BOOGIE NATION 2011

This event was the first event for us to rock our new custom made "Kamikaze hats"

Unfortunately, we DEFINITELY need to try MUCH MUCH harder to represent the hat lol

Over all, it was the most organized event we've been to in New York.

Every thing was on time and well organized.

However, music sucked. Some dancers who attended Boogie Nation addressed that they were using the same music as last year.

Furthermore, it was disappointing to find out that in the battle, DJ played the some songs he already used in the preliminary.

well, here is how we did, enjoy!

REZNO Popping Clip!!!

Hope ya'll are enjoying the weather outside!!!
The weather in NY has been really sunny like the westcoast!!!

Speaking of westcoast, one of our crewmember REZNO recently visited San Francisco.

Here is the vid of him getting down!!!

Enjoy:)

What The Funk?! Crew Street Performance!!!! POPSHOP!!! in NYC!!!

sup yall! Sugaloo posting this when he should be working on his final project but F**k that and hear me out!!! LOL

On Saturday, 24th, me and Ilya "Poppin' Ill" will be street performing in manhatten, NY!!! XD

I often go to the city to teach or practice and have seen people street performing but never actually done it
I've always had interest but never wanted to do it by myself lol

But since Ilya will be coming all the way from Parsippany,NJ,by train, I thought it would be a good chance to try it.

I'm really excited about this because of two reasons

1. Want to find out how much our performance is worth lol

2. Performing on the streets means performing in front of audiences that are NOT familier with Popping. In other words their feedback is PURE AND REAL. How COOL IS THAT!!!!!

We would probably be performing at Union Square from about 3:30PM, so if u happen to be around, come check us out!

We would be dressed some what formal and will be popping :D lol

And if possible, we would record some of our performance and post it here or on our youtube account

Also after street performing, we would be going to POPSHOP to practice with dope poppers in NYC, Popping Tito from philly, and Crazy Son&friends from D.C!!!!

POPSHOP will be at PMT studio from 5~7PM! damage is $3!!
The address is same as SUGALOO's Popping Class

And then we are going to a club event @ THE PARLOUR!!!
Its open from 8PM but we would probably be going around 9 or 10.
The address is
247 West 30th Street,New York, NY!


wooooo its gona be a LOOOOOOOG day!!!!LOL

If u wana get down with us, feel free to come to these places on Saturday!!!

oh Wish us luck on the street performance!!!XD

Peace

~~Posted by SUGALOO~~

Keep it Fresh!! Review~~!

Sup yall!!

Hope yall ar enjoying a great weather we ar having today!

So last weekend I went to Baltimore to Judge a popping 1 vs 1 competition (also reppin What The Funk?! to the fullest like u see in the pic with 2 other popping judges Mike the popper&Jett Jaguar from the Regulators).

The place where the event took was really nice but the size of the event were small.
This was due to lack of time and management to put together an event(that's what I heard from the organizers themselves) and it would've been much better.

For example
-The place were steaming hot cuz they could not open the window due to the fact that the building right outside had a Easter ceremony going on.
-With the size of the space they had, they could've sold some goods like drinks and maybe sponsored T-shirt or smt to improve its financial planning.

Although it seems many people had a great time at the Jam:)
I believe this was due to the unexpected high level battles on both Popping and Breaking Battle.

There were less than 15competitors on both sides but I saw something very interesting and fun to watch on every battle.

Popping side was especially interesting since the competitors brought many different styles and flavor.

There were Animators,Funk Stylers,G-Stylers,and straight up trick dancers;D lol

One of the epic battle of the day for me was

Tito(Philly)VS Wookie(Baltimore)

This is Tito(somehow I had his pic but not wookie lol)


The two represented there style to the fullest and it was really hard to judge.
Tito had west coast funkstyle mixed with animated feeling.
Wookie had Asian flavor Beatfreaking Animation style.

Tito stuck to the basics while wookie presented his unique style and was the crowd pleaser of the battle.

Tito changed his style as the music did from round 1 to 2 which was amazingly done, however, I thought he wasn't able to maintain the energy and the intensity he brought on the 1st round.
Wookie stuck to his favorite style on both rounds. Although he managed to maintain the energy and was able to change the way he approached to the beat.

This was a REALLY CLOSE BATTLE and now I think back, I feel like we should've done a tie breaker since both are great poppers

The winner of this battle was WOOKIE

I gave my vote to wookie because of the reasons written above and cuz I thought wookie attacked to the beat more.
It is really important to go with the flow of the music in dancing, no doubt. But when u are battling u have to attack the beat with ur flavor and show supremacy against the opponent and prove that u can rock the beat better than the opponent.

Overall I had a good time at the event!!
I kinda regret that I judged cuz there were a lot of great poppers to battle against!

so NO JUDGING FOR A WHILE!!
gona stick to practicing and battling :)

Big props to the organizers for putting together a good event,all the competitors who is keepin popping and breaking scene on MD real and to those who won the event!!!

Peace

~~Posted by SUGALOO~~

Strength

One thing that often slips people's minds, mainly the beginners, is that dancing is HARD. Even the simplest of steps requires a certain level of skill and physicality. I can recall a conversation I had with a "dancer" who laughed in my face by the end of it. I told him, "man, dancing is training. You gotta be physically fit, technically sharp, and mentally stable. It is hardcore training." He laughed. His ignorance surprised me, and since then I've tried to keep away from him. But that is not the point of this post...

Many dancers have physical boundaries to overcome to begin with. I, for example, have terrible knees, to the point where I am supposed to be in physical therapy three times a week. However, that is expensive, and I can replicate the same exercise with relative ease. On top of those immediate barriers, comes the lack of physicality/reaching the proper physical ability to improve your dance. That means eating healthy, staying flexible, and systematically working out each body part for your dance. I recently watched a video describing a similar topic and it mentioned the training habits of several famous dancers, such as Gucchon and other Japanese poppers doing 100s of squats, pushups, and crunches in each class. Or Madd Chadd's ability to high jump over 7 feet.

This all makes me feel like I am lacking a major component, not only physically, but in my dance as well. A dancer's instrument is the body, and it is the dancer's responsibility to keep it tuned and in perfect condition.

~Posted by Ilya "Poppin iLL"

The Six Diseases

Training.

Recently, most of the members competed in Step Up Or Get Smoked!--as mentioned in earlier posts--and everyone did well. However, there comes a time when one has to accept the performance, take it into consideration, and resume training even harder than before. With the SATs over and this beautiful March weather shining, it is the perfect time for me to resume this rigorous process. Therefore, I like to look at a certain philosophy that I can apply to what has happened recently, and how to improve. I thought, what better way to examine a battle than taking something from fighting, since I personally believe fighting and dancing are incredibly similar. These wise words come from Bruce Lee's "Tao of Jeet Kune Do"

"The six diseases:
1. The desire for victory.

2. The desire to resort to technical cunning.

3. The desire to display all that has been learned.

4. The desire to awe the enemy.

5. The desire to play a passive role.

6. The desire to get rid of whatever disease one is affected by."

~Posted by Ilya "Poppin iLL"

Step Up or Get Smoked 2010!!!

Yes the event I'm helping to organize and judge is happening this Saturday, March 6 from 8pm!!!!

Its called

"Step Up or Get Smoked 2010"!!!!!

As u can tell from the name, this battle competition expects u to bring the best u can do or else get smoked(defeated) by the opponent!!!

The event will be held at Creative Image Studio
Address are displayed on the side link of this blog :)

This time Step Up or Get Smoked will hold 3 different street style competitions.

First House


Second Hip Hop


Finally Poppin


Incredibly, many skilled competitors are expected to attend this event,
including my crew mates, E.T,Karlo,Poppin iLL,Ray Mak,Samgician,and TKO

I have high expectation to see the best battles of the day in poppin section since it have more competitors than the other two. Also dancers will be coming from all over east coast such as D.C, Philly,NY,and NJ.

Come and see how What The Funk?!Crew gets down and witness the best dancer of these styles!
Support and be part of the REAL UNDERGROUND HIP HOP CULTURE!!!


Facebook Event Page

Peace

Who The What Now?!?!

Sup ya'll my name is SUGALOO, Member and one of the creator of What The Funk?! Crew.

many of u might be wondering why we chose such ridiculous name for our crew, well since this is beginning of another new journey for us, (well just something I have to do for skool LMAO)
I would like to explain how we came to be who we are now.

April 2009
At the time I had no knowledge about the area and its dance community,thus, the only reliable source was the Breakdance.Org. There I finally found a session spot where I can drive up to and that was called P.A.L of parsippany.

At first, I was kinda disappointed by the low level of the dancers there lol
However, I stuck around cuz the guyz were all nice and I felt at home instantly, and perhaps cuz I met Ilya(only white boy in our crew lol)

He was the only popper around the area and when I saw his dance, well let just say he wasnt a popper at all lol. But that was only cuz he never had the chance to actually learn from anybody who know how to dance poppin.

Although he had energy when he danced and also was seriously curious about poppin. After acknowledging that he only need another popper/teacher who can teach him, I decided/promised to stay and cultivate his skills to make him a sick popper

May&June 2009
Surprisingly, the number of dancers practicing at P.A.L gradually grew. They were mostly B-Boys(Since the session was called P.A.L Breakin Session) but we were blessed to meet E.T,Karlo,Ray Mak,Charles and Rezno.
Unlike Ilya and TKO(My little brother), they knew how to get down.
Since we were the only poppers they've met in NJ, we soon began to get down constantly and share knowledges,concepts,techniques and battles.

Now here comes the reasons for our crew name!!!!

one day karlo started a conversation about forming a poppin crew since there wasnt any in NJ.

At first, we(E.T) came up with the name cuz wanted to show/introduce the NJ dance community a pure and original form of poppin, EB Style/Funk Style. So that when they see us poppin, they would say "What The Funk!?" instead of "What The F**k!?" lol
and also we thought it was really catchy lol

Although now I feel like we have another main reason for having this name.

WTF?!Crew have diverse styles of poppin
and they all have original flavors.
Right now we all are trying to cultivate those flavor to be UNIQUE

We want to be DIFFERENT.

We want to be UNIQUE

so UNIQUE that when u see us get down, u will be flippin out shouting our name,,,,,,,


WHAT THE FUNK?!?


Peace