I watched the footage of the Freerun Champs earlier this year, which Livewire won, but nowhere featured the awesome b-boying show with Junior, Cico, Blinxx and more as well as Diversity, who won Britain’s Got Talent! Have a look for yourselves, some mighty impressive moves!

Damn! I wish my planche would be somewhere near as impressive as Livewire’s or Junior’s… I’ve been working on it a bit recently though. I’ll be back on the hardcore no foot press up and human flag training soon! You’ll see… you’ll alllll seeeee!

Here’s a link to Livewire’s YouTube channel. It’s definitely worth checking out his many other videos. There’s even one of him battling with Trinity Warriors against Leeds very own Ghetlow Pirates and others over 2 years ago!

Today’s quote:

“The thing about hip-hop is that it’s from the underground, ideas from the underbelly, from people who have mostly been locked out, who have not been recognized.”

Russell Simmons

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Where are you going? …Before you leave, take a second to check out my new Funky Fresh Threads clothing designs. I came up with a bad ass paint splattered design similar to the logo on my video blog posts the other day. The amazing thing about the store that print them, Zazzle, is that you can customise your order entirely and choose whatever style of top and colour you want. Have a look and see if there is a style you’d look fresh in. Personally I like the hoodies, but the basic t-shirts are pretty cheap ass! Make sure you use the Promotional Code: UKWINTERSHIP to get free shipping before 10th December!

Move Biatch! ICameToDance.com (Dark Fabric) Hoody by icametodance

It’s currently 3D Week on Channel 4 and Sainsbury’s provided free 3D glasses for the occasion. My brother went to Sainsbury’s a couple of weeks ago and acquired about 9 pairs…even though there’s only 4 of us in the house. So that’d be why they ran out and you probably couldn’t get any for yourselves.

Here is the link to my test 3D video from training:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ03SzuFFRs

Select the appropriate 3D Viewing Option on YouTube underneath the video player. For the Channel 4 3D week glasses you need to choose “Amber/Blue Glasses: Full Colour” but to be honest I’ve had the best three dimensional results from choosing the “Cross-Eyed” viewing option then going cross-eyed until the left and right video’s overlap and become focused. It looks surprisingly cool whereas using the 3D glasses looks pants because I didn’t film it correctly.

Please be beware that going cross-eyed for long periods of time can be risky! Apparently severe winds are a lot more likely when you’re cross-eyed (even inside) and if you’re not careful, you will definitely become permanently cross-eyed for the rest of your life… according to my grandma anyway…

There are now a few random 3D videos utilising YouTube’s new 3D viewing options, just search for “yt3d:enable=true” and that should show you all the 3D enabled videos.

I found a cool video which has a mixture of breaking, juggling and magic in 3D, not at the same time though – they haven’t got anything on me or B-Boy Magic Superman ha ha. Sylvester the Jester is a funny magician though, I had the pleasure of seeing him live a couple of years ago, most entertaining!

“What I do today is important because I am paying a day of my life for it.

What I accomplish must be worthwhile because the price is high.”

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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

Click here to get in touch for breakdance performance bookings

Once upon a time Technical Tony and War battled B-Moc and Zeus and word of a rematch was in the air for many a moon.

Suddenly (probably after he’d had enough time to train in secret) B-Moc decided out of the blue that it would go down on Briggate, Leeds on 27th September 12 noon. Briggate?! My thoughts exactly, but with all the volunteered help and the magnificent weather it turned out to be the best location and a damn good jam!

So there it was, set in stone…or at least a facebook event was created.

Keep reading to check out the sweeeeet videos of the battles…

B-Boy Philthee managed to get permission from Leeds City Council to set up the jam in the middle of the pedestrianised street and they were more than happy for us to do it, so all was above board.

Karl, aka B-Boy War, was unable to make the occasion due to work and for some reason random extra contenders were roped in, including myself. So the original plan of a rematch went out the window, but shhhhhh, I don’t think anybody noticed…

The all mighty teams:

E.P. Twist and Tony

B-Moc, Zeus and Philthee

As we arrived and started setting up in the middle of Briggate on Sunday afternoon a crowd began to form. There was quite a good turn out of b-boys/b-girls there warming up and we soon had a big circle of surprised passers by admiring our dancing. They thought they were just going shopping at Debenhams…mwhahaha!

The Battle of Briggate

Check out my super smooth edit of the main event…

And the winner is….

We don’t know, we didn’t have any judges. So I’ll leave it up to you to form your own decision.

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After the main battle the lino was open for people to jam and a spontaneous crew battle erupted between B-Boy Flo, B-Girl Firefly, B-Boy Seb and B-Boy Kes against B-Boy Fizzle, B-Boy Afro, B-Boy Stylez and more.

Here’s Chen’s phone footage of the rest of the afternoon in 2 parts:
The Battle of Briggate – Spontaneous battle – Part 1

The Battle of Briggate – Spontaneous battle – Part 2

As you can see from the videos it was an absolutely awesome afternoon! Expectations were completely blown away and everyone had a great time, and…the sun was shining!

Massive thanks to those that brought equipment along, filmed the afternoon, took photos, joined in and those that came to watch You know who you are, give yourselves a reward. Have a cup of tea, you deserve it.

Personally I’d love to do it again, however, we live in England. Good observation skills I know. The weather for the next few months is most likely going to be cold and wet, so we might have to leave it for a while or look into the possibility of other similar locations, such as shopping centres. If anyone has any ideas then please let us know!

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

Bruce Lee

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Here’s the official Sony Ericsson UK B-Boy Championships video player to show you the build up and the final event. Each week it will be updated to show you lovely people a different video from around the planet leading up to the world finals, so remember to keep coming back and watching each week…

FAQ

1. How were the b-boy champs?

Continue reading and I shall reveal all…

October 10th and 11th UK B-Boy Championships – World Finals 2009

Ohhhhh yeeeeeah, London baby!

Last year 5 of us ventured down to Brixton O2 Academy to see the crew battle finals on the Sunday. Man was that an amazing event or what?! Russia’s Top 9 killed it and took home the title!

Here are a couple of valuable learning experiences from last year:

1. Although Audi A4′s claim to seat 5 people, after journeys to London and back from Leeds in one day our thorough testing confirms this is in fact a lie. It may seat 2 people and 3 garden gnomes, but 3 grown b-boys in the back is a different matter entirely.
2. Standing up to watch the entire evening of battles gives you major ‘gig back’, serious discomfort and aching in your lower back! (Which I often get while standing and watching gigs – hence ‘gig back’)

So this time we thought we’d be adventurous and go down for the full weekend. As a load of us were going, we didn’t all have to cram into one vehicle. Which turned out to be a tiny bit less painful. Happy times

Saturday at the UK B-Boy Championships

Unfortunately we couldn’t see anything more than a sea of various hair styles and hats with flailing legs over the top on the stage in the main room on the Saturday because it was a low stage and they didn’t have the projectors set up as they do on the Sunday at the Brixton O2 Academy.

Normally one might be a tad aggravated that they’d paid £20 ish for the Saturday ticket just to see an array of the backs of peoples heads. However, there happened to be a smaller IBE room where the footwork battles, seven2smoke and cyphers were going off. So we stayed in there and had a close up view of all the action. We saw some intricate footwork, a 1 armed b-boy busting out mills and headspins – RESPECT, and an intense 20 minute long seven2smoke battle. I took a few videos on my phone, I might update this post with some footage if I get time…it depends if there’s a demand to see it. Do you want to see the footwork battle final and the seven2smoke battle? Leave a comment and let me know.

Sunday at the UK B-Boy Champs

After an awful nights sleep due to being ill with a mega cold and headache we had a leisurely stroll around Camden Lock Market and Covent Garden. To be honest I didn’t think it was all that great, but that could be because I felt like I was going to die!

Was it just the places we went to or does London have a much higher ratio of ugly people to attractive people than Leeds??

After the mandatory Nando’s visit in Brixton we queued right around the venue to get in. Damn that was a long ass queue but I made it in alive!

The popping and locking battles were quite impressive. The B-Girl crew battles were awesome! The Solo B-Boy battles were dope! But you know what we’d all gone there to see…

Healthy Sports Supplements Perfect For The Training B-Boy!

Let’s get ready to rumble! The main event  – the crew battles

The UK’s Soul Mavericks were up first against Russia’s Top 9. It was close, but to be honest I thought Soul Mavericks took it, obviously last years winners can’t really go out in the first round though.

As you’d expect, each crew brought along some bad ass moves and complex routines. So I imagine it’s pretty tough to judge, maybe that’s why some of their decisions were absolutely retarded!

Jinjo Crew from Korea went up against Endangered Species from USA in the semi finals. The USA pulled out some crazy moves and were very good, but Jinjo Crew smoked them! Yet the judges voted for a tie, so there were 2 more rounds from each crew. Here’s what happened: Jinjo Crew absolutely killed it! Endangered Species crashed one of their sets and pushed one of Jinjo’s members across the stage. The crowd booed and the host, Crazy Legs, stepped in to prevent anything from kicking off. So the judges voted for…USA… I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many people booing before, the entire audience sounded like this: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And so on…

After a day of meandering around London and standing up for hours my back was absolutely killing me! Cracking it every few minutes didn’t really relieve much of the aching, so I spent most of the event sitting in the bar watching the battles live on the HD TV screens, maybe the best view possible other than actually being on the stage – no annoyingly tall people stood in front!

The Ukraine were pulling out some crazy moves and had awesome style to go with it but they didn’t make it through to the final either.

So it ended up being Top 9 vs Endangered Species going head to head for the title. We watched the battle but had to leg it to catch the last tube train back to the car before the result was revealed. Fortunately an attractive lady jumped on the tube just after us and it turned out she’d also just been to the event and caught the results…

The winner and the crowd favourites: Endangered Species. Ha ha, crowd favourites -  I jest, apparently everybody booed them again when they won!

As if you’d want to win if you got booed 3 times during the event They had some super bad ass moves and were generally really good, but I’m definitely not the only one who thought they shouldn’t have made it through to the final and that Top 9 took it.

Ah well, I’m not a judge.

Overall it was a fun diddly weekend. Shame I was ill…but I survived! I highly recommend you go next year, even if just for the Sunday. You will definitely enjoy it more so than anything else you might possibly plan for a Sunday in October, like Church or nursing a hangover after Freshers week – NO! Don’t do that, go to London and watch some of the best b-boys on earth get their funk on, you won’t regret it, Brownies honour!

“I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.”

Blaise Pascal

Tune in next time when I’ll probably talk about something absolutely incredible, as always.