The Mind of a Madman:
Flava reigns supreme, character is your personal expression through movement to music.
Within this dance there may be various styles, but there are things that define us a bboys/girls - specific mindsets and ways of thinking that separates us from other dance forms, there is no such thing as a style bboy or power bboy and definitely not a footwork bboy, if you categorize what we do into these you are beyond simple and need to expand your ways of thinking to see our dance as a whole, just as in life we have our preferences – this will cross over into the dance we do, the feeling you get from various movements will be how you react to music.
Yes diversity is awesome but at a point diversity becomes ignorance and being naive, we are bboys – we dance to music, we dance in a bboy manner, toprocks, drops, transitions the text in which we put or movements together define our dance, and separate us from other things that are always related to bboying for example gymnastics and capoeira, these often get compared to what we do because some of us give people the idea, this because we portray ourselves like this.
If you rock power but don’t have a way of getting into and out of it like a bboy, you are just doing it like a gymnast, fairy flying and this is why you confuse the public because you did not put it in context of being a bboy thing.
Context is key, please read this carefully because I am not dissing creativity and originality, but I am saying this is b-boyin so don’t get it twisted, if you slide in and put your foot behind your head with no bboy relation then bing bong! How can you claim to be a bboy, it’s about how you do these movements in context of being a bboy.
It’s about the “movement” not the “move” – open your mind and try to understand.
Character is what every bboy should possess as this is how we become individuals in a dance that has travelled the world, putting a bit of yourself into the moves that become our movement, example, Everyone learns a six step – character is doing it your way BUT still doing the six step.
Foundation and fundamentals.
I believe that true foundation is how we use our fundamentals to the music, for example how we correlate our basic movements/fundamentals such as top rocks, footwork, freezes and power, transitions etc and apply them to music, all dance/ art forms have fundamentals which are the most basic of tools, they are there to be utilized and used at your will but you don’t have to stick to just doing that, try other mediums and various styles but always keep in mind that you have these fundamentals for a reason.
Crawl before your walk, walk before you run, run before you sprint – so on and so forth.
Moves and movements.
I believe that everything in bboying has a place, and its a lot like learning English in the most basic of senses, for example every move and movement has its parallel in terms of English language, The alphabet is your fundamentals, your words are your movement, your grammar and punctuation and your transitions and freezes etc.
And the way you create runs/ move combos would be much like how you create a sentence, it also makes sense as you write a sentence to make a point - you dance to express yourself, thus making your movement a point every time you hit the floor.
Also putting certain words in various orders can change the way you read that sentence, it’s the same with bboyin, you can make the same amount of movements in different sequences to highlight various aspects of your run and what you are trying to achieve, for example if you want to go out and burn you would structure your run so that it has a exclamation mark , but if you wanted to keep it subtle but make a point you would remove the exclamation and use another form of punctuation thus creating a transition into various movement or new sentence.
Thus the more you learn becomes how extensive your vocabulary will be and ability to express yourself will increase as various words and ways of structuring a sentence will arise, same goes for your bboying the more movements and more understanding you have of our “language” / “bboyin” the better and more easier it becomes for you to express yourself through this art form.
Let knowledge of moves, movement and history build your vocab in bboying and let this become your arsenal.
Musicality:
“The first b-boys were getting down, they weren’t asking how do I do my moves to the music, they were just getting down, it was music first, then movement” - Fluro Rock – Graffiti Artist
This is it plain and simple, the music came before movement – though we learn to move to music in different ways, the most basic raw connection is reaction and getting down to music.
This has evolved to getting down in a bboy context – DANCE, we are dancers this is what we do, listen to the music and react accordingly.
Take your time if the song requires hitting different sections and if need be wait for that break, do go off if you aiin’t feeling it, pick and choose your moments and get down.
One gripe is the “ugh” chant over ill songs – what’s the point? You’re ruining the vibe all for a bit of hype, let the music get you hype, provide a soul clap where necessary but not when it’s not. Don’t wait for that one “beat” and hit it, you’ve probably just missed some ill percussion and a horn section that you could have ridden the isht out of.
In a ideal world we wouldn’t need to give props for simply dancing on beat because as dancers this is what should be happening naturally, we should be dancing to music, by all means when someone is a smooth brother and rides that track exceptionally well, give props – give props when and where its due.
But if a cat hits one stab but missed 3 and a dope groove, should we reward them for trying to catch up to the beat......react to the music that you hear, don’t play catch up.
This is just one shot from the barrel.
Mr Rawkus.
The Bad Bad man.
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