So obviously my name came out of the hat first to battle, against Si – B-Boy Crackroc (which is spelled incorrectly in the video below, my bad).

So lets get straight to the point, here’s the qualifying battle:

As it transpired, Crackroc won and even though he got lucky hitting that beat at the end of his throwdown, he had a lot of style and different dynamics. So well done to Si…

Next time I won’t be holding back

The rest of the jam was awesome as always, incredible cyphers and battles with a few bboys from Scotland there representing.

Unfortunately the next Attention to Detail jam is on 21st March when the Masterz Crew are performing at a Castleford Tigers rugby match. So we’ll be dancing around on the pitch, but you should still go check out ATD in Wakefield, it’s the best regular bboy jam ever in the Universe!

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

Gore Vidal

We rang in 2010 at Chen’s party this year. I had an absolutely incredible night starting seeing school friends at a local bar and then joining the crew at Chen’s. Just a few minutes after the countdown to the new year and there was already a cypher going on the living room floor. Which soon turned into the very first battles of the decade, despite alcohol consumption levels soaring…

B-Boy War vs Technical Tony followed by Zeus vs Philthee:

That’s probably the best I’ve ever seen Tony dance, skillz! (I substituted the last ‘s’ of ‘skills’ for a ‘z’ there because I’m just that street.)

Resolutions for 2010

So, no doubt you’ll already have been asked what your New Year’s Resolutions are. I wonder if you’ve even managed to make it till now (5th January) on your quest to give up eating chocolate or smoking or whatever you were pretending to do… Normally my New Year’s Resolutions are general minor things like ‘keep having fun’ and ‘meet even more sexy ladies’ because I usually can’t think of any improvements on my amazingly fun life, ha… However, towards the end of 2009 I’ve realised several things and that I need to take action!

Now is the time!

So, I shall be working away to ensure my business thrives this year in this currently unsatisfying economic climate amongst other positive actions to enable me to continue to have fun, meet  sexy ladies and avoid having to listen to my brother Rob’s life advice. Shut up, being a self employed professional magician and drum circle facilitator IS a job  and there is no way, at all ever, that I would apply at McDonald’s!

Anyway, after all the business productivity New Year’s Resolutions comes b-boying. This year it’s gonna be on like Donkey Kong! The first training session of 2010 was super bad ass and I’ll explain…no, show you why in the next post.

Until then – remember to wear layers and don’t run on the ice… unless you’re aiming for a masssssive fun slide, in which case I recommend running on a dry spot first then jumping onto a lengthy polished patch of ice for maximum fun, speed and distance…

“Now, in order to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?” which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. “

Martin Luther King Jr.

B-Boy Goodies of Loveliness and The Masterz Showcase Battle Highlights

If you’re admiring that fine ICameToDance.com clothing and wish to acquire a top to look cool in just click here now and receive free shipping when you use the promotional code UKWINTERSHIP. The light coloured tops are significantly cheaper and you can get yourself a basic white t-shirt for a measly £13 – do it! Although I’m rather pleased with my black hoody and I even wore it out on Saturday night. Everyone loved it long time

I know the design looks very bright and pretty funky with the paint splatters… I think it suits it like that. But for you boring plain people who can’t handle it, I’m working on some simpler designs to satisfy your mediocre needs.

Unfortunately there wasn’t very much usable footage of our showcase battle from the Shed Bar on Thursday night, so there’s only a short little bit at the end of today’s video. You should have been there really! And if you were, thanks for coming

To end with how about an appropriate quote for how I feel at the moment…

“If you can read this make me a sandwich!”

There is also a massive range of really cool b-boying clothing, including caps, t-shirts and hoodies available on Zazzle designed by other people. Check all the breakdance clothes out here.

Our showcase battle at the Shed Bar was supposed to be next Thursday, but it’s been moved forward. So unfortunately a couple of our crew members can’t make it – not to worry, I got some bad assssss b-boys in to cover. It’s gonna be off the hook! … If there ever were a hook in the first place…

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”

Louis Hector Berlioz

Masta Ace – Fresh Jive 28th November 2009

9pm onwards tonight at The Elbow Room in Leeds there will be a 7 to smoke bboy battle and later on Masta Ace performing all the hits at  Fresh Jive!

The first Fresh Jive event in a while, which is nice I know Shane Fenton (B-Boy 10Tonn) and the Fresh Jive/Speak to the Streets crew have had a busy year, so keep up the good work guys! I’m sure there are some awesome events in the pipeline for next year!

The Haggis Horns – Local funk band are also playing tonight at The Wardrobe with their new singer Lucinda Slim. If time will allow it, I might try go to Fresh Jive and then over to The Wardrobe to catch the gig for an ultimate night of pure hip hop and funk!

The Masterz Crew Showcase Battle

12 Midnight at Shed Bar Thursday 3rd December

After an absolutely awesome night out b-boying at Tiger Tiger on Tuesday, my mate Luke, a manager at Shed Bar in Leeds thought a breakdance performance would be the perfect fun and different entertainment for the Shed Bar’s 1st Birthday on Thursday 3rd December. So The Masterz Crew have been booked to get our groove on the only way we know how – B-BOY STYLE!

We’ll be warming up from about 11pm ready for the show to start around midnight – a 3 on 3 exhibition battle lasting between 10 and 15 minutes! I’m not sure of the 3 on 3 crews yet, but obviously the side I’m on will smoke them foooools on the other side! It’ll be like The Battle of Briggate all over again!

After the showcase battle we’ll stick around to jam for the rest of the night. You’re all welcome to come along to watch and party with us later … even the uncool people who were planning on staying at home watching YouTube bboying videos, you can come too!

Thursday the third of December two thousand and nine – Put it on your calendar, if there were a hook it would be totally off it!

Attention to Detail – The Hop

Wakefield 13th December

The next ATD is set to be full of festivities! With a Christmas themed fancy dress competition for the b-boys and b-girls it is definitely going to look interesting!

As well as the usual battle format which is always awesome, this time there will be special exhibition battles and showcase performances… and Fusion has asked me and Ross to do a 3 round exhibition battle with a bit of a twist. I’m not entirely sure if that’s for definite yet, but either way I’ll probably be there having fun so come down!

Just Jam International B-Boy Event Video

14th and 15th November – Newcastle, Dance City

Earlier this month I told you about Just Jam International and how much it sucked that I wouldn’t be able to make it, boohoo :’( so here is a sweet compilation from Sole Heaven of some of the b-boys who battled on the day. If I watch it fullscreen, turn the sound up and squint I can pretend I was right there in the audience…

Click here for more footage of the full bboy battles from Just Jam International.

Sole Heaven have written up a rather lovely review complete with photos too, have a gander here.

That’s the end of that chapter. Hopefully I shall see you at one, if not all, of the awesome b-boying events in the next few weeks, but for now here’s some fantastic advise for life:

” Do your kids a favor – don’t have any. ”

Robert Orben

Peace out!

If you’re planning on going to the main event this Sunday 15th, make sure you get there early to get a ticket, or buy one online in advance, especially if you’re travelling a long distance. It’s probably as bad as being the fat smelly kid at school that nobody likes when you arrive at a venue 2 and a half hours away and are told you can’t go in The  maximum capacity is only about 350 or so, which means it will sell out fast!

The line up looks amazing, it’d be worth going to see the battles on Sunday at the main event if it was just the b-boys on the reserve list but with international and UK invites including B-Boy Mouse, Hat Solo, Mounir etc. you know it’s going to be off the hook! The Just Jam live band/percussionists will be playing some funky beats for the breakers to dance to over the weekend so I believe. Even the Pre Party this Saturday 14th November with some surprise showcase battles  is set to be an awesome night. Hat Solo and Mounir will be running workshops during the day too, if you’re free – get your ass down there this weekend!

You can find all the details for the event here: http://www.ukbboy.info/forum/showthread.php?t=15084

Have a gander at Doy Travel’s bad ass trailer from last years event if you need persuading…

Bad Taste Cru Presents ‘Just Jam’ Feat Just Do it, Mouse, Hat Solo, Duzk from Le Doy on Vimeo.

For all you bboy geeks who spend hours scouring the internet for bboying videos you might not have seen yet, there are some more battle videos from last years Just Jam by Doy here: http://www.ukbboy.info/forum/showthread.php?t=14111 if by any chance you haven’t seen them yet.

Have a good time if you go this weekend! Who knows, I might still make it.

“No great work is impossible; the word itself says I’m Possible”.

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Fizzle…no, sorry, The Phasion (as he is now known) phoned me mid nap and woke me up to see if I was able to help them out. The Jigsaw Cru were booked to do a show at The Plug in Sheffield that night but Hau and Afro were unavailable so The Phasion and B-Boy Energy needed an extra crew member. I jumped in the shower,  wolfed down my roast dinner (not at the same time) and our expedition began!

Na-na na-na na-na na-na B-BOY!

We got to The Plug and jammed a bit to warm up. We were going to be battling 3 other breakers in a showcase battle on stage. The other crew were damn good all round – nice style and smooth power.  I think I had seen them all battling before at Fresh Jive and other events but it was far too loud in the club to even talk to them and get to know them. Ah well, show time…

Showcase breakdance battle – The Plug, Sheffield 10.11.09

The Jigsaw Cru plus myself, B-Boy Twist on the left, Sheffield and Manchester b-boys and b-girl on the right.

“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?”

Bob Marley

Keep reading cause I’ve got 3 lovely videos for your entertainment today, and I know you’ll particularly enjoy the last one…

Street Dance Competition – Friday at Mission

Friday night at Mission was LoveDough, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago they were having a street dance battle  with a £200 cash prize up for grabs.

We got there at about 11pm to enter and get warmed up. I’d texted to get myself + 7 on the guestlist,  so we paid £5 in, even though we were on the guestlist and competing, but Philthee and War who came down later got in for free on my guestlist. Mother truckers! Quite a few bad ass bboys turned up which I didn’t expect, so we got a cypher going on the nasty concrete floor before the competition began as the room filled and the crowd grew.

The whole event was hilarious, clearly not a bboy battle – the stage was awful, it was like dancing on coarse sandpaper painted black and the DJ was playing shit-hop. I still gave it a go though and busted out a few moves, saving some in case I got through to the next round, ha, never mind. I received a fairly decent response from the audience – woooooo, and so on. Despite that the dancers who went through to the next round after the qualifiers seemed to be 8 people picked at random. The dancer who won overall was pretty good though, a nice fusion of different styles of hip hop dance. Well done to him, whoever he was.

Here’s my 45 second throwdown in all its glory:

I wasn’t too bothered about not getting through, especially as B-Boy Flo and other’s didn’t make it either. Fun was had and I ended up dancing the night away till about 5am with lots of lovely ladies They just can’t resist the b-boys! It was cool seeing friends I hadn’t bumped into for months too.

The Fresh Factory – Saturday in Huddersfield

My brother and I arrived a bit late, thankfully just after the popping qualifiers, right on time for the b-boy battles. Don’t worry though, I still received more than a life times viewing of body popping through the evening.

The atmosphere was really good and friendly! I managed to get a seat and actually see what was going on for the whole evening, without even having to struggle and push my way past any unusually tall people that always seem to appear right in front of you at crowded events.

The body popping battles were impressive and there were some amazing contestants. Shuffles won overall, whoop. But to be honest once you’ve seen more than a couple of minutes of body popping you’re probably going to fall asleep whenever you see it again. Maybe that’s just my opinion…

The bboy battle was where it was at! Flo won, cause he is pretty damn awesome. Some day I’ll have power moves like that, but hopefully I’ll still have hair as well.

I jumped in the cyphers a few times through the night, mostly at the end along with B-Boy Just Me, who for some reason was wearing a full green body suit hahaha! That was damn good fun, it’s nice to have him back from Germany. Unfortunately my phone had taken a strong dislike to me recording so much video so I only filmed a couple of my throwdowns:

Well done to all those who organised the event, you should do it more frequently than in 4 months time!

At the end of the night I was chatting to Flo, our conversation went as follows:

Flo: “Are you battling tomorrow?”

Me: “Errr, I don’t think so. I’m not sure if there are any places left. “

Jamie happened to be stood nearby so we called him over and asked if there were any spaces available to enter. So Flo continued…

Flo: “Are you battling???”

Me: “Hmmm, maybeee.”

Flo: “Let me ask you again, are you battling?!?”

Me: “YES! Yes I’m battling tomorrow!”

Haha, I definitely needed that little push and I had an ace time on Sunday. Thanks Flo!

Attention to Detail jam – Sunday in Wakefield

I fuelled up at Subway and got there early for the battle. I know, I was amazed by our time keeping too. The whole jam was funky as it always is, phat beats and cool people all having fun!

I thought up a little surprise before setting off that I could throw in the mix and was excited about my first proper solo battle (Friday night at Mission didn’t really count). The qualifiers were only 1 round each, and I was up against B-Boy Lil Jay. Damn. The dude’s got skills! I thought I’d let him go first so I could see what I needed to do to beat him. Personally I thought I’d done enough, but for some reason I lost, boohoo. Ah well, no shame, Lil Jay is awesome and I had a great time!

I took my shiny HD camcorder and filmed it all, however when I was copying the video files from the SD card to my hard drive my PC thought it’d be hilarious to crash and corrupt my memory card, loosing all the files. Nice one. Thankfully Seb filmed it all and he hooked me up with the footage of my battle… Check it out!

B-Boy Twist vs Lil Jay at Attention to Detail

Hope you enjoyed watching “the Paul Daniels of the bboy scene” I didn’t get through but I danced a little bit in the cyphers and got to sit down to rest my tired little self. Plus there was the other 6″s of my footlong Sub to devour,  mmmmmmm yeeeeeeah. There were some dope battles through the afternoon. Jingles ended up just beating Ryan in the final. Nice one Jinglist!

What an intense weekend!

“A good fight should be like a small play…but played seriously. When the opponent expands, l contract. When he contracts, l expand. And when there is an opportunity… l do not hit…it hits all by itself (shows his fist).”

Bruce Lee

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All the details for this Sunday’s jam are in my last blog post but I felt like adding another quick entry for you lovely people because Seb has just edited the promo video from October’s Attention to Detail bboy jam.

Look how bad ass last month was and just try to resist coming on 8th…

Nice work Seb!

“A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or PH.D. Unfortunately, they don’t have a J.O.B.”
- Fats Domino

Earlier, due to my tender windmill bruise, I trained some footwork and came up with a little style move. I’ve seen people do it in a straight line, but never in a circle before. It’s actually pretty hard to do it rotating around, and today I’m aching all over from breaking and lifting weights on Tuesday, so the whole throwdown is a bit dodgy excuses, excuses…

For todays video I felt like throwing in some bonus random craziness. Enjoy!

Ooo look at that, Virgin Active have painted the studio a different colour, very warming.  That should provide better lighting for filming my training sessions too.

Keep reading to find out what’s hip-hop-happening in the next couple of days. What a fun filled weekend this is gonna be!

B-Boying events this weekend you should be at:

Karl text me earlier and apparently I’m going to Mission nightclub in Leeds tonight…

STREET DANCE COMPETITION // £200 CA$$$H PRIZE // LOVEDOUGH // MISSION // FRI 6TH NOV

Let’s smoke some fooools!

SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER 2009

THE FRESH FACTORY

Featuring:
1 ON 1 POPPIN BATTLES
1 ON 1 BBOY BATTLES

PRIZE – £100

B-Boy Judges
Jingles (ghetlow pirates)
Zorro (ghetlow pirates)
2Juice

Popping Judges
2Juice
Special K
Pierre

DOORS OPEN 6PM

BATTLES START 7PM SHARP!!! AND WILL FINISH AT MIDNIGHT

DJ’s IN THE MIX!
DR WEEVIL & DJ WHISPA

AND A SPECIAL GUEST PERFORMANCE!!!

St. Patricks Centre 2 Trinity St, Huddersfield, HD1 4DA

Sunday 8th November 2009

Attention to Detail

1on1 competition where all invited bboys/bgirls judge. Fun jam nice vibes, straight chilling!!!!

Hosted by Owdogg
DJ Wispa

8 invites and 8 qualifiers to be sorted on the day.

Prize is £50 + F-rock clothing

Entry £3, Doors 3pm, battles start at 4pm

Also Owdogg will be doing a house class and a locking class before the jam
House 1300-1400
Locking 1400-1500

£3.50 per class (if you do both classes the jam is free)

The Hop – 19 Bank Street, Wakefield, WF1 1EH

See you there homeslice!

“One good thing about music – when it hits you feel no pain. Hit me with music.”

Bob Marley