This past weekend, I went up to Rutgers University, New Brunswick for a bboy competition called RUthless. I carpooled there with a couple of my crew-mates in Cypher Syndicate, Hawke, Jey, and Lane. Hawke was invited to their event for their invitational 1v1, chosen by 15 other dope bboys from all around to battle in top 16 against each other. We head out to the event around one o'clock, the event started at four but Jey wanted to try and hit up Bboy Onton's workshop. Bboy Onton is a world renowned bboy in crews like Supernaturalz Crew or the UnitedRivals, and also RUthless' 2017 judge. When we arrive to Rutgers New Brunswick, it was about two-forty-eight. As we walk up to the venue, they were still setting up the flooring for the competitors like us. We were just too early. We came early because Jey wanted to take the workshop, the rest of us had no intention of taking it since we were battling, so we went roaming around Rutgers' campus.
Hawke, Lane and I walked around the campus and decided to do a shoot. As we walked around, we tried to find a good spot for us to snap some shots. We see spot a metal railing walkway and thought the spacing around there was dope so we put our bags down and set ourselves up.
While we were taking pictures, we tried to hit up people that we're close with attending the event to join us. As we were hitting up people to join us, we hear from a distance, "FRIEEEEEEEENDS!" We look around with confusion and we see our friend Misha running towards us. Like any other close friendship, we started shouting too.
Misha is a Philly bboy in a crew that we are close with Retro Flow. Hawke and Jey are actually a part of their Crew as well, but the Jersey people of the crew, as everyone else is from philly. Misha is a reckless/pretty boy who literally gives no fucks about what he does, and that somewhat shows in this picture.
Misha joined us in our shoot and we got a lot of amazing shots. We all came up with a lot of creative ideas and made them work out.
After a successful shoot with the four of us, we stopped by starbucks on Rutgers' campus before we head back to the venue. As me and Hawke were waiting for Lane and Misha to make their orders, we met up with Mikey, another Jersey bboy in the crew Jersey Underdogs. Mikey was also one of the invitees of the invitational 1v1 battle.
We head back to the venue with each other and see a majority of people coming to that are either competing or spectating. When we got back the workshop was still going on and we see Jey. Thinking that he took the workshop, he end up not. We meet up with our philly bboy friends and said our greetings to each other.
All of us lined up to pay our fee to enter the venue and signed up our crew. As I walk into the room, I see bboy Onton. I walk up to him to greet him and he notices my camera. He asks me if I do street photography (which I do) and asked if we could do a shoot. Since he mentioned me doing street photography, I asked if he was down for a quick shoot before the jam started, and he agrees. I thought that it was awesome that a world renowned bboy would want to do a shoot with me, makes me feel honored, (me fanboying inside).
After he asked me, I decided to grab some of my philly friends and see if they want to join in on our shoot before prelims start. I gathered my boys from "ETS", (Engineered to Smoke Crew) Marz and Mach Phive, Don Lov from "Dirty Dozen" and Draze from "All in One".
After the shoot, we all go inside to warm up for the competition. We all settled ourselves, stretched and cyphered around. As we were cyphering, I got to catch up with some old friends that attended the event. Before the preliminaries started, another one of our members in Cypher Syndicate came through to the event, Jason.
Before the event, before the New Year, a couple of our crew-mates were just hanging out. We were chilling at Hawke's crib and both me and him were sitting outside on his balcony having a deep conversation. He mentions RUthless to me and says that we are going to battle with each other. At first I was shocked, considering out of all the members in our crew, I was considered the prodigy. That being said, I felt nervous already for the event, even until the day of the event I was still nervous. It's just that being asked to battle with Hawke makes me feel honored in a lot of ways, because Hawke is considered like a big brother and Sensei to me, (Sensei meaning a teacher for those who aren't weebs, lol). Since that day I've been training hard for RUthless, yet until the day of, I still didn't feel ready to battle. But it's good to have a mindset to just have fun, because that's the whole reason why we are dancing, because it's fun.
Just having a crew gives us that serious vibe. Our crew wants to make a difference, getting a breaking scene for South Jersey. I want to be able to showcase how much I've progressed over my one year of serious training and also in the scene. I've made so much companions on my breaking journey and it has changed me in a good way, (or at least I think it has). Having such a great bond as a community can really change you and gives you a different perspective of the society we live in. The culture of hip-hop is something really unique.
While we were cyphering during prelims, Hawke approaches me asking if I was okay battling with Jason. At first I got confused because we were suppose to battle. Jason had a huge urge to battle, but when he tried to sign up last minute, they didn't have enough room in the bracket. Since Hawke was an invite in the 1v1's, I accepted the switch up. Lane had partnered up with Misha under Retro Syndicate
A couple days ago from the event, I had sprained my wrist. A majority of my power are floats and it hurt when pressure was being put to the wrist, but regardless I was still going to battle. When they called out our crew name, we came up to the platform with all of our companions on our side, which took up 1/4 of the floor. When a person is battling, spectators are allowed to support a team by being on their side of the platform. Our opponents were two Rutgers students.
After our battle I felt satisfied regards to my sprained wrist. I had a couple slip ups but that was my one of my better battles that I've had this year. People that came up to me said I did fairly well minus some slip ups (which I said to myself). It is always satisfying when a random person comes up to you and compliments your dancing, it shows what you do can impact another person.
Moving on to further in the jam, none of our comrades in our crew made it past prelims and Hawke lost in his top 16 against bboy kilo. But a couple of our friend from philly had made it past. Don Lov was also an invite and had made it to the top 8 for 1v1s, Jerry, another member in Retro Flow made it to top 8 with his partner bboy Bugy as RomaniaNPhilly. Our boys from ETS made it to top 16.
One person in the whole event that I thought was very unique in style was bboy Kilo. Out of a lot of bboys I saw that day he was just, different. I approached him to introduce myself and say how dope he is, because he was so dope, I wanted to take a picture of him as a memory of who he is. His real name is Graham Reese and he's from New York. I also peeped that he had some Supreme gear on and I gave him more props for being dope. In the event of RUthless he was the finalist against bboy Church but lost against him, in my opinion I thought Graham won, but congratulations to Church. Graham had asked if I knew Jerry Valme and I told him that he was like another one of my Sensei's. Since the new year Valme has helped me tremendously in breaking, and it's a blessing. Anyways Graham mentioned that they use to be in a crew together called 8ball. I thought that was awesome, it also made sense since Valme would stand on his side when he battled.
With the 2v2, bboy Sted Love and Born from MZK took the win against bboy Tiger from United Outkast. The fact that Tiger made it to the finals by himself is really impressive. Since it was a 2v2, that meant that Tiger had to battle twice as much than he should have if he had a partner. Towards the end of the 2v2 finals, Tiger was drained of energy and his last round wasn't enough for him to win.
Around the top 8, it was Titanz against MZK, during the battle, one of the members in Titanz bboy Snow, was battling a little too aggressive. In the mindset in a battle it is good to act aggressive but if it isn't part of your personality, then your opponent would get the wrong message, which is what happened after this battle. After MZK had taken the win against the Titanz, they were shaking hands, but Sted Love didn't accept the handshake from Snow. Their crews got into an argument and started a call out battle during the 1v1 battles to the side of the venue. After a couple rounds, they made peace with each other.
After the jam was over, me and the crew wanted to snap some last minute shots before we head out. We found a good spot with really good lighting and set ourselves up. When we were done, the pictures turned out amazing.
Throughout the whole event, I had fun regardless of our crew making anything other than respect. We came and did enough damage for people to know who we are. This is just the beginning of our crew's journey, To be continued: