rotate, and you might even have more speed on them because you started with bent legs.

I just came from my old high school and I did 15 windmills continous in the hall, all nice looking but a little slow. (Of course Ive done alot more and fast, but since my appendix surgery I dont dare to go fast or hard on mills, so you can see why I was excited to get 15. lol. Surgery sucks.

Ya, my avatar is from Warcraft 3, but Im just about to beat the campaign, so I havent played any scenarios or been on battle.net yet. Im a big game buff with Blizzard, Ive played too much Starcraft, Warcraft 2, and Diablo I and II online and with friends. Im not sure what 2 races Im going to master with Wc3 cause I havent played any custom scenarios yet. I like to be well prepared for human vs. human play, so I wont be online for a little while.
Peace bboys.

a real quick question....
do you have to be able to get splits to do mills? Or with legs spread how close to the ground do you have to go..?

It seems like my momentum would be easier achieved if I could swing my legs wider..

also, If I were to work on splits....how long b4 I could stretch that far and what excercises would I do for quicker gains

Good question.

You dont need to be able to do the splits to do windmill, but the farther apart you are the better looking and more control.

Your legs shouldnt be near to your chest when you are milling, they should be straight out like your lying on the floor flat with your legs open. The closer you get to this the more momentum you will have, because only your upper shoulders are touching.

Splits take between 1 and 2 months usually. Everyday get into each of the 3 splits positions (forwards, body towards right leg, body towards left leg) and work your way down as far as you can muster. Hold it for about 30 seconds and move on. Try to do this at least once a day, if not twice. Always be careful not to pull a muscle, so warm up your legs by not pushing down or trying to get down low right away. Once you get to the splits position and your flat and comfortable, grab two chairs, set them far apart and put both legs on them and hold the splits position. Thats called the Van Dam, named after Jean Claude Van Dam. You'll soon be able to do incredible flares, windmills, turtles, boomerangs, etc. Almost everything improves when your flexibility gets better.

Peace out.

Hey, anyone know how to do airtracks/airflares out of windmills and back into mills again?? I need some tips on how to get to my elbows to do elbow airtracks from mills and push off tips for regular airtracks/airflares from mills. Thx.

[*PiRho*]

1 or 2 months to get splits?


i don't know much about that.

You know Paul from the gymnastics place right?

it took him 2 years to get full splits.

and he was a national champion in gymnastics, so he was already flexible to begin with.

what about the guys who go clockwise. people sayto reverse tha instructionz but that still confusing

all you gotta do is stretch twice a day for two months(stretch your whole legs, not only your hamstrings, and stretch each position like seven times). I got full splits in about a year from just doing a lot of stretching only twice a week.

What are the main subject to do windmill??

'Swing the legs' or 'The body that rollin' around'..?

What is the important between that...coz I want to focus on one of it in next time I do windmill...

__________________________________
www2.communityzero.com/breakdowncrew

Well Ive seen guys get em in 2 months, you just have to do it everyday and do lots of different stretches to get your body down that far. I did it everyday in track for 3 months and I was about 1/2 an inch off the ground, of course I stopped doin em so I cant get down that far anymore, but maybe Paul didnt work on them everyday hard, or maybe some ppl get them faster than others. Everyone has better flexibility on different parts of their body.

Break Down Crew,
I would definitely definitely say swing the legs.

T.Keo,
Well, I dont think I want to switch every left leg right leg phrase around to make it clockwise. lol. You just have to read it and replace the word with the opposite leg when you read it.

[*PiRho*]

but maybe Paul didnt work on them everyday hard, or maybe some ppl get them faster than others. Everyone has better flexibility on different parts of their body.

uh, you do remember doing stretches with Paul right? it doesn't feel good, especially when he puts all his weight on you and you start to sweat.

Ya I remember, just some ppl have harder times with flexibility of the legs. It also depends on how your body is shaped. Ive heard tall skinny ppl get them pretty fast, but Im not sure if thats true.