Mind Torture

Ask yourself when you're dancing:

Is it the music that makes me move the way i 'm moving right now or am I just executing the moves i have thought just before jumping in that cypher

Randoms Cyphers of Circlekingz 2009

yo

here it is A little clip made with half of a tape of my collection of 2009 from the Jam circlekingz...i still have 4 tapes to go

some more clips coming in the future for sure

Ps: don't ask for the song.....but if you really want to know, it's a circlekingz song, classic funk track that makes me have goosbumps

I always try to come out with some freshh new shit that nobody has never hear

Circlekingz 2009 random cyphers from bboy Amjad on Vimeo.

Crews vs Teams

I was interviewed yesterday and it came out from the discussion that many young people are confused about the CREW thing.

There are differents skemes that i have seen

What i call the TEAM: Some people really want to win competition so they build a team, They ask some people to be part of it not for human or same minds thinking reasons but more for Skills. Usually they think they have a lack of something in their team so they simply purchase it "Do you want to be part of our team because we need Power to win competitions", same with the "stylers", "trickser" or whatever thing the lack of

They usually will leave one member if he doesn't train enough or doesn't rep well enough for the team.

What i called the CREW COLLECTIONNERS

Generally quite good bboy that instead of representing their crew and their family and build with them, try to be in as much as crews as possible. They will generally ask to be part of the crew which is a nicht nicht for me "YOU NEVER ASK TO BE DOWN IN A CREW!"

some people use thoses more as a label. They will usually jump from crews to crews (El nino called them the Crew Hoppers). Me an my crew receive 1 or 2 request on how to be 7$ from people we don't know every month...or twisted is the game right now?

A CREW

My conception of a crew is some people that are friends first of all, They usually have the same visions of our art and click together really well. They will not hang out the phone when you call them at 3am in emergency. They will not kick out somebody of the crew because he doesn't train enough or rep enough. They will probably do extra activities together outside of dancing.

i like to see a real crew because sometimes you witness the dancing flavour that they created together by been influenced by each other practicing together and drinking together.

BBoy trip in Australia

I usually record some stuff and never do nothing with it...and i decided to put everything that i record together in some clips from now on.

I don't work too much on the editing...but..hopefully it's still watchable

In february 2010 I went to australia to chill with my crew mates RUSH, RED & LAMA. I was lucky to attend the boot camp from Rush with Bounce, Luigi and frankie flav. My 2 weeks trip was amazing and full of things. Chill in Sydney with bboy RED, Chilling at Mason Rose's house and surf with him and his wife, be at the boot camp, attend Lama's Jam in Paramata and practice at legendary Liverpool street with Will and the rest of the Sydney bboy scene...

As i grow up and mature as a good old wine, i realize that The best hiphop moments for me now are more to chill with people that have the same passion and same level of feeling of what we do and practice with them rather than battling in a contest against them...

bboy trip AUSTRALIA from bboy Amjad on Vimeo.

Circlekingz flyer

one of my thoughts about dancing

First of all i juste wanna say this thought is something i have in my mind for a long time and that i finally can put word on it...even if i'm not 100% satisfied of the way i wrote it (my english sucks a bit). So it's not The Absolute Truth but i just want to share it with other bboys to see if they have the same feeling about it or advice from them or complementation on that topic

Without talking about the performance aspect and blowups etc...but just on the Dance aspect.

What i consider as "real dancing" for me is to see the effect of a certain music on somebody's body. In that way, I'm more into Kool Herc's definition of BBOY (boy that broke something in his head listening to music than the also true other definition of a bboy that is boy that dance on the break of the record)

Usually i evaluate a bboy on how i feel when i watch him dance, the magic and the soul that emanate from his dance. The feeling i have is totally independant from difficulty, it's just a magic that happen, little details of his flavour, gossbumps that i have watching him really feeling that music. For me the music should dictate what kind of move you're gonna do, depending on how the music makes you feel...

I recently asked myself why i love so much to 90% of oldschool bboy footage than the 90% of the new stuf i see nowadays

If i think about it:

people do more complicated, complex, difficult moves now than before

People dance more than before...people do care more about music now than in the nineties

People are usually cleaner than before

So i questioned myself why do a prefer to watch old footage usually...

there is apparently no reason

It 's something I discovered little by little even if it's hard to put words on it

Maybe all those competitions make bboys work on their bboy dance almost like a work even if they do it with love. They usually practice moves again and again and give names for them and their solo during the competition is made by all thoses moves put together that they have practiced

A lot of time nowadays when people dance i feel they are executing some moves they have trained for. And when i have this feeling they EXECUTE sets or different patterns of moves to dance i feel less watching them dance.

I usually feel more watching somebody broke on the music do what their mind tell them to do even if it's not 100% clean that a good bboy executing his moves clean but more like a robot

Maybe that's the reason why .... when i watch oldschool footage i feel more SPONTANEITY and i think it's this SPONTANEITY that i miss watching new stuff, maybe that's the other reason why i love cyphers...people have less pressure (there is no winner and no looser..it's juts for the love of it so people have more opportunities to be spontaneous)

To be honest, now they have written this...i'm confused and i'm not even sure my answer is plausible and credible... but i needed to post it ;)

peace

bboy tour +Easy Rock interview

I've been lucky to go on bboy Tour last month and I have been blessed to meet a lot of people

MONTREAL CITY

My trip started in Montreal for the jam BORN to SERVE

This jam was a Seventosmoke and a crew battle.

it was dope because it's the perfect balance between the bboy side and the civilian side (big audience). The first day was strickly for bboys raw jam on the floor with some cyphers and the second day was on stage in a cool theatre place that remind me of brixton academy.

Raekwon did a concert after the battles and i was really surprised that everybody stayed. It seems that there is still some place where elements stand together.

I had a dope moments with the organizer. He seems more and more to me that all the events look like their organiser. I have the feeling that i could describe the organizer personality just by seeing his event.

I also had dope moment with Fresh Format drinking beer and dancing in his System's living room

I m also honored that my "bboy stand" became the logo of that jam...means this pause is freshhhh

it was quite funny to see me on the floor of the event and on the trophy etc...

Then i was mad excited to go to Los Angeles for bboy Summit,

It's really impressive to see big LA, chill at Venice beach and walk on Hollywood Blvrd for a fuckin' european

I was told that i shouldn't expect so much from bboy summit when i told them last thing i remember bboy summit is crazy legs throwing a dick at the police in venice beach....many people told me things have changed so i was quite curious to check it out

Concerning the jam, the first day was dope in a car park with some graff, then inside in a tiny room. Dope wibe but too many interuption bullshit blahblah on the mic....i witness what could have been the best "beef" battle stoppped because

of no music for 5 minutes..then one of the guy walk on because there was no music...

The next day downtown at the park looked more like a picnic so i really love it...popping cypher were fressssssshhh

Everytime i see popping i wonder why i break...i definitively popp more when my body will be fucked up to break

The last but main day was not so good

To do a resume of bboy summit, there were dopest bboy on a soso jam...to many shows, music interuption for me, once you get in you're not allowed to go out...and they didn't sell food inside

I again saw a beeef battle that couldn't have been legendary to witness...but too much blahblah on the mic about sponsors, too many hiphop dance shows etc killed it and the beef battle disseapered

The biggest inspiration and sharing moment i had was chilling with nastyray and practicing with SKMZ...it seems nowadays that the best hiphop moments doesn't really happen in the jams anymore but outside or offside the jam

but i

met easy rock (one of my biggest inspiration). This guy rocked every cypher i checked with still mad flavour and funky style.I took the opportunity to interview him after having made my own star on hollywood blvrd.

Easy Rock interview by Circlekingz from bboy Amjad on Vimeo.

Before going to London i went back to Montreal to catch wreck on the wall with some local dude and went on tagging missions...a bboy trip is not really a bboy trip if i can't paint

Then i went to London to chill with my crew and rep in the Cyphers at the UK champs

Beeing on a bboy week end with the some of the crew is allways dooope and as we are getting

older it doesn't happen everyweek so i was very happy we could do it.

I mainly chilled in the IBE room where music was pumping and there was a 20 minutes open cypher time every 2 hours...was really fresh even if i was expecting more people rocking the cypher....maybe too many people were keeping themselves for the competition.

I had great time and the wibe was like family wibe!

20 minutes cyphers at the time is cool but i miss the infinite cypher time were people after they have done their usual shit get really loose and really try new shit. or just get so loose that nobody even care of the rest or others opinions...

The next day at Brixton academy was how i describe it in my last post...

a lot of what i saw made me wanna quit dancing but thanks to some few dudes for the inspiration.

During the last meal i ate in London, i was introduced to a funny bboy game: somebody have to draw the head of a "famous"bboy then hide it then somebody do the body and hide it and then the last one do the legs...it ends up to make funny characters....here it is our art for the night

if you have nothing more to do, you can still try to guess which bboys are drawn

Circlekingz 2010 Teaser by "..."

Circlekingz Teaser 2010 by "...." from bboy Amjad on Vimeo.

Stunmen vs Bboys

Yo,

This week end was The UK bboy Championship in London. The organisation was "on point" and there was a dope wibe in the day1. During the day2 on stage in Brixton Academy, i had the impression that bboying has never been so close from Stunting.

I'm happy Focus said something about it on bboyinsiders because i realize now i'm not the weird narrow minded hater that sometimes i feel like....but that some other people had the same impressions.

I have this bad impression that many crews & bboys (influence by what the see on youtube and other big competition) are getting away from the real essence which is DANCING to focus more on Hardcore allmost IMPOSSIBLE moves. (Maybe they think that's what they should do to win?!?! WTF

Luckily not all where like this but a lot of crews were on that skeme

What we witnessed looked more to me to as a stunting show than a dancing competition. Many times i saw the crowd beeing real scared of people getting hurt. Many crews threw routines after routines...putting Blowups on the spotlight and lay aside the elegance of the movement

I think half of the audience allmost believed they saw somebody dying when this brazilian dude tried a front flip and a half from the shoulder of his crewmate! and land on his face

Do we have to wait somebody to die to be invalid to finally realize some people went to far?that a lot of crews go in the wrong directions?

The judge bench was dope and they all know what's up

It's time people realize and focus on the real deal

Maybe those big competitions should control the number of routine per battle to avoid those things. And let more space for solo runs where people that don t know how to dance can't hide behind their crew jumping from the routine stright into their blowup move

That's what i do in Circlekingz and it's only a 2vs2 so i think it's should be mandatory for crew vs crew battle.

Peace