Thursday, January 8, 2009, 11:31 PM
HIP HOP - BBOY
What is Hip Hop?Hip Hop is a culture.
The Four Elements of Hip Hop
Graffiti - The literature
Emceeing - The language
Deejaying - The music
B-boying - The dance
I will mostly be talking about breaking as I know more about it than any other street dance.
Breakdancing.... WRONG. That's not the name of the dance. The proper, actual, name of the dance is BBOYING, you could also call it breaking. The term breakdancing was made up by the confused media. Unfortunately I still have to use the term breakdancing most of the time because people would think I want to break stuff if I said breaking. ):
So whether if you're a boy or a girl, the dance is called Bboying.
Hip Hop and Bboying was created in the Bronx in New York in the early 70's. DJ Kool Herc made Hip Hop. Bboy comes from the word breakboy, the name for those who hit the dance floor during the break segments of a song. The dance isn't called breaking because you could potentially break your bones doing the dance. :P
Bboy, Breakdancer. Same thing? No.
A breakdancer is someone who breaks, but doesn't know anything about the culture and doesn't care about it. A bboy is someone who breaks but knows about the culture.
If you think the main part of breaking is the stunts (powermoves), you are absolutely wrong.
Toprock is the dancing you do without going down on the floor. It's an extremely important part of bboying but unfortunately many people seem to ditch it. Toprock is where most of the style comes in, it's also easier to add in your own style to toprocking compared to footwork and power. (Ex. Indian step, Crossover)
"If you don't toprock before you go down and do footwork, you're not really bboying."
- Popmaster Fabel (Rock Steady Crew)
Footwork is also a very important part of bboying. Footwork is where you get down to the floor and start doing fancy awesome things with your feet :D. It is also important to be stylish and creative in your footwork. (Ex. 6 step, 3 step, CC's)
Power is pretty much the most known aspect of bboying, but that doesn't mean it's the best. You'll know why shortly. Power is what you see in TV more than anything else in bboying, simply because it's flashier, more dangerous and all, but once again, that doesn't mean it's better!
Power is the hardest to be creative and stylish in. (Ex. Windmills, Flares)
Freezes, I'm sure everyone knows what this is. It's getting into a pose and holding it for awhile. Once again, best if you can add in your own stuff. (Ex. Turtle, Baby Freeze)
Style is the most most most important part of dancing, not just bboying but DANCING. You have to be unique, you have to be creative, you have to have your own moves, all that is a part of style. Style isn't something that you can be great at right away. It takes ages of dancing to get to a point where you actually like your own style.
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Powerhead - Someone who does almost nothing but powermoves is often labelled as a powerhead, which is a bad thing. Powerheads are often looked down upon in the bboy community.
Although power is the most well known part of bboying, if you get into a battle and all you do is powermoves and you're battling against someone with good footwork and style, you will most probably lose, no matter how good your power is.
Bboying is a dance. If all you do is powermoves, you'll look more like a gymnast or acrobatic person or whatever instead of a dancer.
In the end it all comes down to personal preference. It is said that it's better to have a good balance of both power and footwork. However, I'm more of a footwork fan. So it's really up to you how you want to dance. But all footwork is always better than all power.
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This in an example of effing good toprocking and footwork. Bboy Born is amazing at that, hard to believe that he used to be a powerhead!
Another example of amazing footwork. Bboy Machine.
I highly suggest going to www.bboy.org. Sign up for the forums and read up as much as possible, bboy/hiphop history, tutorials and guides, tons of useful information there. Everything that I just typed is pretty much a basic-need-to-know thing about bboying, just a summary of what you will find in bboy.org, lots more stuff that you should know about to be found in the forums. There are also subforums for popping and locking.
-Tze
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