In my 15 years of breaking, I’ve observed the trends and metas that guided the breaking battle scene throughout the world. I’m writing this piece to discuss the current dominating meta I see and glean some core foundational breaking elements from it to provide you guys some concepts, methodologies and structures to consider. Note that at the end of the day, the craft of breaking is yours to cultivate. You can choose to develop it in a way that it’s battle ready or just have fun with it!
All-roundedness
Due to the new competitive scale the breaking community has attained, being a sole specialist of power, footwork or blow-ups does not necessarily work in the current landscape. From observation, the dopest bboys and bgirls out there exhibit an all-rounded nature of breaking whilst leaning into their strengths given specific contexts such as performing in a large or small crowd environment. Bgirl Ami and Bboy Zoopreme are two examples of dope all-rounded breakers to look out for and take inspo from.
Ami: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcrZ19lbALI
Zoopreme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox8BE5yZ8_I
Flow
Flow and transition elements of breaking have been very popular in the battle scene. I’m honestly not sure why this the case, but it seems to me that flow just helps everything in your set become more cohesive in nature. Instead of approaching a move independently, now breakers have to start thinking in a more synergistic sense where all your moves in a set will affect other moves in a set. Therefore you have to be strategic with how you connect your moves. A great practitioner of flow is bboy stripes.
Stripes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-73TnxeoLzI
Shapes
The concept shapes have been very important throughout breakdance battles. From a high level perspective, the common shapes the body is capable of determine our expectations of what we expect to see; however, when shapes become abstract and elusive, this makes a visual impact on people. Exploring the different shapes you can create with your body can be a great exercise in terms of creating your own distinct style. Bboy phil wizard is a great example of this.
Phil Wizard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF2wJXewlwg
Musicality & Showmanship
This concept is not new. Musicality is the crux of breaking as a freestyle dance form in my opinion and will always be a sure fire way to win battles. If you’re able to hit the beat and move your body in a way that not only hits the obvious beats, but parts of the melody and the subtle beats, this will elevate you to another level of breaking. Additionally, if you’re able to add elements of showmanship where you interact with not only the music, but the environment around you, this also elevates your breaking game. A dope bboy that does this is bboy dias.
Dias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_iocp6xQE0
