Last Sunday me and Phil ventured down to Wakefield for Attention to Detail to attend Flo’s workshop.

Here are my key points I took away from what was covered:

• Style – use all your body parts in creative ways to add original flavour to your moves. The feet do most of the moves, but your heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes add the style
• Create new top rock moves and interpret the same moves on the floor to come up with new footwork.
• Musicality – listening to the track and picking up on the recurring accents such as cymbal crashes every 8 or 16 beats etc. Make sure you go down to the floor at the start or end of a bar (on the accent beat and not randomly part way through a count of 8 beats) and hit your freezes on beat.
• To contrast with freezes and fast footwork try to add slow elongated moves when there are long droney notes and accents in the music – this adds another dimension to your throwdown instead of everything being aggressive and as fast as possible. Mixing up the tempo and dynamics adds style and makes your set more interesting.
• Power moves – for whipping and kicking power train sweeps, both directions with both legs. Then practice entering the power move from sweeps. Sweep to flares, sweep to mills, swipes etc.

Practising power moves brought us to the end of the workshop…

I had previously done one of Flo’s workshops covering the same areas a year or two ago, but it was great to be reminded of the key aspects that a lot of people are unaware of when they’re breaking.

It’s all about the music, it is a dance after all!

I just wanted to write down these key points to review what I learned before I forgot again, but maybe you will have gained some useful knowledge from it too… and if Flo holds another workshop you’ll know to check it out because it’s all amazing stuff, going much deeper than just how to do this move or that move, instead covering the stuff that really matters for those who already have a bit of experience breaking.

Laters potatoes!

And why not a quote from Flo for this post:

“Her life long ambition is to go see Stevie Wonder?!?

What kind of an ambition is that??

My life long ambition is for Stevie Wonder…to come see me!”

Florent Gonthier

So here it is a day late, or 364 days early…

Happy Birthday B-Boy Philthee

Last night town was absolutely dead, hardly anybody anywhere – it was freezing and there’s an abundance of snow everywhere! However, WE ARE THE PARTY, so we had an absolutely awesome night jamming where ever we went… some were even breaking on the street… in the slush and snow! Dedication or what!

Phil was of course killing it, busting out flares to the max and everyone else was repping hard. I even popped out a couple of front flips and everyone went mental, cause they’d never seen me do it before ha ha Phil started throwing down on the road while the traffic lights were on red, then the Police turned up and told us they’d seen us obstructing traffic on CCTV… Bruce’s response – “Yeah it was sick wasn’t it?! He was killing it!” hahaha.

Monday was also Aahid’s, Afro’s and Shane’s Birthday and if I’m right in thinking Jingle’s Birthday on Tuesday too? I might as well just say Happy Birthday to all the b-boys who’s Birthday it was recently, you’re all lovely and I hope you enjoyed yourselves!

Now I’ve got to go do some real work, so here’s your ‘quote’ for today…

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Philthee
Happy Birthday to you!

Me

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

If you loved this post long time, leave a comment and let me know what you think of my blog, subscribe, post vast sums of money or anything else your might feel inclined to do.

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

Read the full post to see the video of me getting my dance on…

We eventually arrived at Wiston Lodge to hit things, mostly drums, yey. What a fun experience it’s been thus far and hopefully the rest of the 8 days will be on the drum circle facilitators UK Playshop Mentor training course. Appropriately named, as opposed to a workshop, there’s much play involved fun times.

As soon as I arrived on Friday, the true b-boy in me emerged and I found myself testing out the decking in front of the cabin I’m staying in. (You know you’re a breaker when you find yourself examining how suitable every floor is for dancing on, where ever you are.) The scenery was magnifiscent and I couldn’t resist busting out some moves while there was a strange period where water wasn’t actually falling from the sky. Earlier on today, Saturday at the time of tapping on the keyboard, there was a break in the training program and a couple of people continued to drum, so I cleared a space at the end of the room and got my groove on. There’s no way I could go 10 days without breaking at some point, especially when theres a smooth wooden floor staring back at me almost every minute of the day. Stop typing Twist and show me the damn video, ok:

B-Boying in the middle of nowhere, Scotland

“Part way through writing the word ‘determination’ on his sheet, his pen ran out.”

Paul Dear

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.