A circle pit is where individuals who want to mosh form a circle and begin running or sprinting in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction in unison. This results in what can be classified as a vortex-like dance routine. The individual people in the circle pit run or sprint quickly in this pit to the beat of the music. Sometimes, to either break up the circle pit or jump into a different mosh style, someone will go in the opposite direction as the rest of the circle pit members, resulting in a few body slams.
Slam dancing is when individual people in the dance area head bang, shake to music and slam into one another at random. Dancing to the beat of the loud, hard music, people in the general dance area begin moving their bodies in random directions and usually hitting someone near them. The violent body thrashing goes with the musical genre known as thrash metal, a fast paced form of metal music where this type of moshing began. Slam dancing can sometimes be violent and when people are not careful, innocent non-dancers can be seriously hurt.
Arguably more violent than thrashing, hardcore moshing was spawned with the advent of hardcore punk music in the early 1980s. Here, individual people not only do similar moves as slam dancers, but many of them pull fists out and act as if they are punching nearby dancers. Some of the mosh pit dancers even kick and violently elbow other people around them. This style goes with hardcore punk music, which is often anthematic and overtly masculine in spirit.
Pogoing is a proto-formic form of moshing developed by early punk as far back as 1975. In this form of moshing, people jump up and down as straight as they can, almost as if they are pogo sticks. The music is more associated with typical sounding, 1970s punk music, but still has some moshing aesthetics. For example, most people while pogoing often slam into each other or grab each other.