A Moshpit Primer

Most of you know what moshing is. Known in the 80s as
slam-dancing, it used to be a punk phenomenon practiced mostly
on the fringes of society, and usually by men. Now the mosh is
practically mainstream; indeed, we moshed during the Lowest of
the Low set at the Hillside (Folk) Festival in Guelph last
summer, and you can find a pit at your local alternative concert
spot (say the Trash if you're in Guelph or occasionally the Moon
Room in Oshawa or the Dance Cave in Toronto.) People of all
sexes, orientations, sizes, and ethnicities mosh. Unfortunately,
as the mosh experience becomes more mainstream, there are
clearly a lot more people doing it, and some of them have rather
extreme ideas about what moshing is. 

Ideally, a good mosh pit is an experience in solidarity. A show
in Toronto that featured an excellent pit was the Skatenigs and
Fear at the Opera House in the winter of '93. The music was on
the violent side, but as in any good mosh, the violence in the
pit was all kinetic, not psychic. The vibes were all positive,
despite the size, velocity, and number of tatoos and piercings
on the bodies in motion. A good pit is a pit where you grin as
you slam, and where the people you hit are grinning too. You
keep your elbows close you your body, remain relatively
vertical, and you try to avoid crashing out of the pit and into
the lame stand-around crowd. (Not moshing is its own
punishment.) 

The most important thing about moshing from a safety viewpoint
is that the goal is to have fun in a physical way, not to
flatten your fellow dancers. This is a point missed by some
bargoers on Friday and Saturday nights, usually large
individuals in baseball caps and Salty Dog (TM) T-shirts. These
guys (and it's almost always guys who mosh badly) seem to view
it as a competitive sport, like a more risky version of sumo
wrestling. Apparently their goal is to go out for a big night on
the town and really hurt someone. Don't you guys get enough of
that on the field/ice/court? It's important that someone in the
pit take these guys to one side and explain that what they are
doing isn't welcome. Surprisingly enough, this actually does
happen, perhaps because it's either that or risk broken limbs.
Other people aren't there just to satisfy your blood lust (at
least I'm not), so mosh with respect.

Another risk in the mosh is people who, for various
pharmaceutical reasons (ethanol, cannabis, etc.) aren't capable
of standing up on their own. How these people expect to mosh in
this state is hard to understand. This is especially common at
concerts, and it can be pretty dangerous, both to the
intoxicated individual and to everyone else. In a good mosh,
someone who goes down will be boosted back up right away, but
it's possible to get tired of lifting the same drunken (possibly
heavy) body back up off the floor again and again. More
importantly (to me), I could get hurt tripping over you.
Sometimes we may be tempted to leave you down there for a little
while, hoping you will learn your lesson and get out of the pit.
You have been warned. Don't mosh if you can't stand.

Another thing I see people doing that makes moshing less fun is
trying to carry a beer bottle or a lit cigarette in the mosh.
It's always fun until someone loses an eye, boys. I bet you
think you're in control of what limbs go where, but when I fly
face-first into you, I'd rather the hand you raise to me were
empty. From your (presumably selfish) point of view, at the very
least I may incovenience you by bleeding into your beer or
putting your cigarette out with my eye. Mosh hands-free.

Problems (and people with problems) aside, moshing is a pretty
satisfying way to work up a sweat. It's a representation of what
everyone really wants to do when they're trapped on a crowded
bus, or sitting in a Labour Day weekend traffic jam on 400. But
because everyone is together in a pit, acting out those same
frustrations, it takes on a kind of cooperative spirit. It's
like those lame old jokes about an Anarchist Organization; a
good pit rides the paradoxical line between apparent violence
and underlying brotherhood. The mosh is a communal "fuck-you" to
polite society, and you know that's gotta feel good.