Street Dance Skills & Drills Preview
Street Dance Skills & Drills
“BBoy Bootcamp”
SAMPLE PREVIEW EDITION
Super Power Practice Series
Book 3 of 4
By Barry “BBoy GRIZ” Rabkin
Founder of CypherStyles.com
Foreword by BBoy Kujo
Legendary Street Dance Pioneer
Soul Control and Ill-Abilities Crew
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Copyright © 2012 CypherStyles.com, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, without
the publisher's written consent.
You dance at your own risk. Please consult your
doctor before starting any dance, exercise or
nutrition program. We are not liable for any injuries
or damages.
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to the
entire CypherStyles family. That's
all of you with street dance
beating in your hearts and
pumping through your veins!
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Table of Contents
Super Power Practice Book Series
8
Foreword – BBoy Kujo Soul Control
and Ill-Abilities Crew
14
Chapter #1 – Introduction
17
Chapter #2 – Street Dance Skills
& Habits
21
Visualize
22
D. B. S.
26
Enjoy the Journey
37
Kill Your Autopilot
41
Practice What You Don't Know
44
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Think Positive
46
Practice Perfection
48
Rest Reduction
52
Short and Sweet
54
Keep Up
59
Find Time
63
Get Specific
67
Get Wet
73
Drain
75
Breathe
77
Room to Move
80
Fight or Flight?
83
Success
88
Get Loose
92
Stop Time
94
Fresh Kicks
97
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Empty Pockets
99
Chapter #3 – Street Dance Practice
Drills
102
Climb the Ladder
103
Century
106
Grease the Groove
109
Shout Outs
112
Saturation
114
Timing
117
Stick 'n Move
119
Feel It. See It. Hear It. Do It.
120
Triples
123
Horse
126
Learn by Teaching
128
Energy Training
130
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Punctuation
133
Tag Team
136
Weakness Becomes Strength
139
Chapter #4 – Breakin' Rules: Street Dance
Manifesto
142
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Super Power Practice
This is book three of the four part Super Power
Practice series, custom designed to give you better,
faster results from your training!
It doesn't matter who you are, what style of street
dance you're learning, or what your current level of
experience is. No matter who you are, you need
four essentials in your practice sessions to make the
most progress in the least time:
#1 To make the fastest progress possible, you need a
great place to train and cook up your next batch of
funk! "Street Dance Studio Upgrade - The Lab"
breaks down, step by step, exactly how to affordably
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and effortlessly transform your practice spot into the
ultimate street dance studio.
No matter who you are, the better your dance
studio, the more progress you'll make and the faster
you'll improve!
With a foreword by Street Dance Pioneer Powerful
Pexster of the NYC Breakers, "Street Dance
Studio Upgrade - The Lab" dives deep into
everything you need to know to create your own
supreme street dance studio!
#2 Every dancer needs a clear understanding of
their street dance goals and how to achieve them.
"Street Dance Goals - The Next Level" teaches
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you, step by step, how to select the right street dance
goals for you and reach them in record time!
Whether you want to tighten up your footwork and
get props at a local jam, or master your airtrack to
flare combo and win an international battle, this
book will help you conquer every challenge in your
path!
With a foreword by Street Dance Pioneer and
Strength Trainer BBoy Prizm of the Ground Zero
Crew, "Street Dance Goals - The Next Level"
gives you everything you need to take your street
dancing to the next level!
#3 You need the most effective practice skills and
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drills to get the fastest results. "Street Dance Skills
& Drills – BBoy Bootcamp" includes over 140
pages of the most powerful training techniques used
by your favorite street dancers all over the world!
Whoever you are, the better your practice sessions,
the more progress you'll make and the faster your
power and style will improve!
With a foreword by BBoy Pioneer Kujo of the Soul
Control and Ill-Abilities Crew, these proven
techniques break down everything you need to
accelerate your street dance results!
#4 The true energy of street dance comes out when
two dancers are giving their moves everything they
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have, fighting fiercely to come out on top. Showcase
performances and solo practice sessions are great,
but street dance feeds off of raw competition!
With a foreword by Street Dance Pioneer BBoy JoJo,
Co-Founder of the Rocksteady Crew, "Prepare For
Battle - Street Dance Secrets" goes deep into
everything you need to know to dominate your
battles! Learn step by step exactly what it takes to
win!
"As someone who was there back in the day, this book spoke
to me. We all approach battles differently, and this book will
help you no matter what your style is." - JoJo
Improving any of these aspects of your street dance
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training will have a huge impact on your
development. Put them all together and you'll make
the fastest training progress of your life!
Check out the rest of the Super Power Practice
book series on CypherStyles.com to learn the most
effective steps to level up your game in each one of
these key areas: Upgrade your lab, choose and reach
your goals, and upgrade your skills and drills so you
can prepare for battle!
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Foreword
We can debate whether B-boying is a sport till we're
blue in the face. Regardless, the fact remains that it is
an extremely athletic endeavor, and perhaps the
most athletic of any dance form around. The most
highly competitive b-boys train at a level on par with
that of Olympic athletes, and take their craft just as
seriously. It only makes sense for b-boys to train just
as carefully and methodically as any serious athlete
might.
A proper approach to training, from a scientific
standpoint, is what you'll find in Barry's book. The
art and science of human movement is known as
kinesiology, and Barry's methodology
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is firmly rooted in standard kinesiological principles.
Train hard, but not too hard. Rest well, but not too
much. Get enough sleep. Eat well - small, frequent
meals. Replenish the nutrients you've lost during
bouts of extreme physical exertion. Develop a
gradual, progressive approach to increasing your
skill, strength, stamina, and flexibility. Pay close
attention to your technique, and execute your
movements cleanly - not just to score points during
competitions, but to keep your body healthy. And
train as efficiently as possible.
Barry's drills in the latter part of the book are
excellent, and derived directly from strength training.
Just as they can be applied to any sport or athletic
discipline, they may also apply to B-boying. They will
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dramatically increase your strength and endurance if
applied correctly, and I do many of them myself.
Best of luck in your training.
Jacob "Kujo" Lyons
Bachelor's of Science in Kinesiology
Founding member of Soul Control Crew and ILLAbilities Crew
Artistic Director & Choreographer of Lux Aeterna
Dance company
www.illabilitiescrew.com
www.luxaeternadance.com
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#3 Perfect
Practice Drills
"The more I sweat the less I
bleed." - Muhammad Ali
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Climb the Ladder
"I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of not trying” - Jay-Z
One of the most effective methods of increasing
your endurance and skill is ladders. You can do this
with weight lifting, sprinting, gymnastics, or street
dance.
You set a timer for one to two minutes and choose
one move or combo you are trying to train, let's say
a windmill. For the first step on the ladder, do one
windmill, then set your timer for the rest period.
When it beeps, do two windmills. That's the second
step on the ladder. Rest again, and for your third
step on the ladder, do three windmills in a row (or
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with a quick pause in between to re-position yourself
if you need it). You can keep going like this with
any move and you finish when you can't increase the
number of repetitions further.
If you can already do a high number of repetitions,
you can make bigger jumps between rests. For
example, you could start at three windmills, rest, do
six windmills, rest, do nine windmills rest, and keep
going until you cannot increase the number of
repetitions any further.
If you really want to push your limits, you can do a
pyramid, which is when you do a ladder up and then
take the ladder back down again. So, you do three
flares, rest, six flares, rest, nine flares, 12 flares (or
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whatever your limit is), rest, nine flares, rest, six
flares, three flares, and you're done.
You can also do reverse pyramids where you start
high, go down, and then go back up. So, you'd do
nine flares, rest, six flares, three flares, rest, six flares,
rest, and then nine flares again. In my experience
though, ladders and straight pyramids work best
because, since you've truly pushed yourself to your
limit at the beginning of a reverse pyramid, you will
be too tired to work your way back up the pyramid
when the repetitions build back up at the end.
All of these will let you do many more repetitions
than normal of whatever move you are trying to
train. Don't limit yourself to only using these
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strategies just for training power. They will help any
move, from drilling popping hits to transitions
between freezes to floor work combos.
They can be used to drill any individual move,
combination, or transition and will shake up your
practice by throwing something new at your body to
adapt to.
"Everyone has the desire to win, but only champions have the
desire to prepare." - Wayne Short
Century
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“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but
I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” Bruce Lee
The dancers who make the fastest progress are the
ones who concentrate their efforts on a few moves
at a time. If you pick 100 moves to train, your
progress in each one will be almost imperceptible.
This is fine as long as you have realistic expectations,
but most dancers get impatient.
If you pick two moves to train, you will see dramatic
results almost overnight. If you run through a move
a few times a practice and aren't getting the results
that you want, start volume training.
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Do the move a minimum of 50 to 100 times every
practice for the next month. Drilling a move with
focus 100 times is called a century practice. It gives
you an understanding of the move that you can't
reach quickly any other way. Mark your number on
a piece of paper or count it down in your head, but
practice doesn't end until you've hit your number of
focused repetitions.
Get a friend to join you with the same goal and give
each other feedback on improving your form. It
doesn't take many focused practices like that to
become completely comfortable throwing advanced
moves. Naturally, dance should be fun so don't turn
it into a chore. But, remember that by upping your
focus on specific moves you will speed up your
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progress dramatically.
Grease the Groove
“Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops
into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an
automatic reflex.” - Norman Vincent Peale
My friend Robert has the best strength to weight
ratio of anyone I know. Surprisingly, he doesn't hit
the gym or do planned workout routines. Robert
has a pullup bar installed in the doorway of his
bedroom. Every time he goes in or out of his
room, Robert does a quick set of pullups. He never
pushes himself to muscular failure, but these short
sets sprinkled throughout the day still add up. I've
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seen him effortlessly crank out over 30 pullups in a
row without breaking a sweat! Robert's impressive
endurance is all thanks to the quick sets that he does
casually throughout his day.
Russian strength trainer Pavel Tsatsouline calls this
technique “Greasing the Groove” or “GTG.” In
general, the more often we do something, the better
we get at it. If you want to improve at piano or
painting, you don't have to practice for a straight
hour every day. Instead, you can practice for 20
minutes three times a day.
Exercises are also a skill that both our minds and
bodies adapt to with focused practice. You don't
have to do endless marathon training sessions to
improve your strength or endurance. You can
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improve by scattering your training throughout your
day. Instead of pushing yourself to exhaustion in
long sessions, you'll always be completely mentally
and physically fresh every time you train.
You can bust a single move or combination casually
throughout your day. Every time you walk into the
kitchen bust a headspin or 90 on your vinyl floor.
Every time you walk through your living room do a
toprock to footwork transition.
This can be performed with any move. If you have
built up good form and endurance for power, you
can bust multiple reptitions. Lets say your maximum
number of flares without stopping is 8. Aim for
quick sets of 25%-50% of your maximum
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repetitions. So, if you max out at 8 flares, when you
“Grease the Groove” you'd do sets of 2-4 flares, 3-4
times per day, 4-6 days per week.
As long as you don't train to to failure, you can keep
training this way for multiple days in a row. That
said, if you decide to train for 7-10 days straight,
stop at that point and give your upper boddy 3-5
days off to fully recover from its accumulated wear
and tear. After taking that time off, you'll come back
even stronger!
Shout Outs
“For longevity, you always have to recreate yourself. You
always have to try new things.” - Roxrite
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Props to NYC's Breaks Kru, the first crew I heard of
using this technique as a training strategy. Jump in
the cypher and have a crew member randomly call
out moves that you know. It forces you to break old
habits and quickly transition between moves that you
aren't used to jumping between.
Toprock to knee drop to six step might be a
standard set for you, but how about toprock to kip
to swipe? This improves your freestyle and ability to
fluidly improvise.
Even if the crew member doesn't know your moves
exactly, they can keep it general and still challenge
you by calling out toprock, footwork, power, and
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freeze. This way, you can adapt your particular
movement arsenal to match what they call out.
Saturation
Sometimes people tell me, “Griz, I just can't pick up
this move. I always practice it, but it just doesn't
click.”
Ask yourself, how many times do you do the move
in practice? Often people will try a move once or
twice, get frustrated, and then go onto something
else before they've really warmed their muscles up or
started to get a feel for the technique of the move.
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I borrowed a volume training strategy from the
bodybuilding world called "saturation". You pick a
number of times you're going to successfully do a
movement or combo and you can't quit until you've
done it.
Maybe by the end of practice you want to have
executed a one-handed freeze 20 times or have
completed 15 swipes or 10 toprock to knee drop
combos or whatever it is you want to work on. Pick
a number and don't stop until you've completed that
many of that move. Do it every practice and you'll
be surprised how fast you'll pick up the move.
To use this strategy well, I would recommend always
completing the move or combo 10 or more times,
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unless you experience pain or discomfort. Maybe it
takes 50, 100, even 1,000 times to get a difficult
move down, but, if you focus, you can hit that
number within a few weeks. Then, you will have the
move mastered for the rest of your life.
I have three tips when you use saturation training.
First, if you get too tired to continue the move
properly, take a break.
Second, if you're struggling with a move and you're
towards the middle or end of your practice, save the
rest until next practice. Next time, do it at the
beginning of your practice after you've stretched and
warmed up. That's when you have the most energy
and focus, and it's the best time to learn new moves.
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Finally, if you've never done a move before, don't try
to nail 50 of them in a row. Increase your
repetitions slowly. Muscle grows faster than joints
and ligaments, so, if you go from doing a move five
times to 50 times, you may injure yourself, even if
your muscles are strong enough to do it.
Given that, I'd recommend not doing more than
twice the repetitions you did at your last practice at
any practice. That's still enough to make very fast
gains.
Timing
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"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for time is
the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin
A great way to increase your endurance and
coordination is using the rest reduction method.
Don't limit yourself purely to using this for power
moves like flares and backflips. It's excellent for
power, but it's just as useful for improving your
coordination for moves like knee drops and
floorwork.
If you know you can do three flares consistently,
practice doing them with a minute break after each
three. As you get comfortable drilling that, reduce
the break to 45 seconds, 30 seconds, and finally 15
seconds.
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As you cut the time down gradually, your endurance,
strength and coordination will improve. Soon, you'll
be able to flow right into 6 flares in a row with a
clean ending and no break. You can give yourself
more or less rest time between the sets as needed,
but, even if you shave off just 10 seconds a week,
soon you'll have doubled your endurance in only 6
weeks!
Stick n' Move
"In the circle, there has to be consistency in every solo/go
down, ...the momentum and energy should be balanced
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throughout, or go upward...if you can't finish strong, ..then
shorten your solos, ..we say, stick n move, stick n move." Ken Swift 7 Gems
Sloppy endings and unnecessary filler cause more
losses in battles than anything else. It's better to go
out for three quick, tight sets, than one long good
set and two tired, dragging sets.
Never be afraid to just hit a few clean moves with
control and hop out of the cypher, saving plenty of
energy and moves to slay the next round.
Feel It. See It.
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Hear It. Do It.
"Know Thyself." - Delphi
There are three different ways to learn. You can
learn kinetically or physically, which means learning
based on how your body feels. You can learn
visually, which means watching directly or using a
mirror for continuous feedback. Or, you can learn
verbally by writing or saying what you're doing for
every step.
Each of us can learn kinetically, visually, or verbally,
but most of us learn best with a particular style.
Experiment by focusing on kinetic, visual, and verbal
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styles separately and figure out which ones helps you
the most. Focus on that whenever you practice in
order to make the fastest progress possible.
Personally, I'm a verbal learner, and whenever I
slowly say what I need to do for each separate step
as I'm learning a move, I get it very quickly. You
might be the same as me, or you may make the
fastest progress with visual feedback or just
concentrating on how your body feels.
You can also utilize all 3 learning styles at once:
recite each individual step, focus on how it feels, and
do it in front of a mirror. This is a great way to
teach a mixed group, since you can cover all the
different learning styles at once.
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Triples
"Winners are the ones who do ordinary things an extra
ordinary amount of times." - Anonymous
After you start to get a move, the next step is being
able to perform it smoothly and confidently at will.
Triples are the fastest, most effective technique to
take your moves to the next level. To do a triple,
practice a move three times with a short pause
between each one. If any of them aren't clean, take
a break and start over at one.
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Triples teach you, not just to nail a move or combo
occasionally, but to be able to rely on executing it
flawlessly every time you try, without even thinking
about it. If you mess up and don't get it perfectly
the first, second, or third time, you start over back at
the beginning. For example if I was going to do 6Step to Baby Freeze three times in a row perfectly.
If I mess up on any of the three tries, I start back
over at one. It may take you some time to finish
your set, but the more times you have to start over,
the more you needed the practice.
People of all skill levels have moves that they can
only pull off occasionally and this drill helps turn
those moves into pieces of their arsenal that they
can count on nailing anytime they feel like it.
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Once you get really good, you can do sets of triple
triples. That means you have to complete 3 sets of 3
without a mistake, or you have to start back over at
the first set. For example, say I have to nail three
perfect swipes in a row on three separate sets. I get
through my first three swipes perfectly. But, on my
third set of triples, I mess up, so I start over back at
one of the first set.
If you miss any of them, even if it's on the last one,
start over at the first repetition of the first set. Don't
stop until you've gotten through the “Triple Triple”,
repeating the move perfectly 9 times without a
mistake.
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Doing triples is a great way to program yourself to
nail the move every time because failure is not an
option. You don't quit until you get it right. If I
mess up on any set, I start over at the beginning of
that set. This teaches perfection and confidence in
your moves. This quickly builds the necessary
muscles and teaches you to concentrate and do the
moves reliably with perfect form. This is the most
effective secret weapon to take you from barely
knowing a move, to performing it flawlessly every
single time.
Horse
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"Competition, of course is the essence of every aspect of hiphop culture, be it graffiti, emceeing, DJ-ing--- what makes it
real is the battle." - Kid Freeze
For Horse, you need someone else who knows some
of the same moves that you do. You both agree to
only do the moves that both of you know, and one
of you will hit the floor and do a short sequence of
two to four moves.
Then, the next person will do the same sequence but
try to do it better. Horse is great because it forces
you to focus completely on doing the moves better,
rather than doing better moves. It also helps you
explore moves more fully and find variations within
them.
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Say that your partner just did a series of toprocks
that you know. Can you do the same steps with
more energy, more confidence, and more musicality?
Your partner just went out and busted a 6-step to
windmill. Can you do a cleaner transition more
smoothly than he did? Horse is a great way to refine
your current moves while at the same time reaching
a new level of confidence and variety with your
existing moves.
I hope you've enjoyed this brief sample
preview. Please go to CypherStyles.com to get
the complete 150 page book and the rest of
the Super Power Practice series!
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