What a strange title. It seems like a huge leap from the actual story of "Michael Jackson had special boots and pretty good core strength" to "Michael Jackson challenged our understanding of spine biomechanics"...

Apparently it wasn't entirely unique to MJ since his dancing partners next to him all did the same move.

Playing devil's advocate here: Language has a use beyond matter-of-fact descriptions. Sometimes, creative writing techniques are employed in journalism, though rarely in hard news.

In other words, the headline is not meant to be taken literally.

This move is actually performed nightly in Michael Jackson One at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Here are several performers from that show doing it all at once:

https://youtu.be/8Ttk-2W_PCI?t=2m

They do it well, but none quick as slickly and crisply as Jackson did (especially the performers on the left side, for some strange reason). One of the guys on the right really nails it though, well done to him.

You can also see them spending some time getting into position and locking their boot in, there are dancers in front so the audience will be distracted for much of it. The perils of rewindable video!

From your description, it sounds like the move looks better or worse from different angles.

If you watch the video you'll see what I mean - the left side (and some on the right) just gets into position less smoothly and don't have the rigid straight spine Jackson did for the move.

No, it's about the experience that is required to make it look seamless. Some performers have less experience. The front ont on the left side was ok but the two others were messy.

What on earth is going on with the belly flops? How are they surviving / rebounding from that without puking?

Is it secretly a full trampoline, not a pad? Anything less than a spring would cause blunt trauma, let alone neck whiplash.

It seems to be essentially a full trampoline. You should see the show live, it’s really amazing. Even the people I’ve brought that are not into Michael Jackson wound up loving it. This particular segment is in the Vegas show but is far more impressive within the full production on their much larger stage.

I’d say it’s the best Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas, and I’ve seen all of them over the years.

Its a spring floor.

Great show; saw it live last November.

The relevant patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5255452A/en

I'm not sure I buy the articles hypothesis "that strength was in Michael Jackson and his Achilles tendon"

as firstly all the backing dancers did it too and secondly as a skier, leaning forward like that in ski boots is fairly easy - your weight is supported by the front of the boot pushing up on your shin, not by the tendon. I imagine that is what is going on here too - stiff boots.

As a skier too, I disagree slightly. It’s relatively easy to do that move in ski boots and skies. Just ski boots won’t cut it. And, indeed, the special boots clip to the floor using a sort of binding.

Michael Jackson may have popularized the move but it wasn't invented for him. This article is rubbish. Its the boots.

I was under the impression he designed and patented the shoes specifically for the video?

He learned it from Marcel Marceau.

Marcel Marceau may have popularized the moonwalk (moving backwards while appearing to walk forwards) but not the leaning move, which Jackson invented. Jackson is listed on the patent for the shoes necessary to pull off the lean.

And the patent in action: https://youtu.be/pch3hoUtfJ0?t=45s

related video of a barrel organ playing "Smooth Criminal": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ6aDLpWON8&t=107s

This sent me down a massive rabbit hole of related videos.

I particularly liked this one of Rasputin played on a fairground organ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AeN-5PXaaQ

Which reminds me a lot of old video game music

Why would smooth criminals even lean that way? Was this some kind of trend back in those times taken to the extreme?

He already had a repertoire of slides, glides and shuffles designed to make it looks like gravity and friction did not apply to him. But, even with the famous Moonwalk, if you looked closely you could see how it worked. The Lean, however, was a straight-up magic trick snuck into a dance routine. It made everyone in the audience go 'WTF' in surprise and delight.

I don't think the move is related to the lyrics any more than the moonwalk is related to the lyrics of Billie Jean.

If a criminal needs to show his smoothness, that move is a damn good one.

This link is broken?

Relevant CNN article: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/22/health/michael-jackson-da...

Is this any better? (PDF).

http://thejns.org/doi/pdf/10.3171/2018.2.SPINE171443?downloa...

Says "The requested article is not currently available on this site."

Not for us who can break. How many 360's did any of you get on a headspin or helicopter?

There's a fine line between internet nonsense and science.