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Herrang Day Five: Teaching Lindy Hoppers How to Break

Posted on August 5, 2010 by

Sorry that the updates have been infrequent here at the Herrang Dance Camp.  It's been a whirlwind experience and I haven't had much time to process or write about it.  And frankly I've enjoyed being completely offline for once in my life.

Anyway, today I found myself teaching an introduction to breaking class as one of the "cultural activities" at the camp. That's what I get for befriending this Eritrean kid at the camp named Mosel.

My first night here I was hanging out with Dawn and a family from Eritrea who are working at the camp.  One young boy named Mosel asked me if I knew hip-hop dancing, so I told him I was a b-boy.  He wanted to learn, so I showed him the basic six-step on the dance floor. Some other guys saw me doing this and asked me when I was teaching in Herrang.

After chatting with the organizers, I found a spot to teach yesterday afternoon.  I expected only a handful of people to show up, but we had a good 15 or so people who were eager to learn.

I think I did a pretty decent job teaching the basics elements of b-boying: toprock, floor work and freezes.  And we talked about the aesthetic of b-boying as an aggressive and proud dance, which I hoped was helpful. 

The class was just an hour, but we covered a good bit of material.  Everyone was gung-ho to do the little intro routine I came up with, which I drilled several times with different music.  And afterwards several people stayed for about 45 minutes to keep working on what I showed them and ask questions.  A couple of the younger men even wanted to work on swipes and handstand freezes.

It was a really fun experience for me that took me out of my comfort zone, challenging me to share something of myself with others. Where else do you get to teach people from all over the world how to break?

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Freestyle to “Booty Swing” by Parov Stelar

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