How to get started

Breakdancingking02 · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 4

EYYYYYY. WHAT UP BBOYZZZZ? I just registered on your forums, ill be here forever. Haha Ill get some pics up soon if you are lucky.

BBoy riPHt · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Chicago/Boston

Welcome to the forums, Breakdancingking02!

Breakdancingking02 · Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 4

pr · Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 1011 Location: Göteborg, Sweden

Welcome Breakdancingking02!!! :D WOW! :shock: Some cool tricks going on... :D

Crosse · Joined: 27 Oct 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Mississauga, Canada

you should really make a new post and sticky it...ive been trying out the turtle...AND BOY DO I NEED SOME EXERCISE! cuz i cant even lift myself off the damn ground!

BGhost · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 2

First you must have some upper body streanth
2nd you must be extremly dedicated...prepare to fall...be injured...
3rd you must decide either going
full power
elastic
or mixin..normaly elastic bboys go mixin...couse power will take to much time
4th dont pay for lessons...go to parks or streets....there are always bboys on those places
crosse: you must have a good upper body
have good abs and a good back thats the most necesary couse that holds your body...
the legs areent so necesary but if u want to flare youle need leg streanth...
Breakdancingking02
those 2 pics are freerunning not breakdance

BBoy riPHt · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Chicago/Boston

If you're working on freezes, it's not so much raw strength as it is focus. For the turtle especially, as long as you can focus your weight through your forearms onto your hands, you don't need much strength. Think of it like this: if you're just standing, you're not using a lot of strength, the weight is just being put on the bone instead of the muscle. It's the same for most freezes. Building muscle is definitely necessary for getting creative with the freezes, but that will come with time.

bboy_breathless · Joined: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 3

Yo ppls, im bboy_breathless, nice to meet y'all (as americans would say)

Ive been bboying for about 8 months now, and have improved greatly though not nearly enough as i would have liked.

I have my version of an introduction to breakdancing (which i have gathered information from many bboys in forums and on youtube), which is different to bboy Ripht's (note im not saying he is wrong, i just have different terms and different meanings).

Breakdancing is an old term for this form of dance, nowandays, people call it "bboying" or bgirling" (right now ill stick to bboying as im a guy myself), however i just use which ever as it doesnt make too much of a difference to me.

Bbyoing is about toprock, uprock, footwork, freezes, powermoves and style. Lacking any of the mentioned and that could lose you a bboy battle (when its being properly judged of course).

Things needed before you start -

++strong triceps (the muscles underneath you upper arm, the muscle that work for you when you push away from yourself) pressups (hands at slightly wider than shoulder width will suffice, and do an amount thatll get you to your limit, you wont improve your strength otherwise)

++strong abs, situps (knees bent and feet NOT under something to weight you down, this puts pressure on your legs to lift your torso up not your abs)

++ And later on, a strong back to do more harder moves and powermoves.

++ In some cases, flexiblity - important if you want your airchairs to be impressive when you pike them (bringing your legs close to your body). touching your toes for as long as you can bare is a good way to start, i for one touch my toes for as long as i brush my teeth, which is for one or two minutes and it helps keep my mind off of the pain =)

++ Determination and Dedication - The most important things of all, without these you wont be bothered to practise practise practise.

Toprocking is basically dancing on your feet, doing certain moves and maybe expanding on that with your own style.

uprocking is when you challenge another bboy, you might see it in clips, when one bboy steps up to another one and sort of shuffles his feet and moves down at the same time? Sometimes bboys "stab" their opponent with an imaginary knife motion for some odd reason.

Footwork or downrock are all the moves you do on the ground, 6 step, 3 step etc, its an essential elements that links you moves together.

Freezes are basically holding a certain position, the most basic is baby freeze, the hardest is proberbly a piked airchair, hollowback or a "hong10" freeze (created by the absolutly bloody amazing bboy Hong10), they are a great way to show off your strength and to end sets. I am sure that blow-ups are associated with freezes but im not sure how, ill look further into this and explain in future posts.

Powermoves are gymnastic type moves, flares, airtracks, windmills etc and all their variations, it requires a lot of strength and dedication to get that strength to incorporate powermoves into your sets but it is well worth it.

Tricks are things like flips, and one handed handstands and stuff like that.

A very good site for learning moves is, surprisingly enough, www.youtube.com
=), if you read the comments as well you can learn alot, as i have done,
things extremly worth typing into the seach bar -

for all round goodness - "hong10" "bboy joe" (hong10 from drifters and joe from last for one)
for tricking and strength - "darkness" or "junior" (darkness from gamblers and junior from the french crew wanted)
for strength - "baek"
for footwork and toprocking - "born" (from rivers)
for powermoves - "bruce lee" "the end" (both from gamblers)

Links to basic moves:

6-step
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it1-uJVpzSw
yesyes its in korean but there are subtitles, ive found that this is the best guide

4 step, 5 step, 7 step and sweep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPFu9pgWiRI&mode=related&search=

This has not got subtitles but seriously, just use some common sense and follow his steps, you dont need subtitles for this, if i can learn six step from this dude (bboy still from the korean crew Gambler) then so can you lot oh and it might be useful to forward to the end (once its loaded) to get a replay of the move being done fully just so you know what it looks like.

And basically, if you scroll down a little bit after youve clicked on the url, there will be a list of other vids from the same uploader aznpwr99, use them to furthur your move list, some of them require a lot of strength to do so as beginniners dont even bother unless you can lift your own weight a decent number of times. All Gamblers guides may not be there so click on aznpwr99's profile and look through his videos until you can get to them.

I will be uploading pictures soon, not so sure about vids as i dont have certain sets worked out yet and i run out of breath very quickly so its embaressing (hence my bboy name)

BBoy riPHt wrote: If you're working on freezes, it's not so much raw strength as it is focus. For the turtle especially, as long as you can focus your weight through your forearms onto your hands, you don't need much strength. Think of it like this: if you're just standing, you're not using a lot of strength, the weight is just being put on the bone instead of the muscle. It's the same for most freezes. Building muscle is definitely necessary for getting creative with the freezes, but that will come with time.

mmm im not so sure, i think you do need raw strength for freezes, ive been breakdancing roughly for about 8 months now and im left handed so ive always used my left hand for freezes, but lately ive been trying out baby freeze for the first time with my right, and i can tell u now, i can focus all i want but i just dont have the necerssary strength to keep my body up longer than 10 seconds.

Damn this post is long lol...

pr · Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 1011 Location: Göteborg, Sweden

Welcome bboy_breathless! :D

BBoy riPHt · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Chicago/Boston

Welcome to DF!

In response to what you said, I agree, there's a certain amount of strength needed in most breaking, I agree. What I meant to imply was that it's not like you're lifting 180 pounds (yes, I'm quite fat :D) with one hand.

Props for a well-organized post, however!

Crosse · Joined: 27 Oct 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Mississauga, Canada

hey! havent been on lately cause of school and stuff graduating this year and all so I havent really gotten the time to even go in the computer BBoy riPHt thanks for the advice about the turtle, its way easier to handle its cuz last time i was actually pushing myself instead of my what you said xD

BBoy riPHt · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Chicago/Boston

Glad to be of help! I'm dealing with a bunch of school issues (I'm in lab 21 hours a week this quarter), so I feel you there. One thing I found recently: When trying inverted airchairs, it helped me to both turn my hand so my fingers were pointing down at my feet, and to make my contact point towards the outside edge of my torso as opposed to the center.

Crosse · Joined: 27 Oct 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Mississauga, Canada

I realised I have no flow when doing the standing six step, any suggestions?

BBoy riPHt · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Chicago/Boston

Hmm. There's no easy way to get flow, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

-Keep your head and torso up when you do it
-Keep moving your arms around
-Kick your heels up after each step (bending up at the knees)

Give me a while and I'll get a complete tutorial vid up of all the toprock I can remember.