I'm in Japan for a vacation now and finally got back to my computer. Luckily, all the battle clips from the ESS 4 is up. Thus, I want to post it here!!!
Before reading,,,,, My objective here is to write my personal thoughts about this internationally recognized event. I'm stating what I honestly thought, however, I don't have any intention to disrespect anyone. Therefore, I sincerely apologize if there are any statements that offends anyone. All comments that is directed towards my thoughts are welcomed. PLEASE DO NOT POST COMMENT TO DISRESPECT DANCERS/ORGANIZERS.
Juste Debout (JD) is no doubt one of the most recognized and credited Street Dance Competition in the world. The event attract dancers from across the world by hosting regional events across several countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. There are five categories, Hip Hop, House, Locking, Popping, and Toprock. The battle is done in 2 on 2 and the winner of each categories will earn the opportunity to attend the main event in Paris, France.
Since 2011, JD's regional event began to take place in the U.S and Canada. In 2011 it took place in Brooklyn, NY, and in 2012, Montreal, Canada.
This was my third regional JD. Compare to the past two events, JD New York 2013 had a totally different feeling.
Lets compare.
Location
In both 2011, 12, the location was huge. The past events were hosted at a warehouse and a gymnasium. I personally didn't like the warehouse in Brooklyn due to its location and the condition of the warehouse. The floor and the bathroom was just a mess.
The gymnasium was great. It was clean and there were a lot of room for dancers to rest, eat, and have cyphers.
It also had raise up benches on the side so that people can sit and enjoy the battle.
Compare to the past two, this year's location, Santos Party House, had the best atmosphere.
The Lighting, Sound System, Beverage, Food, DJ, and the people were great!
BUT
1. It was too small....
It was so crowded that I felt like I was riding a morning rush hour subway to the city :(
That, was a total turn off.
And this even effected the competitors. The floor that dancers had to dance in was so small. I mean look at the pictures and compare the size of the floor space.
The club environment was great. But it was way too small. People had hard time dancing and watching the battles. They did have a projector that lived the battle on the big screen, but WHO WANTS TO SEE THAT WHEN THE ACTUAL BATTLE IS HAPPENING IN FRONT OF THEM???
2. Locking us in
WAS NOT COOL
Until the last couple hours of the event, the dancers were locked inside the venue. You can get out, but to get back in, you have to pay $40, which was the price of the ticket for the event.
This was ridiculous.
I mean the place was packed with people and it was hot. Of course people will get exhausted and will need food and beverages. But no. They offered food inside the venue and for it to be sold out (I assume), they cut our access to stores around the venue. Good for them. But think about the us.
For this reason, although the location had a the best atmosphere, it sure made us have a bad experience.
People/Dancers
Ok, on this section, I will focus on POPPINGONLY because that is the style that I know best for now.
The dancers/poppers that attended the event were great.
On 2011, most of the poppers were from the east coast U.S or Canada. The only crew to attend the battle from the west was Machine Gone Funk.
On 2012, most of the poppers were from Canada. I can surely say that about 80% were from Canada.
This year, we saw people from various locations. Let me name some recognizable poppers who attended the event.
Monsta Pop & Venom (Symbiotic Monsters), Canada
Jrock & Popula (Animated Beat Mechanics), LA and Indiana
Breeze Lee & Ms. Funk (Versa Style), LA
Jon Boogs & Jonh Doe (Soulbotiks Crew and Control Freakz), Texas and Miami
Dnoi & Soul (Soulbotiks Crew and Ill Minded Stylez), ? and Detroit
On top of those names, we had large attendance from the east coast and Canada popping community as well, making Popping categorie to have the most competitors on this event.
Therefore, the quality of the dancers were great :)
I personally enjoyed meeting new dancers and reuniting with many of my friends. Having many friends at an event is awesome :) Everywhere I went, I saw faces that I recognized or haven seen in a while.
Now HAVING SUCH ATTENDEES SURELY WOULD MAKE A GREAT BATTLE! Yes, it does, but there is one more fact that you can not miss out. The Judges.
Judges/Battles
Judges play a HUGE ROLE in making an event awesome.
JD have four judges from each category (Hip Hop, House, Locking, Popping) to Judge the competition. Toprock is the only category that has a single judge for it's style of dance.
Some people have mixed feeling about this Juge system because not all the judges practice all these four styles. In fact, most of them don't. Therefore, it may not be as accurate than it should be.
But for the past two event, they had a epic battle that typed the crowd like crazy!
In 2011, the Popping final battle had Machine Gone Funk against Assassins. You can see from the crowd reaction that it was amazing. And yes, I enjoyed this battle a lot.
In 2012, the Semi-Final had Symbiotic Monsters against Namco & Boombeast. Watch it and you'll know how hyped we were lol
This year, by the looks of the name that appeared on the event, I assumed that it would have epic battles of the night like the above that I can still picture in my head how awesome it was.
However, this year was different. I don't have any battle that I can recall as epic as the two above.
The battle that gives you chill and make you think "damn how the f did they get to this point? like how do they dance so awesome???" didn't happen.
Why?
I think because this was the year that the politics in the game revealed itself the most.
This doesn't mean that I disagree with the winner of the event. Symbiotic Monsters definitely deserves to go to Paris to represent the U.S. They were on the next level.
However, the selection of Top 8 and couple battles that occurred that night was questionable.
Reason 1:
I think the winner should have been Jrock & Popula.
Now some of you know that I've been hanging out with Jrock & Popula, and they've been really good to me. But that does nothing to do with my opinion.
I've fought against Breeze Lee before and got toasted really hard and learned a valuable lesson. I havent met him since than but I have huge respect for the guy.
So there is no dislike on which sides. With that in mind, let me break my opinion down.
1. Synchronisation
When I see 2 on 2 battles, I see them as ONE CREW and not two individual. Thus, having a synchronized vibe, feeling, get down is vital in battling 2 on 2. If you see the footage above, I see ABM vibing off each other really well. They are battling as a crew. In contrast, Versa Style goes out to the floor individually while the other wait rooting when he/she does a cool move. From this perspective, I think ABM has advantage over Versa Style.
2. Level of the rounds
Synchronisation IS important. But the level of individual round needs to be taking in account as well. This is because their rounds sums up the average level of rounds of a crew. This means that when battling 2 on 2, a partner shouldn't outshine the partner, but vibe off with an equal level of dance to have a balance that shows how the two is connected as a crew during the battle.
There are cases where the one of the opponent comes out really hard and you have to out match that. But on this battle, I think that Breeze Lee had an awesome round that was on the next level compared to Ms. Funk.
In contrast, Jrock and Popula both had a solid high quality rounds without showing much of a skill difference between the two.
For these reasons, I think ABM won. But they did not.
Another battle that I thought similarly was a battle between ATN & C-Pop VS John Lock & Katalyst. ATN & C-Pop are two top poppers in Canada. They are young but very fierce and hungry, and surely proved their skill on the cyphers.
But on the battle, C-Pop didn't have a solid round. Instead, John Lock & Katalyst showed a equally high quality rounds.
There is not footage of them yet, but I thought that was a questionable judgment as well.
Last but not least, on Top 8, Dnoi & Soul was not selected.
From my perspective, the two have higher skill level than most of the poppers that was selected. Honestly, this was a wrong choies.
For these reasons, I think the crowd lacked in getting hyped compare to the past two events. Given such atmosphere, they were missing out on the opportunities for us to be hyped.
I mean lets assumed that ABM won, and Soul & Dnoi were selected.
We could've potentially saw Symbiotic Monsters VS Soul & Dnoi on Top 8 and ABM VS Symbiotic Monsters (I WAS VERY LOOKING FORWARD FOR THIS SCENARIO) or ABM VS Soul & Dnoi!!!
Now that, would've been a battle of the night :))))
In conclusion, the event was ok over all. Given the fact that it is one of the most recognized international Street Dance Competition? It should've been much better.
But I had fun that night :)
And I thank the people who is TAKING ACTION to make this HAPPEN. I'm just stating this but doing nothing. But they actually DO IT. Now thats a BIG DIFFERENCE. Huge props and respect to the organizers.
And to all the winners of JD NY 2013, GOOD LUCK AND REPRESENT US HAAAAAAARRRRRDDD!!!!!!
You guys either STEP UP OR GET SMOKED!!!
Sincere thank you for people who read it all the way through.
Peace and God Bless.
P.S This is my prelim with ilya :) there is also Jon Boogs, John Doe, and our good friend David Castro! Check it out!
LA welcomed us with the brightest weather on the second day.
This was the first time I saw LA in bright day light. I realized how HUGE this place was and surprisingly the atmosphere and the environment surrounding us felt warmer compare to NY which is dark and dim lol
Our day started by going to UMAMI Barger for brunch.
Umami "旨味" is Japanese. It means delicious taste so I knew I'm gonna have great food to start the day off!
The wall was full of interesting Japanese poem that insisted how you can find a great new dish. As I was reading it, the waiter approached me. He looked part Asian so I assumed he knew the meaning of the poem.....
Waiter "You know what that saids?"
Me "Yea, its pretty unique and interesting"
Waiter "oh yea? What does it say?"
-____________-
Come on man. I thought you guys put that up because it means something special for you to work there lol
So I translated the poem for him and he was happy, saying that thats what Umami Barger is (well yea I can guess thats why its on the wall....)
Hungry dogg.....lol
UMAMI Barger
The burger was in fact "うまい(delicious)". It had a great combination of crunchy and juicy mixed inside a soft bun. Hmmmm making me hungry right now LMAO
After brunch, we went to Hollywood Boulevard! Saw this many times on movies so I was excited :)
Street Robot was better than the East....lol
YEAAA FINALLY HERE!!!
Michael's hands and feet were smaller than I thought.
King Of Pop
Master of Martial Art
YEAAA KICK HIS ASS!!! lol
Hollywood Blvd was a lot like Time Square in NYC with full of movie star memorial. It was great :) It was especially great to get to Michael Jackson and Bruce Lee's memorial stars (?). Also I was really surprised to find out how small Michael's hands and feet were. It was about my size exactly. But he can do that dynamic and explosive dance movements. Amazing. Purely respect him as a dancer and entertainer.
After having fun at Hollywood Blvd, we went to Homeland!!!
YES HOMELAND!!! I've been waiting to go here for many years!!!
We drove from down town LA and it was about a half hour drive.
Kid Boogie told us that he will be there so I was excited! It's been almost two years since I last saw him. I wanted to show how I improved training the technique he had shown me.
Here is what I was like when I got to Homeland lol
So I was SOOOOOOO excited like a little kid! lol
BUT
Kid, Slim, Keumsae, nor tabo showed up.....
Because of this, and from the exhaustion from the previous session, by the last hour of the session, I was done.....
Anyway, Homeland was Dope!
A lot of positive energy was there, and people liked sharing that energy with others. This is what I liked about it the most.
In a sense, it was like Popshop in NYC. But at Popshop, we don't all make a cypher to get down. I feel like we are a little more separated. But here, they were all making a huge cypher. I thought this was a great way for younger/beginner generation to interact with the older ones.
Although it would've definitely turned out better if the people I was expecting showed up, I enjoyed Homeland. I hope to visit there soon.
After staying in Japan for a week and saying goodbye to Nonoko while we both shed tears (Don't say nothing....You don't know how tough it is to do this for 5.5 years.....) I arrived in LA.
Now from what I remembered, Ilya, told me that he would have his friend come over to the airport to pick me up.
But NOOOOOOOOOO -______-
He tells me to take a shuttle to get there....
sigh.....what a start lol Me Japanese, no english, scared, understand??? lol
I took the shuttle and arrived in front of this crazy looking modern building. Here, I met Liz and Denom.
They are friends of Ilya from Boston and generously welcomed us to stay with them for a week! Not only that, they drove us around LA (which I'll get to later on) but they were soooooo nice :) I'm really glad that I got to meet and hang out with them.
After I settled down and unpacked my stuff, we went out to eat at Honey Pigs.
Pic
While eating, I got to know about Liz and Denom a little. Also Ilya and I kinda talked about what we did for the past week and a half.
Seeing him felt like ages ago since we lived together for a moth before coming to LA (WOW what a bf gf sentence this is.......SUPER GAY lol).
Than Ilya told me that he was talking to Slim Boogie earlier that day. So we decided to contact him because Ilya thought it'll be dope and a dream come true if we can go to the practice spot that he films his dance clip that is posted on youtube.
So he contacts him.
No response.
I've shared contact with Jr Boogaloo and Bionic Man a month before at Electric Soul Satisfaction, so I started to text them.
Jr Boogaloo was very helpful.
He gave us the numbers of this crew mates and told us to contact them as soon as possible to plan our week.
Bionic Man responded quickly. And welcomed us to come to his place when it is convenient for us.
Unfortunately, he lived 40 min away by driving. So we couldn't go that night.
It was around mid night and we still couldn't get a solid answer.
We didn't want to waste our time just waiting so I decided to text Slim Boogie.
A call back from Slim LMAO!!!
I still can't forget the face Ilya made when I said "oh he is calling me" lol
and what was even awesome was that the spot he practices was only a few blocks away!!!
So on the FIRST NIGHT IN LA, I mean literally few hours after landing, we get to practice with Slim Boogie.
We also planned to go to Homeland to see Kid Boogie the next day and go to San Diego for Jr. Boogaloo's 2 hour private lesson the day after tomorrow.
AWESOME
This trip could not turn out to be better than this.
So we walked and met up with Slim and Keumsae!
We both met slim couple times through MGF workshop tour (link) and SDFX 2 in Boston (link).
I've also met Keumsae before when C-lo hosted an event (link) in D.C couple years ago and she came as one of the judges.
A reunion is always great. I was glad to see them again, but this time in LA.
We exchanged for roughly 4 or 5 hours.
Seeing their get down was amazing. The level of foundation and advanced technique they had was unbelievable. We not only saw, but felt the level gap between the East coast popping compared to the West.
Please don't take this in a wrong way. I'm not trying to look down on the East. I feel that because they are taught by poppers with proper historic background the students had better understanding of how to execute the dance better.
Of course Popping is a dance movement that originated from the West. Thus, the resources to its roots can be easily traced back. Unlike us (the East) or the world, who dig the internet for information, they can go straight to the creditable source.
Some dancers I've met in the past told me that they don't really care about the past. Whats done is done and they want to focus on "THEM" because its their "GENERATION". But I think history is important. Knowledge is Power. Sense of community is crucial to the Hip Hop and Street Dance community. This is why I feel strongly about the need of popping education on the East Coast.
Anyway, I'll discuss that some other time. Back to the trip.
We didn't take any dance footage because I was too focused on observing the Slim and Keumsae lol
I think you can tell by how we were right after the session.
After the session, we were DONE lol In the vid I was wide awake, but I literally fell a sleep as soon as I got to the bed.
The Monster drink we had before going to the session was all used up and our body was collapsing.
I fell a sleep as soon as I got to the bed.
Thank You once again Slim and Keumsae. This would not have been the best day to start off without you two.
OK BACK FROM WHERE I LEFT OFF MONTH AGO!!! lol
I wrote it way back but forgot to post it.......
DAY 2 in JAPAN
This was yet another awesome day for me.
I got to see Nonoko (my girlfriend)'s dance performance for the first time in 5 years (wow....lol) and I got to battle on 1vs1 and on crew vs crew with TKO to represent What The Funk?! Crew!!!
So this is the first vid I took on the way to the studio where Nonoko was rehearsing for her performance.
***Be warned that I'm a little hyper because I'm excited lol***
Weeeeellll.....not all that is true SUGALOO lol
Because this event didn't allow any audiences to record the battle -_-
Why? BUSINESS.
They were selling the footage. figures eh?
It is a good strategie, not going to lie.
But to me, for this event, it was a little too much man.
I mean the event wasn't that big, full of dope dancers and etc.
Sure they had a Showcase, 1vs1, crew vs crew categories, but the level of the dancers weren't high enough to be in the DVD to be sold to people.
Yet there were a large number of Kid dancers with their mother.
I guess the organizers make money off of those parents that are obsessed with their kid's dancing.......
So unfortunately, there is not a single vid of the event, BOOOOOOOOOO (self booing lol)
Sucks, I know. I bet the crew would've love the way we represented the crew.....but thats history. We'll all go to Japan one day and do it again :D
The event was called "Run Up".
I was hyped, ready to dance with my girl, my bro, and his friends! I was ready to sweat and dance till I can't no more!!!
But the first impression I felt when I arrived at the event was "intimidation"
Why? Well there are couple reasons why I felt this way.
Reasons:
A. People were too damn serious
B. People are practicing alone, listening to their ipod on their headphone FOREVER!
C. Parents yelling at Kids to stretch and be ready for their performance
D. They were all wearing similar outfit that characterizes the dance style they do.
Let me give you and visual example.
All the poppers dressed like this
All the Hip Hop dancers dressed like this
and all the Kids dancers dressed like this
Yuuup........ that's how it was lol
Other thing that freaked me out was that
THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY DJ TIME!!!!!!!!!!
They did battles, break(kick us out), battle, break, battle to the final.
Man I was tired......
Because usually in the event, I battle, than I dance during DJ time to keep my body warm. Couldn't do that this time.
They weren't playing music during the break time. So I just sat on the chair and ate food.
Because of this, I couldn't dance with my bro, their friends and my girlfriend in the cyphers.......
This just was not cool.....
Later I found out that this event was for beginners and upcoming dancers in Japan. My brother from another mother in Japan, Tim, told me that the main focus of the event was to give the young generations and people who struggle passing the preliminaries in the major competition events to perform and/or battle.
Looking back at it now, it does make sense. They danced well but dance just like their teachers. I didn't feel the energy of them going "OH I WANNA CYPHER!". They were more like mentally preparing for the time for them to perform.
So its unfair to judge how Japanese Jams are like by looking at this event. I hope to go to one of my brother's event to really experience Jams in Japan.
The good news was that TKO and myself did a pretty good job!
On 1vs1, I went to the semi-finals
and on crew vs crew, we also made it to the semi-finals!!!
I need a big applause from my crewmates man lol We represented the crew to the fullest!! lol
I mean we gave all we had and actually had to miss Nonoko's performance!!! (well we saw it a head when they were rehearsing) lol
Anyway,
The thing that made me happy was the fact that we won without any routines.
Even though we are brothers, 2 years had passed since TKO and I danced together.
Yet we managed to reunite as a real good team and defeated some crews that had been practicing together longer than us.
Personally, I felt it was a result from executing our crew vision.
We, What The Funk?! Crew are true to ourselves. We embrace our individualism and uniqueness. By evolving our uniqueness with solid popping foundation, our goal is to make people say "What The F?!" as an reaction to our dance.
That's our goal.
It has always been our goal since 2009.
This event was only a tiny step, but making a step is a HUGE difference compare to not making any.
Great job dancing your ass off TKO. I know its tough to be out there alone to represent us. But WE NEVER LEFT YOU. Stay strong and stay original my brotha. You made me proud that day to have you as a crew mate once again.
Here are some pics from the event
With Hide, This dude is FUNKY! (Champ)
What The Funk?! Brothers!
kids crew we battled named "Sora-Ringo"
Nonoko & SUGALOO
After this day I had a lot of personal time with Nonoko and friends and that's private lol
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEARS TO YOU ALL!!!
WISHING NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR ALL OF YOU! STAY STORNG AND BE MERRY!
Now, most call this year the Year of 2013, but in Chinese Zodiac which is common to most Asian countries, it is also known as the Year of the Snake.
Chinese Zodiac is a scheme, and a systematic plan of future action, that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to 12-year cycle.
In Japan, when your birth year comes back after 12 years, you gain a temporarily title called
"年男／年女, Man/Female of the year".
Most of us usually use this title to encourage ourselves to strive for success.
And I want declare that today because THIS IS MY YEAR!!!
Time to cut the crap and get things rolling.
Since this is a blog about my dance life, I'll post my resolution related to dance.
1. Cultivating my body.
I've been doing this for a while now but I really want to be consistent.
It has helped me in many ways. Strength, balance, speed, endurance, and looks.
But its not enough. Right now it is in the process of a change and I'm unstable. I need to change that and get to a point where I feel comfortable to dance and make my moves and poses look the way I imagine.
2. Raising the level of consistency.
This is one of the advice that I received from my dancing god father and master, Jazzy J, few years ago.
It is also something that I've been working on for a while, but this year, I need to raise it up higher. In order to do that, I need to retrain on things that I've learned through out the past years and perfect it as much as possible. Only than will my dance consistency can see a signifiant improvement.
By having a higher standard, I will gain more control over my get down at cyphers and battles.
3. Battling
To tell you the truth, I've been afraid to battle against someone that I don't know for a while now. I just don't feel comfortable because I'm throwing my energy towards something that I don't know. Also, recently I've been meeting and battling famous dancers across the world. Most I lost but some I've won. By loosing against someone, I felt that I was going to ruin their reputation or disappoint the teachers and dancers that took time to teach me new knowledge of the dance.
But with out the challenge, you will not grow as a street dancer. Battling, to me, shows you the moment of truth. It is when you get tested by the dance floor. It is when all your effort reveals its self. It does not lie. It is the ultimate test that teaches you what you need to work on in order to get better.
I need to release myself from the fear of loosing the battle.
4. Learning different dance styles.
I have some experience in other styles of dance, but I haven't really taken a class to learn it seriously. I've decided to make this my New Year Resolution after being enlightened from watching a cartoon series called "The Last Airbender". The main character is an Air Bender who is chosen to be the Avatar. The Avatar is the only person that can bend the four elements, Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. By learning all the elements, the Avatar possesses the power to outmatch any other benders and maintain balance in the world. Just like the Avatar, if I embrace different styles of dancing, I believe I will grow more as a dancer with unique energy, flavor, and characteristics.
Furthermore, to do this, I need to select my mentor carefully.
This does not mean that I'll through away the mentality of "every dancer is my teacher". However, having a strong basic is essential for my learning process. Thus, the teacher must have the flavor, energy of the dance I can relate and have an similar understanding/vision towards the dance that he/she does.
This leads to my final goal.
5. Understand the ORIGINAL=Myself.
I believe the term "Be Original" does not indicate someone to do new things, but be yourself.
As much as I loved learning from various teachers through this past couple years, I've gain knowledge but lost who I am as a dancer. Therefore, there are constant questions that comes in my mind when I practice or session. The toughest question is "What dance defines you as SUGALOO?" What dance, flavor, energy, looks, characteristic, moves, technique....etc make people recognize you as SUGALOO? I can not answer that question with 100% confidence at this moment. This is the reason why I have to face this question and figure out an answer this year.
I'm not sure how much of this I can accomplish since I have many private things that I need to accomplish this year. But my gut is craving for change and improvement. I need to take on many challenges this year. I gotta fight it!!!
Ok its been almost 2 month since this happened, but it was a hell of an experience so I'm going to write about it now LIKE A BOSS!!! OSU!!! lol
Let's go back in time……
Jazzy J, Fayzah Fire, and me
On Friday, July 27th, after I finished, work, I went to NJ using PATH with Fayzah Fire and Jazzy J to meet up with my crew mate, Ilya.
From NJ, ilya drove for 4.5 hours to get us down to D.C (Thanks brother).
It was a smooth ride and we were able to arrive a little earlier than we expected.
Ilya driving seriously lol
Our first stop was DC Dance Collective.
Every Friday, at DC Dance Collective, theres a dance session. On that night, Jr Boogaloo, Bionic Man, Dickson, A.K.A Kin, A.K.A Ra, 1G and other amazing dancers were practicing.
We were hoping to get down with them a little, and ask Gwo whether he can find a spot for Fayzah to stay over the weekend.
Unfortunately, we arrived a little too late. We didn't get to session. But Fayzah got a place to stay and that was great :D
Photo Credit to Gwoping Young
So we missed the chance get down. But instead, we went to a Korean restaurant called Honey Pigs with everyone. There were probably group of about 25 people!
We ate, drank, and had a good pre-party+Jr Boogaloo's Happy Birthday dinner until 3am!!! LOL
After that we went to stayed with my friend (BF Crewmate, if u wanna know what this is? Just ask me to write about it lol) James Wu's house. When we got home, it was 4am. We were exhausted except Jazzy, who was hyper from his drink. He was talking nonstop but I was done.......
I changed and passed out on bed immediately lol
Unfortunately, this was a nightmare for Ilya, who shared a bed with me. Because I took most of the space on the bed AND I moved a lot while I slept. He couldn't sleep well. I'm sorry brother, I was tired lol
The jam was scheduled to open from 12pm. In order to get breakfast, get ready and be on time for the jam, we woke up at 9am.
I slept well for 5 hours, which was perfect for me because i've been on the training schedule that gives me 5 hour sleep at maximum for a month. Also because I took most of the bed space.... :P
For breakfast, James took us to a diner called Silver Diner.
It was old 80's kinda dinner where they still have the Jukebox on the table. The food was delicious! But not enough for me so I took ilya's fries and James's pancakes lol
We still had time before the jam. Luckily, there was something we can do to kill time.
On the parking lot, the diner was holding a residence classic car show. They had couple cool looking classic cars and so we decided to take a look.
They were encouraging audiences to vote for the car they liked so that they can decide which car should be awarded as the best classic car. We voted for this car.
I'm not crazy about cars. But I liked this one because of its color and the body design. But I would never want to drive this car though......the body parts were LITERARY touching the ground lol I don't know how people can drive that car man....lol
We were full and had some entertainment. It was time to head to the Jam.
As I posted "On my way to challenge eating some poppers.... Delicious meal on the dance floor today!!! Can't wait, can't wait....." in side the car, I was mentally ready to battle.
My mind was calm. But my soul was on fire.
My body was waiting to unleash the power that I gained through months of training towards stronger and good poppers.
I don't know if the training I planned and worked on was the best way possible.
I may be just overconfident.......
But I know that I've been consistent.
At that point I stopped thinking and realized that I wasn't expecting a good result.
All I was aiming for was to get down the way I wanted so that I won't regret afterwards and I know it would feel AWESOME regardless of the result.
Since 7/3/2012, ilya moved into my new house and we began our summer training.
The idea was simple.
We just wanted to be a bad ass popper and a great popping partners/crewmates just like the ones we look up to like Jsmooth and Kid Boogie, Crazy Kyo and Popping J, Gucchon and Kei, Mosta Pop and Venom, Rasshard and Future.
I had a glass and got knocked out lol
Those guys are dope as an individual popper.
But when they go on the stage together, chemical reaction happens and destroys the floor.
We wanted to know how they do it.
And from a shallow resource, we just assumed that they train together often and in some cases live together.
We just put that into action.
Our goal was to strengthen our body and get the basics solid.
This is because we are going to LA from 8/19-25th and we wanted to be ready to learn and absorb as much technique as possible when we get there.
Therefore, we focused on working out, diet, and drilling.
We both worked during the day. And since I have two jobs, sometimes I came home after midnight. So we decided to go to the gym to workout in the morning.
We woke up at 4 am.
First thing we had was oatmeal + whey protein shake.
Than we got ready for the day and left the house at 5 am.
What I enjoyed the most about getting up early was to see how the sunrise colored the cloud.
Taking pictures of the cloud using iPhone is actually starting to become my new hobby lol
82nd St Station
By 5:45, we got to the gym. Planet Fitness was a little far from my house, but its only $10 a month and the tools are easy to use. On top of that, it was open from 5 am, and when we got there, it was almost empty, allowing us to use the equipments and machines freely.
Planet Fitness
Both of us had our own training routine. I'm not sure what Ilya's workout routine was but I stuck to the Brad Pitt work out I found online.
After the workout, we had another protein shake and off to work.
Ilya's job ended by 5 pm. However, I have two jobs so when I had double shifts, I came home late.
Therefore, when I had double shift, Ilya worked on the drills alone at home while I tried to drill a little on the train back home :D lol
When I ended my work by 5pm, we drilled together.
Like I said, we didn't do anything intense. We did basic drills with intensity.
Since we needed at least 5 hours of sleep, we slept by 10:30-11 pm.
We ate healthy too.
I made the meal and we packed it into the neat lunch box I got from Wal-Mart.
Other than the protein shakes, we had the meal (picture below) on lunch and dinner, had snacks between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner.
Rice (white/brown), Chiken, Green Salad
It was not easy to do all this. lol
I mean we were awake and active for almost 20 hours a day.
But we kept going, believing one thing......
I mean if you can't believe in yourself, how can you keep on improving for the better?
Of course we had arguments as well.
I mean our lifestyle were pretty repetitive. It wasn't really fun lol
Especially when you don't see that much of a progress, it was very stressful.
So we talked a lot. A LOT OF TEXTING during work LOL
We discussed about many different topic. Dance, work outs, diet, videos, jokes, girls, mentality, inspiration, life etc.
The conversation made us understand each other as a person more than before.
And kept pushing ourselves to keep on going.
I felt all of this was worth doing when I went to events with Ilya, especially at Electro Soul Satisfaction (waiting for the organizer of the event to upload the video. Review of the event will be posted once the vids are published).
Having Ilya aside when I was battling influenced me more than I could ever imagine.
Since I got into this dance battle environment, I've always been alone.
I had a crew, but I've always lead the crew. Therefore, when I battled, I got prepared and pushed my ass up to go against someone.
But this time, I had a partner that slapped (more like slammed lol) my back to get me prepared physically and mentally.
Not only that, I had someone who knew what I should do or should've done and I can ask for advice for the next battle.
This was very new to me
But having a crewmate that I can rely on gave me strength.
Now we are a part since I'm going back to Japan for a week before visiting LA.
Our summer training is not over yet.
But I just wanted to summarize what we've done till this point.
LA is going to be AWESOME.
We will keep striving to evolve as a human being, dancer, popper, and crewmates.
Kamikaze What The Funk?! Crew
Training with consistency to gain the power to bring destruction on the dance floor!!!
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