Play that funky music right!
Play that funky music white boy!
Lay down that boogie and play that funky music till you die!

Ahh, nothing like a bit of Wild Cherry, anyway that has very little to do with this post…

Seeing as B-Boy Sprained-Ankle hasn’t been training very much recently I thought I’d share a video of me playing a funky groove on my conga drums instead:

If you’re interested in learning the basic techniques of how to play a hand drum, or make rhythms using other easily available percussion, check out our website for free instructions Bass – Tone – Slap – Drumming Techniques

In recent news

Our crew has a couple of shows booked in for this month. You can see us rocking the stage at Oceana on Monday 15th February for the Chinese New Year party! As well as a show to start off a martial arts competition… inside a cage haha! Unfortunately I’m gonna miss that as I’m in Edinburger playing drums for the entire weekend.

Since spraining my ankle landing a front somersault like a spazz, on top of the physio to strengthen my ankles back up, I’ve been doing a bit of training and breaking that doesn’t require the use of my left leg. Which is even harder than it sounds! I always use my left leg to push off to do pretty much everything, so I had to switch it up and try getting into handstands the opposite way round, even forwards rolls felt weird! But this is a great lesson for all b-boys and b-girls to really build their co-ordination, make new neural pathways in the brain and increasse your versatility…

Try doing moves you already do the other way round.

A lot of us already know this is a good idea and probably practise it to a small extent, but we get lazy and stick to ways we are used to. Take a ttep outside of that lazy thinking box and try this:

If you do a lot of your footwork like six step clockwise, learn it anti-clockwise. Master your freezes on both arms – baby freezes, 1 handed handstands, elbow freezes, shoulder freezes, chairs, air chairs etc. Then when you’re getting the hang of that and feel like an absolutely ridiculous challenge to work on – try learning your power moves in the opposite direction! Miss having awful bruises on your shoulders and hips… then why not learn windmills again the other way round! Enjoy the pain all over again, hahaha.

“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”

Og Mandino

The transition from Thursday to Friday was a tiring, sleepless yet exciting one…and so our journey began ante meridiem, much later than planned, but earlier than I expected… Timings are always late in our household. A while after we embarked upon our travels I obviously had a nap in the passenger seat, which is about as comfortable as sleeping on a rock. Upon awakening it was bloody pissing it down! Ahhh, we must be in Scotland finally!

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