The Art of Breakdancing

Breakdancing is a form of street dancing that incorporates various skills and transforms them into an artistic dance that stretches your physical and mental limitations to the highest of what is humanly imaginable. Contrary to popular public belief, the art of breakdancing is not being able to do back flips and headspins. The stereotypical notion that you are known as a bboy or bgirl just because you can do headspins is a major misconception. Yes, headspins are part of a breakers dance, but he/she incorporates it into an artistic dance.

The art of breakdancing takes years to master, and even after you reach that level, there is still room for improvement. It takes sweat, pain, and literally blood, to learn breakdancing. Dedication is a must, as every time you fall out of a handstand or a freeze, you have to tell yourself to keep going through the pain. To become a true bboy/bgirl, you must be able to see the end product of all your hard work, every setback is a motivation for you to keep going. Even more, you cannot be afraid of pain, in the course of your practices and sessions, you are undoubtedly going to hurt yourself. I myself practiced the most basic handglide freeze for three months, developing bruises on my abdominals that hurt like crazy. But after all that practice, now I can hold the freeze forever, and that skill has carried over into other parts of my breakdancing ability. From flips to airflares, fear is something you have to overcome by yourself in a moment. You can practice on mats and such, but ultimately, you will still have to beat the fear out of yourself by practicing the move until you're not frightened anymore.

Being a bboy myself, I believe there are three major elements to breakdancing. Contrary to the majority, minimal strength is required for the dance with the exception of difficult freezes. As you learn moves and incorporate them into your dance, strength will carry over from other skills you learn, as well as the skills themselves. Balance is a must though, as most skills will require you to shift your balance around, or balance in one position for a significant amount of time. Branching off from balance is the ability to shift your momentum at precise moments. Certain moves will require more momentum and balance shifts which I will discuss later in the article. Coordination is a huge element of breakdancing during footwork and improvisational dances. It is known that the faster and cleaner your footwork looks, the better it looks, and that all stems from the ability to coordinate your movements at such a high pace.

A major use of balance and learned strength is in freezes. Freezes are where you balance yourself in a position that seems inhumanely possible for a significant amount of time. The most basic freeze is the handglide freeze, where one arm is stabbed into the side of your abdominal, and you are suspended above the ground with that stabbed arm. Typical freezes include the baby freeze, airbaby, hollowback, pikes, one handed handstand, and various kicks where you kick your leg up, balance yourself on one hand, and freeze in a stylish pose.

Power moves are everyone's' favorite as usually, it is seen as an impressive show of strength, balance, and ability to shift momentum very well. Typical powermoves are the windmill, flare, airflare, swipes, and 1990s, which all require an immense amount of skill to learn and to perform. A similar characteristic of all of them is that they all incorporate the same circular motion, twisting the torso and whipping the legs around that twisting motion.

Footwork incorporates top rock and down rock into the major element of style in breakdancing. Top rock is footwork done in an upright position, while down rock is footwork done in a crouching position on the floor. Coordination and agility are crucial to the execution of footwork, as every step counts. The most basic of footwork includes various styles of top rock, and the six step. Fluidity of the footwork is seen as a significant part of being a breaker, as if your footwork looks sloppy, people can only infer that if you don't have the basics down, the rest of your dance will probably be poorly executed as well. As you become a better bboy/bgirl, you will start to develop your own style of footworking, unique to only you. What makes you a true breaker is your innovativeness and your ability to transition from dance to dance. Not only does footworking become part of your dance, but your freezes, and your style of power moves. True breakers will make up their own crazy freezes, and change up their power moves so that it looks different from all the other unoriginal ones. Originality becomes a key element once everyone knows all the original moves. Once you get to this stage, you have to think of new things that make your dance your own art.

In this article, I quickly went over most of the moves. For those who do not know breakdancing lingo, or are interested, check out my other breakdancing article which involves in depth descriptions of the moves described in this article, pictures, transitions, battles, styles of breakdancing, and types of breakdancers.

So you want to be a breaker? Show me what you got.