Sunday

Practicing outside with crew hopefully!  Such a nice day!

Me and Devon getting good by ourselves again.  I thought I was tired of practicing with Devon, but the outdoor spot is soooo refreshing.  We both were forced into moves by the concrete but the only thing it really stopped us from doing was head power.  The real reason you practice on concrete is so you don't crash.  I never thought about it like that before, but if you practice in an environment that discourages crashing you will crash less.  I crashed once today. :)  Sloppy technique means skinned knees and bruises.

I saw something in Devon's footwork and based a style around it.  I'll call it lazy leg style.  You keep your legs as close as possible to the ground at all times (mostly talking about techs and footwork in back).  Whenever you want to hit a beat your step completion always needs to arrive to that point in the music.  No sharp movements.  To exaggerate the movement more, make sure each step covers more ground than you do normally.

People stopped by and moved on, I love that going on in the background!  The space is like 16 x 16 brick squares with cement running along the sides and benches on the side.  The benches are like perfect viewing distance for the space.  I want this spot to be the Sunday practice spot.

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.

Friday

Went to New Amsterdam to chill with the homies.

This turned out to be awesome.  Selecta played great 90's cuts plus source material.  We rocked considerably hard given it was new am.  It was all Bad Boy and Death Row, so a good amount of time was spent dancing to the lyrics.  Prabu and Warren fuckin shit up hahah the dj table and an old man respectively.  Devon not looking all that hurt, so kudos to him.  Moves are coming along easier like trying to think on the spot.  I got caught a couple times, but most of my runs were clean.

Chicken and Beer

The title says it all.  Celebrating Kaki and Kevin's bday too!

Fun jam, shit starting late is getting real old.  I expected my chicken and beer prompt.  It was an ok event, I could probably throw a better one and hope to do so soon.  I hit some cool sets early, but I'm still ways away technically and power wise from some of these cats.  DJs were on point, but the sound was plagued with problems (mics cutting out and shakey levels).  The battles ran so long I said fuck it and started boozin.  I may have been 6 deep when we got called for the exhibition.

Saturday

Fadeski.  Got some moves in at Classic Material.  Participated in a soul train line.  Stabbed a bunch of people, shook off my knife and put it back in the left leg sheath.  Went to the after hours and chilled for a hot minute.  Good times, nothing too crazy.

Sweat before Heat

Fun on a Wednesday at Club P and with Streetz.

This was cool cool. The special popping addition of Sweat Wednesdays was fun. Not too many heads showed up, but you know Get Down Gang showed up. In full force, I wasn't even there most of the time. My homie was fucking me up so I got there hella late, very niggardly of me. It's ok to be a little late, because it's a party. Then you can rep hard and everything's cool. But my man had me waiting on him for hours. That meant I was an idiot for trusting him with my time and delayed me hours. Not cool at all.

So rant aside, I tried popping for real and cyphered with Matt some, but really with Chuck when heads left. We switched between bboying and popping and krumping (i didn't do any :)). Devon, Barry and Florentin was there too cyphering. We were rolling like you needed to do a zulu spin variation in your set. Good fun, Chuck helped clean up my popping. He cleaned up his footwork and Florentin learned zulu spins and freaked them a couple times. And we just jamming with the DJ. I think I understand the point of a jam now a bit more. Chilled with Streetz at Heat, even though the rap ranged from unoriginal to wack to down right offensive, shit still got done. Told Street and Jerome to come by practice and chill with the rest of the gang at CMU. They say they are coming through and Streetz is down with travelling for jams! Kinda geeked cause the United Styles in NYC has a 1 v 1 popping battle! Niggas ain't ready :)

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.

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.