At the heart of the Charleston is a swivelling movement of the feet and legs. The dancer's weight is forward on the balls of the their feet.

• On odd beats, the dancer swivels their feet so that the heels are together and the toes are pointing outwards.
• On even beats, the dancer swivels their feet so that the heels are out and the toes are pointing inwards.

In earlier (1920's) Charleston, the dancer's knees would open up on even beats, and close together on odd beats. For later (1930's) Charleston, the style shifted so that the dancer's knees stayed closer together throughout the dance.

On top of the swivelling motion, the Charleston also superimposes a step pattern.

• On odd beats the dancer steps forwards or backwards, either with or without transferring their weight to the stepping foot.
• On even beats the dancer lifts one of their feet up off the floor, often pointing the bottom half of their leg out to the side.

The step pattern given below is the most common version, where the dancer steps back then forward with their left foot, then forward and then back with their right foot. For each half of this sequence, the moving foot follows a roughly semicircular path across the floor.

Finally, the distinctive Charleston style is incomplete without the addition of the arm movements. Both arms swing as a pair, from being out to one side of the body across to be out on the other side, and then back again.

It is easy to see how this overall pattern was adapted to form the Back Charleston pattern in Lindy Hop: just remove the underlying swivelling motion and make these semicircular paths nearer to straight lines.