THE BREAKOFF | WRITE UP

Just got done eating dinner and watching the NHL Hockey playoffs. My team, the Washington Capitals, managed to take a 3-1 series lead, only to blow that lead and lose in game 7. Yeah, talk about choke. I'm sick of cheering for teams that choke during the playoffs: Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Braves, and the Washington Capitals. They all collapse during the playoffs regardless of years. What the hell. It gets me wondering, however: is there a b-boy equivalent? Like is there a dancer or crew that always gets to the semi's or finals, but can never win the big one? The only crew that comes to my mind is Maximum Crew in Korea. Poor guys always reach the finals, but either lose to Jinjo, Rivers, Gamblerz, and most recently losing to Ground Scratch in the Jeonju finals.

A'ight, let's get started with what happened this past weekend.


JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Over the weekend, I took a one hour drive to Baltimore for The Breakoff dance event, held at Johns Hopkins University. For those that don't know much about the university, it is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, especially its medical school. I came close to auditioning for the Johns Hopkins Peabody School of Music few years ago, too.

I've been to a couple university b-boy jams before, and they're either a hit or miss. It's cool that so many students come, many whom have never seen a b-boy/b-girl live. Students come under the impression a real dance jam resembles that B2K movie, or Step Up, or Honey. It has been great to see their facial expressions change when they see someone like Kmel or Toyz dance in person. I wonder if new spectators ever think, "Wow, none of these dancers have alcohol issues or racial girlfriend problems. Hmm...I wonder if they practice outside in the rain, on a basketball court?"

Because of a lot of the spectators at university jams are non-dancers, it is always difficult balancing an event for the dancer & non-dancer crowd. A stereotype complaint is that non-dancers cheer for wack things, e.g. cheer for a gainer, or l-kick, or windmills, and they don't cheer for footwork. Yeah, I don't buy that. If a move or set is extraordinary, anyone would cheer for it. But as these b-boy events get more exposure, many of us, especially dancers, see a lot of repetition of moves, thus getting the "dead crowd" effect. Point being, if the moves are dynamic, anyone would cheer. If they are repetitive and without emotion, then you would hear silence.

The Breakoff was an invited 1v1 competition, where 12 invitees compete against challengers. Think of it like a mini-Monster Jam, or a BCOne. The event's setup was really nice, in my opinion. In its third year, the organizers received money from Johns Hopkins University to sponsor some nice dancers to come, including Dyzee, Ekcite, Gravity, Napalm, Kelvyn, and even bgirl Shie-Chan from Japan. Most of the university's money was used to sponsor dancers, thus the small $500 prize money. But that did not detract from the level of competition, because...well, see for yourself below. The level of talent at this event compared well with many of the Korean jams I've been to.

My favorite battle was Gravity vs Kelvyn, in the Top 12.
Don't sleep on this, there are great dancers everywhere





I spent the past three days editing up the battles, coverages, and extra features. And posted above is my final product. Check that out: a DVD-menu style interface for an entire event! I essentially created an event DVD over the weekend. How baller is that?!

MisLee originally came up with the idea, about a month ago, of using annotations to create a menu style system for our videos. It definitely organizes our Strife videos better, and best of all...it looks cool. Viewers can also see the progression of the battles, with brackets, which I find visually helpful. The future of videos are definitely going to be organized with these "virtual" DVD-style menus. Think about it: an online DVD! Why bother waiting to buy physical copies when one can get all of this instantly? Of course, the downside is that you cannot make any money doing this, mainly b/c of the music copyright issues regarding breakbeats. Yeah...gotta figure that problem out. But in the meantime, enjoy our Strife DVD menu system.





THINGS OVERHEARD
"Is the ambulance here, yet?"
--Ben Frison, organizer of The Breakoff, talking about Napalm's injury. Napalm injured himself during his first set. It is sad to hear something like this happen to a dancer like Napalm. Observing him before the jam, he has an almost Rocky-like way of warming up for dance competitions: brings own jumprope, stretches for 30+ minutes, and does more cardio. Lesson of the day: even a dancer in the best physical condition can get injured (which sucks). Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

"You guys need to understand the level of sickness we have here. This battle is going to be reeeediculous."
My boy Peter aka Wonderyearz who was the MC for the night, talking about the Gravity vs Kelvyn battle. I think you are a cool guy, an MC with the best of intentions, but don't ever say those lines again to a student crowd, haha. Go easy on the slang. Most of us grew up in the suburbs in our mama's house.

"I think chances are good, because I'm a Vietnamese guy, and I'm pretty attracted to him."
Atomic Goofball, talking about Domkey's chances with a Vietnamese girl. Apparently Goofball has no problems discussing his sexuality. Kudos to him.

"Alright, First round...b-girl Maresco vs Napalm."
--MC Wonderyearz
"WHAT?!?!?!!!"
--b-girl Maresco's response
Haha, you could not find a more uneven match up than Maresco vs Napalm. So you got a style b-girl, who claims she cannot do inverts, versus one of the best power b-boys in the scene. Maresco lucked out here, however, due to a mix up, and battled Toyz instead.

"Underground Legion coming at you!"
--b-boy Hannibal
Apparently I just witnessed the formation of a new super crew called Underground Legion. As far as I know, it is comprised of D.C. and Philadelphia cats, with Toyz, Hannibal, Domkey, and others.


MOST AMUSING COMMENT OUR YOUTUBE PAGE
domkey n his dudes were mad foolish as always having fun while...
gravity n his dudes were like "I wanna kill yo ass" lol
jus found the difference really funny thats all. lol
--ienjoymodels (talking about Domkey vs Gravity)


THINGS THAT I THINK
--Korean BBQ with soju is the best post-dance jam meal. I have yet to find another better combination of foods. FYI, pancakes and all that stuff you find at Denny's/IHOP pale in comparison to Korean food. Also, as another comparison, DJ Skeme Richards, who loves hamburgers more than Ronald McDonald, prefers to eat Korean BBQ when he's in Korea.

--However great Korean BBQ is, $13 for one bottle of soju is highway robbery. Whereas it costs only $2 dollars in Korea for a bottle of Jinro Soju, it is $13 dollars Baltimore. Economics be damned.

--Many people got their first glimsp at KBE's b-boying in our latest Coverage video. We practiced together at the T.I.P. studio many times last year. Mad love for b-boy Virus and Differ.

--I still enjoy watching Isaiah dance. Guy is mad original with his flexibility moves. I still say promoters around the world should fly him out.

--What's with spam bots on Facebook trying to add me? There is like an implosion of fake accounts recently. Some have been people posing as black students who say they know me from high school. And I'm there thinking, "DUDE...I went to high school in South Dakota. There were no black students. Don't lie."

--So I was listening to NPR radio and suddenly I started hearing The Mexican play. Here is the full National Public Radio article on breakbeats. While many of these songs we already know, it is cool for such a big media station like NPR to promote our music.




We made a video dedicated to one of our friends, b-boy Domkey. The idea of this video came from my observations in that, during the past 6 months, Domkey has been regularly changing his Facebook status to "<3 Single". There was one month when he did this about five, six times a week. Haha, I found it quite amusing, as well as his Lionz of Zion friends. So out of curiosity of him being a hopeless romantic, we asked different people of different ethnicities to see if Domkey has a chance with their female counterparts. Oh, and also, I noticed there have been lots of dudes adding Domkey on Facebook, many whom he has never met in person. Doesn't that get weird sometimes? Especially if you add someone and never attempt to talk to them, either? When did Facebook turn into Myspace? I stopped adding people I've never met on Facebook ever since learning companies phish our Facebooks for job interview recommendations.

One thing the video spotlighted, however, was his craziness over Asian girls. Some guys are like that, I suppose. I'm trying to convince him to move to Korea, where he can bboy and socialize with millions of Asian fangirls.

Domkey was a good sport and allowed us at Strife to make a fun video with him. I think it was quite deserving, since he was the star of a previous video where he took Goofball's girl.

note: many of these fun videos we do are made with the deepest respect & consideration with the dancers. We ask for permission first, giving the exact details of what we will do. While our videos may seem spontaneous and random, we do plan our videos out with the interviewed bboys.



SONG OF THE DAY:
I love this cover of the Frankie Vialli song
If the Backstreet Boys sang this song, I'd like it, too

The Saturdays - Beggin' (cover)