SameOldShawn I was looking at your book Breaking and the New York City Breakers, and there was this idea in it that I thought was really incredible and fascinating. It was this idea that, in a breaking battle, the losers need to be able to admit that they lost or the whole thing breaks down Michael Holman Thats interesting. Thats fascinating. It reminds me of a battle I witnessed not that long ago, maybe about four years ago in the Bronx, between two crews. I remember that one of the judges was Crazy Legs of the Rocksteady Crew. One crew was from Boston, and another crew might have been from New York. They were battling, and the crew from Boston had their turn. They were dancing to James Browns Give It Up or Turn It Loose, live version which, as we all know, is a classic bboy song to dance to, and represents bboying in so many ways. Ill never forget. Theres a moment in the song in which James Brown says and he has no idea that in the future, this is going to mean so much to dancers Clap your hands clap clap clapStomp your feet stomp stomp stompClap your hands clap clap clapStomp your feet stomp stomp stomp. The crew from Boston, in the excitement of the battle, dancing in front of Crazy Legs, and maybe just because they didnt know while one of them was dancing, and he was doing that, clapping his hands when James Brown said so, stomping his feet when James Brown said so. He didnt stomp his feet in the right beat that James Brown says to stomp your feet in. He missed a beat or he went too long or he didnt go long enough. And Crazy Legs jumps up and says, Ah, thats not what youre supposed to do! Thats not the rhythm that that goes to. You missed the stomp part. And the Boston crew, instantly you could see that they were crestfallen, that they had lost face. They didnt take it too seriously, they kind of laughed and smiled about it. But instantly, they knew they lost the battle, because they hadnt decoded that song in a way that you should have known that. Any bboy worth their salt should have known So what comes up, to address the issue that you brought up specifically, is that theres so much pride in breakdancing and in bboying. That pride demands that you pay great respect and homage to the culture, and that you respect the dancers that came before, that you respect the customs and the religion that this is based on, if you want to call it that it certainly is a religion So when this crew recognized that they missed something that they should have known, this one little piece in the James Brown song when they should have stomped their feet at the right cadence, they recognized that they blew it, and they had to come back and try again. And to not say that would have been a reneging of or denial of all these different customs, and there would have been chaos. You need to have rules to avoid chaos
stomp, james, crew, brown, clap