Put your weight on your right foot. Move your right hip UP-DOWN-UP. Switch your weight onto your left foot. move your left hip UP-DOWN-UP. Practice at a slower speed until you feel comfortable with this, then gradually increase the speed. You can also do this while standing on the foot your weight is on- stand on right foot, lift left foot slightly off the floor, move right hip up-down-up, switch to left side and repeat. When you get the hang of that, then you can walk with it. Just takes practice.

Shimmies are hard because they are a delicate balance between release and control. You need to be able to be loose and free to get the shake and reverb, but if you just shake wildly it lacks the polish and muscular control that makes it look really clean.

I usually start my students off by concentrating on the loosening up part. Stepping and letting the hips swing very freely, letting the natural reverb of the female hips work for you. Then we cinch it up over time to gain that greater control.

I cant believe it ! everything you have said applies to me and its so embarrassing in class I have seen other students pick it up straight away and I get so miffed. :(.

There's a little story that Carolena told at GS last year that seems to really help the shimmy "click" for people. Yes, it IS an up-neutral-up step on each side, with the weight transferring to the foot on the second "up". BUT. It's also just a walk with a bounce. It's like - to ridiculously oversimplify her story - you're walking down the street back in the day, and you catch a drummer's eye... and you add a little bounce to your step as they kick up their rhythm: bounce-step, bounce-step, etc. The looseness, not the precision of up-neutral-up, is what gives the full-time shimmy its character.

This story makes such a huge difference to people learning the shimmy that we've started teaching it this way first, and only once they've got a bounce-step going do we point out the mechanics of it.

I found that trying it on a treadmill on slow really helped me to learn the move, but not necessarily walking forward. It makes you move your feet without traveling, and then when it becomes like second nature then you can do it easily and travel with it...I don't know why it worked for me but it did, by accident. I used to really struggle with it too, and I was practicing it while at the gym, and it just hit one day, and I did it over and over on the treadmill and faster, and it is so easy for me now. Good luck!

I am, by far, not an expert. But I have only very recently figured out the beginnings of a 3/4 shimmy for me.

What I was doing wrong: my posture was a wilted disaster.
How I fixed it: I planted my feet, bent my knees, tucked the pelvis slightly to free my backside for the shimmy, and then imagined that I tucked my shoulder blades into my back pockets.

Then I began slowly - and sped up gradually, and found my body was in a better posture to let the shimmy happen. Huzzah!

Now I've got to keep drilling it and attempt the shimmy up on the toes... I still have some issues with that.

Good luck to you.