Happenings: Fired up, Still! Dance Battle

Last weekend after my J VYbE classes, I went to the "Fired Up, STILL!" 2-on-2 All Styles dance battle and the 7-to smoke battle at Gotta Dance Studio. It was hosted by the Moon Runners, and I would say that it was a pretty successful jam overall.

Daniel Keith Morrison (aka Daniel Keith Morrison, Moon Runners) was the MC of the night, and he was hilarious and to the point, as he always is. Judges were Shawn de Ocampo (Moon Runners), Raoul Wilke (Moon Runners) and Pyro (Twisted Ankles). The event was from 645PM (delayed) to about midnight. There were people from all over the dance community, with huge dance heads such as Apolonia and Ofilio (Gadfly), friends from Bucc n' Flvr, Tense Image, and many many more, making an appearance and supporting the Toronto dance scene. 

An all-styles battle just means that you may compete with whatever type of dance you choose, for example there were poppers, hiphoppers, lockers, breakdancers, etc. It may seem illogical and be difficult to judge what is better, but the competitors are mainly judged by style, smoothness, and most importantly, musicality. No dance can look good without musicality, no technicality can be amazing without it either. 

A 7-to-Smoke battle is where one dancer battles with 6 other dancers, and be the first to get 7 wins, that is, beating everyone once.

CONGRATULATIONS to the WINNERS of the Battle (Prada-G and Price) and WINNER of the 7-to-Smoke Battle (Troublezz)!!!

And Big UPS to my friends who entered the battle - Vinny Alayo, Vanessa and Kristine, Kevin Kong and Linh, and Vincent Lee.

I love watching and going to these battles because they are extremely inspiring, and even contagious in a sense that they just make you want to get off your butt and dance. They are also inspiring because, as you go to more of these battles, you see individual dancers improve before your own eyes and it pushes you to be like that as well. For myself, I have never battled. I have been encouraged by many, many people, but I still am quite afraid of it all. 

Being a choreography dancer all my life and just getting on this freestyle bandwagon, I just doesn't appeal me yet to throw myself into a position where everything is too unpredictable. As my friends and family know, I like stability, and knowing what's going to happen next,  So battles are a frightful thing for me to see myself in. Yet, I am so inspired by the people around me that do push themselves to enter battles, no matter what. I think for myself I am just trying to mimic the mindset of freestyle battling to hopefully prepare myself if I EVER battle, but it's just so... it's still such a mystery to me. I believe that learning more styles and expanding my dance vocabulary will really ease the anxiety, since I will have more tools from my imaginary toolbox that I can utilize when I run out of things to say with my body. I hope that in the near future I will have the guts to put myself out there, let myself be vulnerable, and give myself a chance, because if I were to do that, it'd be more than just a battle. For me, it'd be a huge step for me personally knowing that I can be fragile and let the music take me wherever it wants to take me, and know that I'll be alright in the end of the day. 

One downside to most of the battles that I have gone to recently is that they do run pretty late, but so do all other dance-related things like shows, rehearsals and anything you can think of. Other than that, nothing, really. Enjoyed it A LOT, learned A LOT, and met some new people (thought I could think of something else that ended with "A LOT" but didn't work out. Oh well, next time!). 

What advice do you have for me to prepare myself for battle mode? And if you went to the battle, what did you think?

Inspire Each Other,