This is an absolutely amazing/hilarious video from Brett Domino giving a demo of the cool new Stylophone Beatbox: Portable Beats Machine. I’d seen the product in the IWOOT catalogue a while ago but never realised the incredible potential until my Father told me to check out this video featuring some classic b-boy tunes and other hip hop beats. Prepare to be astounded, hahaha:

Brett Domino: Hip-Hop Medley – Stylophone Beatbox

Click here to buy your Portable Beats Machine on sale for less than £10!

It’s got a build in loop sampler! I WANT ONE! IWantOneOfThose.com are charging £20 – no thanks…

I think I’ll be placing my order very shortly with findmeagift.com – click here to get your Stylophone Beatbox on sale for under £10!

“100% of the shots you don’t take don’t go in.”

Wayne Gretzky

At training on Tuesday I was trying to practice a new throwdown idea. I got warmed up thoroughly and had a little stretch, but I was still aching and my muscles were quite tight from training on Thursday, Saturday and Monday as well as Bradford Gym on Sunday. Perhaps the aching and tight muscles are the cause of what happened next…

I threw a standing front somersault but landed with my left leg wide, which resulted in my knee bending inwards as my legs absorbed the impact. Consequently I heard and felt (definitely felt!) a crunch in my ankle… Oooooo, that wasn’t good! I’ll just walk over to… ohhhh Jebus, that’s starting to hurt… Ahhhh – Ed, can you go get me an ice pack please? I’ll just hop over here and sit dOWwwwn.

To the hospital Batman!

My brother kindly drove me to A&E as I wanted to make sure I hadn’t broken or fractured anything. Luckily the dude at Casualty, who saw me after a painful 1 and a half hour wait, rubbed my feet and ankles a bit and told me my bones were fine. Jolly good But my ATFL (anterior talofibular ligament on the outside of the ankle) is damaged. So I’ve sprained my ankle, awesome. Off I hobbled to get the bus home, on second thoughts – let’s just stop here at the end of the street and book a taxi.

Here I am 3 days later… still in bed with my leg elevated on a pile of pillows and my handy Morrisons Value Frozen Garden Peas on and off my ankle. (Get yourself some – 89p for an ice pack is well worth it in an emergency!) I’m getting back ache from being in bed for so long. On the plus side I’ve been productive and done a lot of work on my laptop, even though I can’t actually get to my room in the attic where my PC is haha! Damn it!

Today I’m feeling a bit more comfortable putting weight on it, I can hobble to the toilet and downstairs for food without very much swearing involved. Tuesday night was a different story however, I’ve never experienced intense shivering from pain before! Gotta try everything once I suppose

Man up, Twist

Anyway, I’ll survive and if I don’t – avenge my death! I’ve just got to keep going with the ankle strengthening exercises and make sure I don’t dance on it for at least a few days, although a few weeks is probably wiser and more realistic.

Standing front tucks are evil I tell you! They look cool, but I’ve hurt myself similarly, less seriously, at least 3 times in the process of learning them. From this I have 2 lessons to choose from: stop doing somersaults… or after I’ve recovered and strengthened both my ankles and legs properly train for them a LOT more to make sure I get some mega height every time so I can land safely.

That’s enough of my wining – I’ll have to be fine by tomorrow, I’ve got a magic job to perform at.

Now how about some comedy from the gym on Sunday

Training with Bruce, B-Boy Just Me, is awesome fun – the dude knows his flips and is a really good teacher! He had my brother landing front somersaults in 20 minutes! I’d already learnt the basic technique for fronts on my own, but he helped add a bit of height to my jump and spotted me doing a few back tucks. The Allstar Aviators tumbling class in Kirkstall helped me learn the technique for back tucks, but I’d never attempted one on my own. Within a couple of minutes of Bruce spotting me, I went for it and did it all by myself, aren’t I a big boy. The first couple were pretty funny, almost burying my face in the floor, or falling over backwards. But in a few minutes I was landing, I use the term ‘landing’ loosely here, them on the gym floor. Yey!

By the end of the session I was going less backwards, much more vertical and nailing the landing better than in the following video, but this is the funniest one from Sunday:

As you can see, I clearly bailed that first back tuck before I’d even taken off the floor hahaha. Obviously I didn’t do that again! You’ve just got to go for it! Although I won’t be going for much for the next month or two

Hope you’ve learnt something from my experience – practice your flips safely now kiddies!

Time to take my frozen peas off my ankle.

Instead of a quote to end with today, I feel like adding something even more fun. I am pretty bored after all!

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

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.

Here’s a magical Christmas gift for you all to enjoy in fullscreen High Definition:

It seems a lot of clarity has been lost in compressing the video and adding a soundtrack. So, please watch it fullscreen in HD so you can see what’s going on

A quick note to express my happiness that Rage are Christmas No.1 in the UK – AWESOME! I’d love to hear Killing in the name on next years annoying Christmas album that’s played everywhere all through December!

Just to let you know I also finished a crazy bad ass design for a t-shirt recently, check it out:

Dreadlocks ICameToDance.com Face white tee by icametodance
Shirts from Zazzle

Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year, why not Valentines, Easter, Birthday, Diwali, Hanukkah and anything else while I’m at it!

“Now you do what they told ya! Now you’re under control!”

Rage Against The Machine – Killing in the name

Anyway, here are the details to win a pair of SportStyle Asics and breakdance mat. Quite a cool competition challenge I think, I might have to enter myself… I could do with some new kicks to train in!

Find Your Flavour and win a pair of ASICS SportStyle trainers and breakdance mat

Win a pair of trainers from ASICS SportStyle and one of the first ever breakdancing mats – start the year the freshest kicks by sending us your freshest pics!

To celebrate the launch of their SportStyle range, ASICS have created the first ever breakdancing mat. Put together with the help of award winning B-Boy Mouse, it is designed to teach novices the basic moves through simple, guided steps. One lucky entrant will be able to win one of these mats and pull off the toprock, sixstep and even the wakfreeze. The winner will also receive a pair of ASICS SportStyle trainers to practise new moves in true style.

How to win

Winning is simple – find your flavour and photograph it!

Started breaking in front of a local attraction? Dressed your dog in a tracksuit? Maybe you spotted something quirky, like funny graffiti or discovered a really funky record in your parent’s music collection.

If it’s got flavour, it has a chance of winning

Simply take your photo, ‘fan’ TooMuchFlavour on Facebook, then post your photo to the wall for a chance to win.

For further details, example photos and to watch a video of what happened when the ASICS SportStyle breakdancing mat took to the streets of London, go to http://toomuchflavour.co.uk/competition_entry.html

Ok, that’s all from Dave, back to me - they’re claiming its the first ever breakdancing mat. Not sure what they mean by that, cardboard and lino were used way back in the late 70′s… but I  remember being shown a hilarious video of Alfonso Ribeiro, the dude who played Carlton in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, releasing a similar product way back in the day (1985)!

That’s enough comedy for today. Remember to get taking your flavoursome photos to post to the TooMuchFlavour facebook fan page!

“And tell mum and dad it’s the safe way to break and pop. Not the things you shouldn’t try.”

Alfonso Ribeiro

I stumbled upon this awesome stop-motion animation interactive YouTube video game a while ago. Batman and the Joker bboying :O You know online games don’t get much more fun than this! Unless you’re a mega geek and you prefer to play World of Warcraft 31 hours a day.

Check out the game first and then watch the ‘Making of Bboy Joker’ video below. Impressive stuff:

Bboy Joker

Making of Bboy Joker

Check out those 1990′s ha ha!

While we’re on the subject of stop-motion animation I thought I’d dig out a couple of little treats for you. It has absolutely nothing to do with bboying, but here are 2 fun stop-motion animation videos, the first being about pollution and other environmental issues in Creature Comforts style created by myself and a couple of fellow Media Studies students back in the day when we were studying at AS level 3 or 4 years ago…

Save Our Seas

Secondly, here is a short animation created by a myself and some school friends on an animation course prior to making the above video. Prepare yourself for the amazement…

Funnnnny stuff! It’s inspired me to make another stop-motion animation, but then I also remember how incredibly looong it takes and just how frustrating it is. Back away, not today.

“Frustration is the compost from which the mushrooms of creativity grow.”

Let me know what you thought of our animations in a comment below

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

WTF COLLECTIVE – Jon Lajoie

For those of you who haven’t seen any of Jon Lajoie’s other hilarious comedy or music videos before, enlighten yourself here! His Everyday Normal Guy, Everyday Normal Guy 2 and Everyday Normal Crew rap videos are amazing!

Healthy sports supplements for the aspiring b-boy!

“Yeah you’re whack, ’cause everybody understands what you say
But when I get on the mic I make milk out of clay.”

Jon Lajoie

A random woman added me on facebook recently, the 1 friend in common was a b-boy I don’t know all that well, so I thought I’d accept her friend request and find out if I had actually met her before. Her profile pictures feature her not so pretty face and half naked body, not dissimilar to this very disturbing Aphex Twin music video  – Windowlicker as seen in the delightful photo on the right.

She was online so I thought I’d chat to her and find out who she was.

Here’s how the conversation went…

20:39Oliver
hello

20:45Lucy
hey..

20:48Oliver
how do you do?

20:49Lucy
fine thanks… and u??

20:49Oliver
pretty good ta

21:05Oliver
so do i actually know you?
if so, please enlighten me

21:13Lucy
no.. you don’t know me

21:18Oliver
any special reason why i’m not going to click “Remove from Friends”?

21:18Lucy
don’t do that!!
You look like goood fun.. but a bit young.. I’m a poet..

21:20Oliver
i am goood fun, with 3 o’s
but that’s not the most convincing argument
write me a poem

21:22Lucy
Oliver your dancin makes me wet
but I bet you can’t beat me in the bed
I wanna tease and show you the way
to give you sex that will make you scream yay!
I’m an older woman as I’m sure you know
but I bet I can make your penis grow!

21:24Lucy
piss poor attempt I know.. but you put me on the spot!

21:24Oliver
hahaha
made me laugh

21:25Lucy
good!

21:25Oliver
not sure if that was the intention

21:25Lucy
not really.. but its a start!

21:26Oliver
you get a C for effort
but your rhyming skills could have started a bit stronger

21:26Lucy
is that it!!
I thought it was pretty good for an on the spot demand!

21:28Oliver
you’re lucky i said C
i typed D first but thought the effort earned you an extra grade

21:31Lucy
I take it your very creative.. you write a poem for me then!!

21:31Oliver
i never claimed to be a poet
i do lots of other awesome stuff, but haven’t written a poem for a while

21:35Lucy
what.. do you express yourself with your moves?? and when u say u aint written one for a while.. that impliesd you have written some? please don;t tell me it was for for ur gcse’s?

21:36Oliver
the last time i wrote a poem was probably before GCSE actually haha
old schooool

21:38Lucy
you make me feel old! I love your dancin tho! keep it up! xxx

21:39Oliver
cheers
probably cause you are old

21:40Lucy
i know.. but with age comes experience baby xx

21:41Oliver
yeah, but you can never be sure whether it’s been good experience

21:42Lucy
yeah.. it always is with me”

21:42Oliver
haha
i’ll believe you…
so how ancient are you?

21:49Oliver
i wrote a limerick for you you’re gonna love it!
are you ready?

Oh Lucy, Lucy, Lucy
you think you’re so damn juicy
unfortunately for you…
your face looks like poo
and you’re older than Debussy

21:59Oliver
probably an A+ don’t you think?

For some reason I didn’t receive a response after that, ha ha!

Healthy sports supplements for the aspiring b-boy!

I was laughing out loud for each line of her poem she wrote. Ohhhh, dear me, that stuff is amazing! I know my dancing probably excites some girls a little, but to make her wet and want to get me screaming yay, that is quite extraordinary. All in the life of a b-boy… She’s got nothing on my poetic skills though, maybe she realised this and in her shame didn’t want to reply. Thanks for the entertainment though Lucy, who ever you are!

“Remove from Friends” – yes, I shall.

That’s all for today folks, tune in next time when I’ll be demonstrating my other GCSE English Literature abilities… just kidding.

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession”
- Robert Frost