- letting attitude get to your head and explanation of cypher
battles/ respecting others opinions
At one point or another we've all felt on top of the world about
our breaking, we may be pumped because of a new tech or freeze,
we may have won a jam,killed it in the cypher, or we may have
beaten someone in a battle who is normally better then us.
Regardless of what the reason is we all get big headed.
This isn't always a bad thing though, its awesome for session
in terms of self gain, I feel the biggest gain on power and
tricks is cockiness. But in terms of attitude towards other
people it's horrendous. No one likes to talk to another person,
and feel like your bothering them, or that they look down on you.
I recently went to "BBoy tactics" a new monthly bboy jam in
erie pa. An awesome event everytime I go, judges are awesome
and fair, host is cool as hell, and you can tell the local
bboys are all family there, it's truely an awesome experience
going to events like this and being welcomed into them by
the locals. ANYWAY, I ended up battling some kid, and my
mistake I took it easy in the first round and didn't do anything,
and then in the 2nd round I ended a freeze (that needs to be
facing your opp) away from him. Two crucial mistakes that gave
me a loss. Now I'm cool with a loss, I've lost a hundred times
before, I'll lose atleast a hundred times more. But the
attitude after the battle was too much. Again, I lost so you
can say or act however you want. To me, losing at a smaller
battle isn't as big of a deal as losing at a major jam like
evo, the stakes are higher as well as your name and reputation.
After the battle he was walking around "yeah nigga that's how
I do. I told ya'll i'm goin win this shit" or something along
those lines. I figured he was just excited he beat me so I
said cool and moved on. ---Initially I was a little annoyed
with my loss but I know the judges make the best decision
they can at the time, especially as a new event. The last
thing they wanna do is make some bad calls early on because
it's a death sentence for the event. They're more likely
to call a tiebreaker to make sure they're making the right
call if there's a doubt.
So later on I was talking to one of the bboys there (an erie
local who had asked me for some pointers) while he was doing
a set and mentioned some general pointers.
-don't do footwork in a battle set that you don't have. If
it doesn't feel clean, it doesn't look clean, if it doesn't
look clean obviously it looks sloppy. During a battle your
goal is to be clean.
-if your going to do footwork one direction and freeze the
other direction, create a transition into that freeze be it
a cici to zulu the opposite direction so you can go into
the freeze, or something. transitions are the key for making
an awkward motion look cool.
-don't let other people tell you to dance a certain way, I
heard the guy that beat me tell "john" that he needed to be
super aggressive and angry otherwise people will think he
looks wack." To me I say dancing a way that isn't comfortable
to you is wack
So the kid who beat me "jay" hear's me talking to john and
comes over and confronts me almost yelling at me (and this
is the general conversation that ensues)
Jay-Why the fuck you tell him those things
-listen I'm not playin these thug life games with you
Jay-Nah man I'm serious I wanna know why you tellin him that
-aight well (I explain the above notations I made and explained
why I think he should slow his footwork down and get it pretty
before using it in a battle and the other things)
Jay-nah you wrong (at this point he's getting really aggressive
with me) and says something along the lines of I don't know
shit and I'm wack (I'm fine with that because everyone see's
people differently. I think some of the bc one usa qualifiers
are wack, can I beat them? No but they aren't good to me)so
I stand up and say
-aight we'll agree to disagree, this just comes down to
different views.
Jay-how long have you been breakin? (Now he's almost nose to
nose with me)
-5 years (which was bullshit I've only been breaking 3 but
sometimes I embellish a little to get my point across)
Jay- see you've been breakin 5 years and got roasted cause you
suck, I'd smoke the fuck out of you every time guaranteed.
(so now I'm starting to get erked because he's in my face-
I'm starting to walk away because I know me. Its about to turn
into a fight and I'm not someone who just stops because I got
a few hits in. I wrestled and learned not to stop until I hear
the whistle and the ref is reachin for me to stop because its
done. Ontop of this the dude is attacking my character) So in
my mind my two options are
1) Fight him
2) Cypher battle
Again, I am a guest at this event so I'm going to deal with the
situation as best I can, fighting should be the last possible
action and I'm only going to if I get corner into a fight and
that's my only option out.
So I forget the exact words but it came down to me saying "put
up or shutup if you can smoke me let's fuckin do this then. I
don't wanna hear you talk about it, let's just do this" - if you
can roast me, then do it, I have no respect for someone that
says I CAN DO THIS. Just do it, then I may respect you, talk is cheap.
a cypher battle is when person A goes against person B until either
someone earns respect,learns respect, runs out of moves, or gives up.
sometimes you may be battling to get a point across and if you feel
like no matter how many times you smoke the persons rounds, you still
arent getting your point across you may call it quits on that alone.
but the goal is to show your better then the other person (in general),
that your better then person A things, or that you deserve the respect
you think is comin to you.
So we throw down and after a few rds he gives up because he
doesn't have the steam or the arsenal to roll with me. This whole
situation could have been avoided but because of his mouth and
attitude he lost the respect of those around him and he showed
his true skill level. I'm not going to call out everyone who
has an attitude or anything. But make sure you are being arrogant
to the right people, had I felt like any less of a man that
day this blog would be much different. There are people who look
upto you because you think your good and people believe in you.
But being arrogant can be a very humbling experience.
there are a million different views on breaking, i may think
someone who other people view as dope, is wack, and vice versa
because of my view, just like how i may judge an event differently
then someone else. but respecting someone elses opinion is still
necessary because you dont know their background. i can disagree
with you till im blue in the face but at the end of the day we
still feel how we feel.
With that being said I have met this guy previously and he seems
to be a pretty good guy. He's doing things to help his community
and breaking community, he teaches people how to break, and he
is super supportive of his crew and others. There's no ill will
towàrds eachother and I would like to battle him again because
he has 1+ on me haha and I'd like to earn that loss back.
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