Been a while

So here's an update on what Ive been doing: Playing wow, hanging out with Lyn, interviewing, and now I get to dance.

We had DSP auditions this past weekend and I'll be honest, I didn't care too much this time. We had an orientation the night before and realized that we weren't getting a ton of new faces like last time. And the people I knew who were trying out and could potentially make it, well, I know them already. I think the best part though was having new judges come in this time instead of the usual, plus they're mostly mindtricks so thats awesome right there. Hmm, but what I am looking forward to is our next performance at One 4 Gee in April. I missed the last show but now I get to be part of it so yea, that feels awesome.


As for the job hunting, its ok and that's better than most people. I get calls, I get in-person interviews, I get a lot of responses from my resume and all of the experience Ive gained from these past months doing all of that is def going to pay off. Will it be my dream job? Who knows but I'm sure i'll find something soon.

Read More

Mighty4 and then some

Im finally done with this exhausting weekend. Mighty4 was awesome, thanks to Lil B, locking has been way more fun to do and I'm glad it shows judging from all the comments. I want to thank everyone who's supported me, us along the way coz I'm really understanding how I dance now. Whats stupid is I lost that along the way and now I need to backtrack in a sense to where I used to dance and use my face and my own style. I blame youtube haha, no, I think people like Gogos are awesome, its just I gotta stop learning from that and do my own thing more, have fun! its a dance dummy! Click for more of me haha


Went to Caboose's class today and it felt awesome being picked to go up and be the example for the class on a move he says thats rarely done, yes, the whole time I kept thinking this is sweet! Even his g/f went up to me at the end of practice and thought I was "amazing" and my facial expressions were great. Really good to hear from people like that despite hearing such negative comments behind my back, I know Im not supposed to let those words/people bring me down but I can't help it in this case.

Anyways, after this John Muir performance, I'm taking it easy. I'll just stick to practicing at home on a regular basis and when there's a performance coming up, I'll be at mission, but yea, i need to save on $$ and plus I think I have more fun when I don't dance every day. Too much of something isn't a good thing and that can apply to dance too. I can practice by just listening to music. Plus I want more fun in my life. Yes, I'm going to play wow and video games, I'm going to watch TV and anime, read books, hang out with Lyn more, but of course I'm still going to work out and dance, its just I need more balance and I don't want to overwork myself to the point where I need to call a sick day from work =P

Read More

Another Awesome Weekend

Had Tryouts again for DSP. Probably the funnest time I've had in a while dancing. Must be the vibe I got plus all of the new people trying out this season. It was awesome to hear I got better from some peeps, they said I lost weight too which is cool but I like hearing that my dancing got better instead hehe =P 

Im hoping we get quite a few of them honestly, I feel that some of these dancers would add something to the team that we can all share and learn from instead of us just building a dancer from the ground up. With all of this going on, I feel I should take advantage of all of these performances and battles coming up and really take charge..

Read More

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

Read More

Gettiing ready for Hip Hop International

Heading out to vegas this weekend to compete at Hip Hop International. This will be my 2nd time to compete out of state and I plan on advancing for sure. I really feel that I'm getting closer and closer to my goal but that's only due to hard work and practice and really working with my teammates. I took Ceech's advice and started to record myself much more often so I can critique myself clearly and see whats working well and what isn't.

What to focus on until this saturday:

Listen to the music and Groove.
Get a little crazy - air tricks, splits, alphas, use audience, character
work on chest area and breathing. Must make more apparent.
Work on stops and poses.
Stretch and get legs and arms wider.
Use legs much more.

Read More

My time at Homeland

Homeland is a popping and locking competition in Long Beach, CA where I participated in this past weekend. I learned a lot of new things about how I dance and how judges will like certain things or not. More after the break



I've learned that even if the crowd loves you, doesn't mean the judges will so it would be good to know what they're looking for. Usually, they will look for character, utilizing the stage/area, listening to the music, and of course skill. I say I had most of that but I wasn't listening to the music the way I do during practice. I'll have to keep pushing myself to feel the music even deeper than what I know currently.

Oh well, I still had tons of fun esp with my teammates. Here's my locking prelim footage

Read More

Season 2 of America's Best Dance Crew

Season 2 has been ok for me so far. I've accepted the fact that there will never be a team as good as Jabbawockeez (although freestyle is another topic tho) but I'm enjoying watching my boys (Supreme Soul) and the bboy team Super CR3W. Honestly tho, the team thats been consistently performing well and definitely will make it top3 is Fanny Pak. I know I know, wth with Fanny Pak? They're a very awkward team displays choreography that may lean on the 'fanny' side if you know what I mean. BUT, they're getting high praises each week, was never on the bottom 2, and to be honest, they're probably the most creative. I'm not saying they're awesome, but they could win.

Something funny that Lyn noticed was there's this Asian girl in the audience that's always there. Yup, always. You can't miss her either, she's to the left of Mario and she's wearing a black dress with her boobs hangin out, every time. Trust me, go watch the thing.

Read More

Bionic and Raul from Supreme Soul in PS3 commercial

This is pretty sweet, not only do I know these guys but they're in a commerical about the PS3! I'm jealous, really jealous. Good luck to them on America's Best Dance Crew but I'm sure they must be pretty happy to be doing this. I would be.

Read More

DS Players Regroup!

Well I finally got my team together to really restructure ourselves. Our dance team needed goals and how to achieve them. Here's some of the outline:

Dance Goals: Individual/ Team, Short Term, Long Term

Roles Discussion (addresses how to achieve certain goals by placing point people)

Projects in Process (my favorite part) seems like priority #1 is to get a logo.

Feedback Session: likes and dislikes that needed talking. Probably the toughest to deal with but the most beneficial.

And Comments: how the meeting went, next step for the team.

All together I'm glad we did this because like what everyone kept saying, DSP needed more structure. Now, must write my own goals...

Read More