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Excellent text! He has some very sound ideas and tips for dancing, and not only break. That is great! I especially agree with the part of reading up on the history of the dance. That is indeed vital I think. But one thing I would like to point out, not in fault but in addition to, is that you should not allow yourself to be limited to the exact way that dance was done in the past. I believe that by studying the history of the dance, in it's many aspects, you should soak up the very essence of it, and indeed practice it in the way it was done. But also I believe very very strongly in the individuality and the freedom of dance that breaks beyond all the barriers of it's original use. Take the style and run with it. Respect it's roots and it's unique qualities, keeping that alive, but tweak it to suit your particular personality. I swing dance, and my sister and I have very very different ways of doing it. I love to feel the tremor of the horns, and I incorporate the shakes and vibrations of the instruments into my solo dance. My sister however loves the drums and intense beats. She incorporates her love into the dance by having each move sharp, hard and powerful. Like a bam BAM kind of thing, where as I do more of a shake be bop shoo kind of thing. Pardon me but that is the only way I can describe it [laughs] We look incredibly different, and some don't like the way we do it, but we have kept the spirit of the original charleston dance, but conformed it to the way we want to do it that is often quite different from the way the dancers originally did it. So I stress that, do not be confined to the way other people do it. Dance is this. Self expression. If you love it, there is no such thing as being a poser. But if you don't love it for what it is, self expression and dance, then why do it in the first place? Whether you have knowledge or not, if the love is there, there is no poser. Now in break I realize, as mentioned about the c-walk, you need to know when to do or not to do certain things, so you do need knowledge there, but in most dance styles such things don't exist. Good post there Vanilla, thanks for sharing! Take all with a grain of salt, be yourself in your dance.

Under the stars,
Catherine