Showing posts with label straight faded. Show all posts
Showing posts with label straight faded. Show all posts

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

Go have fun and go hard.

Fail not on my part.  Daiji didn't set up the CMU practice and Edgar Um was spinning the "let's have a drink" reggae mix at Ava.  So this time, it's not me being lazy.

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.

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.

Thursday

CMU session to go over routines!

No one there but Lillian, SwifD, Bowser and I.  Then Chuck brought some of his heads.  I had a really good practice.  Warmed up with some tops and then went into further defining my routine ideas.  I'm really glad heads weren't there, it prevented me from teaching the material prematurely.  When I put my ideas into motion I realized that Devon can't yet do the movement required and that Teena is the logical choice as partner.  Really have my ideas together.  I got one full routine, a few commando ideas and an outline. OMG halo > headbridge tap > halo, an idea to keep.  But at practice, I focused on headspins and trying to get that shoulder > halo move.  I think I can get into headspins regularly from standing and that is helping with my headspin > 90 attempts.  I did it pretty decently today like headspin x2 > 90 :).  Still having problems with mill > headspin, I thought I had it down pat doing drills?  Good stuff though.

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 :)

Saturday +2

Going to have practice sometime during the day.

Did a little partying early so I needed to even out a bit! LOL. So I told Dev and Prabu to hit Shadow Lounge to get down since SMI and Vex were doing something. Cody and I arrive and there's no one there. That seemed cool since we were like right at the beginning so we chilled until some tunes came on. I asked Cody to give me a combo...

1. 90 : complete
2. t flare > headspin : complete (2nd try)
3. swipes > mill > swipe > mill ... : complete
4. footwork > freeze > freeze > turtles > flare > swipe > 90 : sike nah

The thing about the last one is that it's definitely doable if I get my balance and speed on the turtles. Then I met this dude Chai ...

1. flare > headspin > mill : just kidding (flare > headspin > crash)

I believe this is a really important one. *note* I can practice quickly straightening my torso quickly out of the tail end of a flare without needing to worry about pushing myself into a handstand. Obvious implications for moves coming out of flare that require being on your hands (air power, 90s and halos especially). Then Dev showed up ...

1. Muujushin Kenjustu!
2. 90s > mills > headspin variation

Well the first one is my true style (probably will be explained later). I hit the second one like I wanted to advance to the semi finals; multiple 90s, 2 mills (kinda fucked that), about 6 rotations headspin with my arm cradling my head and other arm extended, and then I walked out of it clean.