Tuesday

The UC for a week!  So much to do!  I think I'm going to split this time (hour for new moves, hour to train aerobically)

1.  thread gainer (first half)
2.  shoulder halo
3.  airflares
4.  keep moving (second half)

Not too much thread gainer action even though it's the only original move out of the three.  Shoulder halo I'm not getting enough height on to keep in halo position.  I think I need to extend my legs more and trust in my hips instead of closing my legs to get around.  Airflare is getting better, I still look down when I land the airflare which is pushing my hips and feet to the ground.  Wow the aerobic part was pretty much impossible.  I did however go straight for 20 minutes and hit more than half of my sets clean and good tops in the rest periods.  I was at that point where it's like, "You can either keep going or keep what's in your stomach."  A little light-headed also so that pretty much did it for me.  So I just got some sets in with full recovery afterwards.

Then Stealth was talkin about this funk night with Selecta at Ava.  Selecta played a lot of burners but I would've arranged them differently.  He's the man for having half of the good songs I heard.  Good stuff along the jazz funk lines too.  So we went after a quick change and/or food and had a really good time.  I was pretty doneski after practice and recovered a bit when I came home to change.  Really need to do laundry.  Everyone was looking pretty good, but I could tell Teena and Stealth were tired from practice, as was I.  Some cool kenjutsu, doing some footwork to "I'm Coming" J Brown and get in some cock blasts on the four reoccurring horn blows near the end to end my set.  Need more of that.

Sunday

We pulled together a practice at Stealth's crib.

Was a pretty good practice Teena and Dave were there.  Stealth was hitting some good drills and close to the one handed stop and head freeze.  Today I didn't really have a focus.  I started out kenjutsu, then switched to trying to come up with new movement.  The thing is that at Stealth's crib I can only do balanced moves stepping lightly or else it'll skip the record.  Which doesn't seem to be a big problem, but still bboy no-no #15.  I felt a bit tired but strong, definitely did not slow my pace down.  Did crash a couple times just being tired, but that's when you know you're putting enough effort in.  *note* I noticed that when I got tired I kept repeating this slow down step in the front of my footwork.  That's actually counter productive, the energy it takes to stop myself is definitely greater than what I save in a quick Russian step.  It would be better for me just to continue to a stopping point and raise up.  I also need to do a practice where I can't stop moving, so I can train myself to get as close as I can to full recovery while delivering a quality step.

Erik Rico and Ibiza

Went to this jam/show at Shadow Lounge per Selecta's request through Ron. Selecta played a bunch of house tracks in addition to the bboy/hiphop anthems. I got open in a way I never have. Straight all styles fool: house, african via house, bboying, hustle, some popping. I have always been a bboy purist, out of fear I couldn't do something without fully committing to it. That is bullshit and I now stand corrected. Fun is fun and as long as you aren't pretending like you are repping a style when you aren't, no one is hurt. Speaking of fun, Get Down Gang is turning into a community of people really repping truth through dance and music. Just goes to show that the best thing in life is finding/being with like-minded individuals. You can't even argue that. I then went to Ibiza and hung out with Heather, Liana and met Anna (sp?). All hot girls that know anything about music in Pittsburgh know each other. It's a real problem for me, I hope I just come off looking like a weirdo and not confused by the incestuous situation. Strobe's set was pretty dec and Bonics' set was quite good. I got there around 12:30 so I probably missed a lot of burners.

Friday

Well I thought Selecta would be there, but maybe I missed him. The K-OS show was pretty tight, local heads were showing some good stuff. Billy Pilgrim and the very first dude were tight. Alas, no dancing. :( I am determined to go hard today. I'm not going to go into this practice with a real plan.

Monday

Yeah, there was sessioning and shows all weekend, some drunk bboying too! So now it's like repetitively smashing through bricks, body is getting calloused up n shit.

I just wanted to get loose and hit some footworks since it's been alot about power. Sooo much easier to kenjutsu in the tops with music I really don't know. It's a struggle for me to put together meaningful combinations in footwork. *note* What that really means is my footwork vocabulary is limited. So I tried doing radically different things and trying to keep in time. That translated into peppering footwork with freezes and trying to come out of them in footwork combinations ending on parts of the music (most often in a fake split or leg gimmick, eh). Not quite kenjutsu, but I was glad to be doing something a bit different. Stealth turned me onto some new jams and sessioning at his crib this time was cozy instead of claustrophobic. Let me get off this computer, Jay Malls be spinning jazz and musicians sometimes appear at Ava. First time trying it out, holla! Oh yeah, gotta remember applejack > applejack 180 (to low stab) > flares.

Sweat Wednesdays

I hope this all goes smoothly. I'd like for people to meet up at Club P and not sure what kind of turn out but I'll remind people tomorrow around 12. I'm just gonna focus on footwork and some ground freezes since I didn't at last practice. Some ideas:

1. Step inversion - like if you are doing 4 step (steps front, out back) then hit a combination to out front and then do the inverted 4 step (steps back, out front)

2. Chair freeze right side > head invert > chair freeze left side

3. Make slow look good. I think it's about selling an intention of movement as opposed to the movement itself. If I can figure it out physically then I'll dedicate a page to it. This is inspired by Matt Limm showing me Don Campbell (sp?) doing that style in popping. I would think the bboy equivalent would be Abstrak, but I wanna freak it in a Ynot style/Roxrite speed + bounce. Haha yeah I like disco music so what.

Haha so I didn't do 2, but tried to do poses and pose changes on beat. Teena Marie is a beast, an expressive beast. I did 1 a couple times, but like all footwork I'd need to drill it. 3 really didn't work as well as I thought it would. I got more thoughtful movement sometimes but I was still a bit lost out there. Maintaining my style is becoming more natural, riding the rhythm in different ways.

Pretty much just fun, we played our music 6 - 8pm and Thickframes took over and the music was great, heard some Haven't You Heard! Lots of other jams. I had a fun time, played massive amounts of pool. It was kinda ridiculous, but I got to chill with the homies. Not too faded, but faded enough to do some poppin. My hits are flacid.