Expanding The Scene: Specializing Your Dance

What’s troubling to see these days is young Gen 2 street dancers who are taking on too much at one time. Do you find yourself learning the six-step but then getting distracted to learn the fresno and then alpha kicks? Does it seem like there’s never enough time in the day to practice your bboyin’, poppin’, and lockin’? Maybe a wise thing to do is simply to take a step back and relax. Take it one step at a time. Specialize in one style.

Otherwise, you’re going to drive yourself crazy being schizophrenic in your dance training. Or you become an all-styles dancer but never a master at one thing. Bboyin’, poppin’, and lockin’ are extremely hard dances to learn. Physically, they challenge your body. Mentally, they test your perseverance and humility. There’s plenty of benefits in sticking with one style and fully experiencing all the hardship and challenges. We learn from our scars, our mistakes. If we encounter a challenge and run away from it by experiencing another style, then we shortchange ourselves from truly learning. The current Gen 2 new school needs to hear this insight.

Dancing can drive you crazy. Yes, we often hear about the freedom and joy that comes from finding yourself as a street dancer and experiencing something spiritual with the music. But training in a style can break you down emotionally. It can tear at your patience and self-worth. And you can finish a long session time wondering why you ever got into this dance in the first place. If you find yourself in this place, remember: everyone has thought the same thing.

Don’t run away from what challenges you. Embrace the challenge instead of diverting your attention to another style that seems momentarily attractive. Stick to your guns. You will eventually reap the rewards from all your perseverance.