Hip Hop International Experience

Ummm, so I failed to accomplish my goal at Hip Hop International this year. I didn't even incorporate all those things I mentioned I wanted to do/ should've done. I took down a ton of notes about what I have learned though and posted it on nustudios. I think my overall strategy going forward is to just get crazy and train on the locker feeling instead of the dance. Sure I can warm up with my moves and work on tricks and levels, but If I want to advance next time, I'm really going to have to change my attitude - who cares what people think, just be myself. I keep telling myself this but its just not sinking in yet. However, if I practice and train the attitude, it should come out in my freestyle even when I'm nervous.



Hey Guys, for those of you that don't know, whenever I learn something about myself or anything new or something I need/want to work on I write it down. Well i had a whole lot from this weekend that i'd like to share. Take it or leave it, may not be what you're looking for but to me I really had my eyes opened up to a whole new area and if anyone else can benefit from it, more awesomness to you.

This is what I learned from Hip Hop International that I mentioned to some of you:

Sugarfoot, Sundance tips

From how they judged, they loved people who smiled. Showed attitude.

Take nervous energy and turn it positive. Project it outward (to get into pocket)
- everyone’s nervous and that’s fine, that’s good.Your job is to use it, control it and share it. With locking, think of yourself as this container for all that energy bending it around (wrist twirl) and then extending and shooting it outward (point).

Positioning and transitions between positions. What you do in those positions and the way you get there. Pointing with one leg up, locking with my legs apart, etc. be creative.
-Air to ground, standing to knees or air.
They went up to john about this specifically but this can really be used for everyone. I asked john what else I could do to improve and he mentioned this to me as well. There’s a level practice that Rashad does for popping that can easily be done for locking.

Think of our levels as numbers: 0,1,2,3
0- air, or up on 1 leg
1- standing, regular stance
2- mid, like low stance, knees apart or body bent forward.
3- low – splits, knee drops
4-lying down

Take numbers and go 1-2, 1-3, 4-3, 3-1, 3-0, etc. Good levels practice. Should be done with someone else but you get the idea. I think we don’t do enough 3s and 4s when we freestyle honestly. Now that I think about it, complete lockers or those closest to the OGs do all levels when they freestyle. See the original locker videos.


Form Pictures
-when you dance, make each move a picture (keeps variety, and pauses)

Practice done back in the day: Lock slowly, no music, in the dark with just candlelight and watch your silhouette. Practice moving around, forming pictures, positions, and funk all slowly.
Then, turn lights on, music on, and go full out. Should see difference.
- this practice seems weird but I think to take away from this is that we should always try practicing real slow sometimes, see how clean our movements are, extension, diff positions, show funk, be aware of body.

One of the judges looks for the double lock.
If you look up the Original Locker vids, they do the double lock all the time. Its not what we're doing today, back then it was really quick and with your knees apart.

Create a standard for getting into pocket: move side to side, back and forth. No moves just movement. Practice this as a fallback or before freestyle unless already in zone.

Listen to the music, it’ll tell you what to do.

Breathe! Can’t emphasis that enough. See Caboose.

Smile and work area (this should almost be priority 1 based on what judges have been looking for).

If you don’t feel the song, go back to getting into the pocket. 1,2,3,4 basics and pauses.
- This was my problem this weekend. I was concentrating on the song so much that when it was my turn to freestyle the song went from a hype part to just basic beats and I kinda lost it and it wasn’t fun. So I asked around and to get back into it again, just turn back to 1,2,3,4, use pauses, level changes, etc.

Locker Mentality – honestly this is really important that I took away with. I feel that my skills are up to par with most of those people at the competition, but it’s my attitude that needs the most training:
True Craziness - Survival thinking?
Back in the day they would have to do whatever it takes to win to be able to eat, pay bills. Therefore, they couldn’t care less what they were doing which made their dancing crazy, extraordinary. Our barrier today for dancing is this. We don’t have to worry about money or food, so we have to just go with pure love of dancing and our goal to get better. Training our skills is good, but we need to train our attitude more. Who cares what others think attitude. So what if they don’t clap, who cares what the judges say. Go out, really give it all you got like there’s something worth more than you (if you really want it and want to get better). Because when it comes down to it, its all your interpretation and its your dancing, have fun with it.

My example: Like lifting weights, you’re not going to get any stronger lifting the exact same amount each week, you need to add more, do diff exercises, variety, something that’ll really make you sweat it out.


All about attitude. Other dancers go from 1-10, Lockers go 10-20.


For myself besides above:

Think of Locking as a feel, don’t think of it as a dance (coz you’ll just focus on the moves)

More energy and attitude no matter what. Get crazy forreal. Do a trick each freestyle. Try more air tricks or simple air movements or ground movement.

Work on tricks I already know and can do