Bboying – better known to some as breakdancing – is a style of dance that evolved from the street. Today it is just one part of a fascinating urban hip hop culture that includes other art forms like graffiti, MCing, DJing and more. The bboy community often holds crew battles to show off their skills, and that's when the.
An impromptu b-boying lesson at home after some Bulleit bourbon. Don’t drink and dance. It was 1984 and I was convinced I would be a professional breakdancer. Alas, I was seven years old, and I looked exactly like this reader who left a comment on my: Tim, I’m pretty impressed by your achievements in tango, but what about tips on your first love? B-boying is a sport I’ve watched and attempted for years.
Sadly, the minute I go from uprock to six-step I look like a two-year-old trying to find spilled jelly-beans. I don’t know what to do. Can you offer any tips on learning how to storm floors? Free No Limits Coaster Download. PS: on the Jones Soda. I don’t know much about tango, but I do know how hard b-boying is. I’m from Seattle and I’m damn proud.
I didn’t rediscover breakdancing (aka b-boying, not to be confused with or a la Michael Jackson) until 1997 when I found a few scattered videos of breakdancing online. I download horrible written instructions, crappy 10-second video clips, and resolved to learn how to do my favorite move––before college graduation. Death or windmills. Months of bruised hips and humiliation later, I was able to do them.
It was almost all guess work and took far too long. I’ve since found better methods for building on basics in a logical progression. In this post, I will teach you the basics of footwork. If you’ve ever dreamed of breakdancing (and who hasn’t?), this is enough to let you check it off the list – Six-step and six-step variations – Basic flourishes that take 2-10 minutes to learn – How to enter and exit footwork without looking like an idiot First, a brief demonstration of what is possible with a mediocre build for breaking. I am not a good breakdancer, and I’ve never claimed to be one, but I can do enough to use it for dramatic effect around untrained eyes. Assuming you have semi-healthy joints, you can learn how to do the following in 1-2 weeks, and I’ll teach you most of it in the next 10 minutes.
This was on-the-spot, in dress shoes, at a conference after months of no practice, which goes to show how simple the moves really are: Onward to How to Breakdance 101. I cut off my head, as the feet are more important: This is enough to make an impression around non-b-boys. Keep in mind that I now b-boy perhaps three times a year, and only for a few minutes at a time. These moves are not hard on the joints and will stay with you. Some other rules of thumb: 1) Thou shalt not break drunk or buzzed. Joints don’t like it. 2) Thou shalt not break on surfaces that might have spilled drinks.
Ditto for joints and foreheads. 3) Thou shalt bring a second t-shirt if they plan on not being a sweaty bastard around others.
4) Thou shalt not break in public until reviewing video of themselves. Self-monitoring while breaking is not accurate. Mediocre breakdancing is more of a liability than no breakdancing. Take a few days to get the basics down before showcasing. It’s a great and unusual world to explore. Here’s how the pros do it–take the time to watch this one.
Tim this post is so money. I started toying with break last year in the same way – poor vids & step-by-steps. Bruised hips and humiliation? Check, check. Windmills were the holy grail and every hint of progress felt like a lifetime achievement. Classic line. “Mediocre breakdancing is more of a liability than no breakdancing.” Sometimes it’s fun (albeit a bit dick) to go to clubs and covertly orchestrate a break circle, then watch everyone look around until they realize there’s no actual b-boys in the room.
Nice work Tim! 3 tips to take to you to the next level. Keep your all your steps small, esp. Your toprocking, it will make everything look neater and faster. Stay on your toes the whole time, toprocking and footwork. Esp for your “flourishes” at the front, don’t extend your weight too far, keep it right under your hips.
Have somewhere for your hands to go when they leave the ground when you do footwork, so they don’t flail in the air. Touching your hip or head are good places to start Great tip on the hands, some people use there fingetips if they lack the flexibility but it it’s risky. And you sped up jumping six step is called a three step. All the best, nice work!!
Kool Keith Like. “Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect.” -Esa-Pekka Salonen Hey Tim, If you can walk, you can dance. Music isn’t a separate object but the juice that energizes and flows through our body.
Sitting motionless while music is playing is like only listening to movies without watching. You only get half the effect. Like you, I’ve always been infatuated with b-boying. I have a few amateur-looking moves under my belt, and bust them out occasionally in public for some mood-lifting.
These videos are awesome and exactly what I need: quick and effective methods to improve my moves without dedicating many hours to become a pro or something. Thanks as always for your amazing 80-20-style resources, Oleg Like. Hello Tim I am 31 and have been labor work 9-5 for all my live and the other day i came across your book at the library it was intersting so i took it home. Thinking about the universty students experiment where you told to to cantact at least three celebarty and have them answar 3 questions. I decided why not contact Tim himself about this idea that was Burning me.
It’s about selling informational product, internet or tv. And i bleive it’s a great idea. I know you’re a busy man but would approciate if you would help me or mentore me on this one. Thanks Bounes Like. Very good way to break down the six / three step.
I would LOVE to see a how to video on your mills. What I found with successful b-boying is start strong and end strong for your set and make SURE it is clean. If it fizzles at the end, you fumble over a move, or don’t stick a freeze it will totally disappoint.
I love your take on movement analysis and deconstructing, you really should do short videos on the different power moves with b-boying. Download The Secret Of Kells Soundtracks more. It would probably make it a lot safer for those of us who just huck it and hope all goes well. You should take a look at different interviews and videos on b-boy Krazy Kujo, he is incredible at deconstructing power moves and learning safer ways of executing power moves and flips. (After a failed attempt to land in the plank position from a front flip, he slammed his face on the ground so hard it caused him to lose his eyesight for a day pretty commited) Like.
While dancing, do you reflexively come up in a guard position? See “101 part 2” at around 1:30 for one example, if I’m not misinterpreting your movement.
That habit will pay dividends the next time ninjas attack while you’re break dancing 😉 I also thought of Capoeira while watching your demonstration. Also at moments Bagua and perhaps another Chinese/Indonesian art during (what looked like) some nice triangle steps. But sometimes it’s hard to tell where a cross-influence exists and where the human form is just the human form, and so it tends toward certain patterns of movement.
I must say Tim, your two instructional videos had more logic in it than most of the DVD’s I bought and the barrage of questions to the local breakers in the beginning years of me trying to be a professional bboy and compete in one of the “Battle of the Year’s” in Germany. But that was almost 10 years ago. My skills have, fumbled a little since my journey.
Now, stalls and power moves have taken over, as well as Korea coming up representing bboys worldwide. I love the fact that you still continue dancing for passion’s sake and that helps to shake things up on my end too. One DVD that might help people that I got a while ago was “Breakdance Step-By-Step.” I watched that the most, other than both “Breakin'” movies and “Beatstreet.” Talk about old-school. My co-worker was reading your blog and emailed this to me last night. I’d bet money you are the best breakdancer to grace the new york times best seller list, and the best one at the nielsen conference as well. I’ve been breaking since 2003 and I’m inspired to see a respected authority proudly repping their bboy style. I saw your videos, they were a great jumping off point and I enjoyed them.
Tim with your permission I also wanted to offer your readers further breakin’ education our site as a resource. We have plenty of free video previews to learn from even if you aren’t interested in buying any dvds. You can specifically learn how to Break here; You can learn other styles, like Popping, Rave dance, or Club dance here: Hope the free videos previews help you guys take it to the next level. I say we form a new crew, “BBoy Bloggers United”, anyone want in? We’ll dominate at the next wordpress convention 🙂 Like.
Fascinating post. I am not a fan of anything, though, that can cause injury to the brain. You have seen the recent publicity on football head injuries. I would just think holding your breath that long would have to be hard on the brain. It almost reminds of the choking game that kids play. I am very impressed with David Blaine, I love his magic tricks, his early TV specials were incredible, and I have lamented the fact he has put so much of his energy into these feats of body endurance in recent years.
Freezing himself in ice for days, etc. Remember Houdini died after letting himself be repeatedly hit in the stomach. @matty G ‘EES busy with a badass book on fitness that I really, REALLYREALLY want to be a part of! @ Tim Ferris Timmay!
Any plans to “Tim Ferris” standup comedy? I’m a comedian, and success takes a longgg time. A lot of people do it 2-3 years before they even get PAID. I’m sure you could smash that. “I don’t want to be seen in the public eye as a comedian.” Well, you could keep a low profile by rejecting television gigs and just quit right after you achieve a goallike “Get offered $10,000 for one gig.” Like. Tim, just letting you know if you’re ever in Knoxville, TN, cover and a few drinks are on me if you want to dance at my club.
I’m the crew leader of Club Level 10’s breakdance performers. We have 5 to 10 bboys every weekend.
We’ve got a stage and a great lightshow. You’ve got some good moves. I know you can afford and find much better coaches than me, but if you want to learn any power moves (which are kinda my thing), stop by and I’ll do my best to show you some stuff you can use, cause I can tell you’ve got the athleticism for it.
My real job is as a personal trainer, so I can usually get you going on technique for windmills and flares and stuff in no time. Keep breakdancing.
Liked your book btw. Jared, You really don’t need a specific physique to do it, but that’s not to say it doesn’t help. I’m about 5’5″ and built like a typical Asian (despite being white). No doubt Koreans dominate the power scene, but I’ve seen plenty of tall guys do flares and harder moves. I think with most power moves, a requisite is failing a couple hundred times until you get that one rotation. Then fail trying to get two for a couple hundred times. When you get two, you’ve got the move and it’s just a matter of practice.
Go to a gymnastics place and use mushrooms or other special training equipment that they have for pommel horse and parallel bar flares, then take it to the floor. It’s nice to see video of you breaking. After you made the mention of creating break circles by lying on the dance floor in 4HWW, I wondered how much training you had. I’d like to see what your powermoves look like, but you definitely have a lot of style.
Breaking and parkour are at the top of my To Do category on my dreamline. I’ve only been doing it for about a year, but I’m up to about 5 rotations with both my windmills and headspins. I’d like to go study it in France as soon as I graduate college and get my muse worked out. Hiyafound ur site while researching for my speech class. Had to be something that i’m passionate about and can explain to the class.
Googled – how to break and found you. Not too shabby really. U break the 6step down pretty good. I can agree with ur standard rules except for #4.
Don’t be scaredjust bust what u got. Peeps are around to criticize which helps.
Also the adrenaline helps kick things up a notch. Coming from my small town of pc bch flall we have is club lavela. Not exactly prime breakin areabut it helped us out. U either have a love for it and just go with the flow – or u stand on the side lines wishin someone will push u out. Take that leap wether ur good or not – i love to see people try and help them to learn while in the process.
Keep it going! Hi Tim Since I’m a fellow bboy entrepreneur and my life is now FREE working a job thanks to your 4 Hour Work Week book, I thought I had to share this with you. I noticed you posted the Red Bull BC One clip on your blog.
BUT DID YOU KNOW THIS? There’s a bboy that looks IDENTICAL to you and was in the finals of the 2010 Red Bull BC One battle against Neguin! The bboy, who looks like you, or should I say, IS you, is called Just Do It.
He’s from Holland. Here’s a clip of him: When I watched the battle, I swear I was watching you! Seriously, check it out!
He looks like you in every aspect! I nearly pooed my pants! I was like “OMFG Tim Ferris in the Red Bull BC One finals”! Hey Tim It’s amazing how much you have changed my life! My name is Jackson “I CAN airflare” Lin, here’s a clip of me doing some airflares: In 2007 I came across your book, the 4 Hour Work Week.
It got my attention because: 1. You were a bboy. You were not working a dead end loser job, like most bboys.
You went to breakdance in Taiwan (my parents are Taiwanese). You hated your job and your bosses too. I was like wow, this Tim Ferris guy must be my long lost brother! We had so much in common! After listening to your 4 Hour Work Week audiobook like 5 times this is what happened after. In 2008, I started looking for the “Muse” to fund my life.
I tried a lot of things ranging from MLM to options trading But they weren’t what I was looking for So I looked towards internet marketing, because you mentioned about making money through the internet in your book. Which led me to find Mark Ling at the end of 2008, and affiliate marketing.
Fast forward to 2010. Now I have a muse making me more passive income than my friends working as lawyers full time! It’s AMAZING how much things have changed. Your book was the starting point that changed everything for me. In fact, I even blog about how your book affected my life on my internet marketing blog: Seriously, we should start up a bboy crew “The 4 Hour Work Week Bboys”.
We’d be AWESOME! We’ll go and battle our previous employers and totally serve them! Bboying is not a sport, not an acrobatic practice like a circus it’s a Dance and a Lyfestyle. It’s the only dance of Hip Hop culture, it’s one of the 4 elements of HipHop: mcing, writing, djing and breaking. Now people, please, learn that is not a collection of trendy moves that you can show to your friends and girls at the next party after watching 2o 3 videoslearn that is required time and will to learn this dance.
Learn that is about knowing yourself through self-expression, expression of your personality and emotions through one of the most amazing dance in the world. Learn that one has to learn first the basic and the foundations like every field of knowledge in human things. So i decide to post this video for you who are truly interested: This is the only dvd made up with knowledge, passion and very good tutorials “This is a dance” means the connection between music and the dancer, it’s not about kicking in the air some strange and aggressive moves =) Like. Hello Tim, I like “The concept of mini-retirements is introduced,” Everything is worth being at least figuratively investigated, but Don-Quixote excluded possibly. I don’t like institutional “Knattern am Wind” loss sailing close to the wind, you know well everything missing professionality and cognitive adequacy should be adapted. I like striking sail – then the work I imagine – whenever such a case should become feat obvious (here I refer to mere hermetics alike). Possibly even if you warn, and not seduce or irritate others like you seem to point to a fact with your mini week – even in this case against Knattern am Wind all should play the trumpet to the best possible extent, try hard to play a recognizable, loud bobby harmony (here I refer to officials as well) and think again about respective well known.
I recognized your ideas however and agree to the – good – concept above Like.
There are very few movies coming out of NZ that are memorable at all, and stumbling upon such a gem is quite a rarity! I rarely take time to write reviews, but I felt that this movies deserves one:) There is hardly any fault in this movie from direction and acting perspective, although I have to reckon I have never heard of anyone from the main movie credits. Combining unknown actors with a very simple script is a recipe for disaster, in general,BUT not in this film. I think the charm of the movie comes from kids that are playing their roles just perfect:innocent but responsible when need it.
The last scene of the movie makes you feel that you've just experienced something unique that comes on the screen once in 10 years! If you manage to get the DVD, invite some friends over and have an '80 night at the movies: all of them they'll feel happy at the end!