Chennehcis gives his opinions on an interview of famous dancer David Elsewhere, and how this relates to glowsticking.

The interview is here: http://www.oyemag.com/elsewhere.html

I have a lot of respect for Elsewhere, not only because he's damn good, but because his experience and views on dancing is much like mine.

"I was really motivated to be a good dancer. I had seen this one video at a friend's house. It had this one dancer, this Asian guy with a blue windbreaker. He was at a contest and was, by far, the most talented dancer there. He really struck a chord with me and influenced my dancing. He was sort of the basis for my style in the very beginning. Then I pretty much, it's kind of whacked, but I copied what he had. But one of the things I noticed when I was trying to copy him was that I couldn't copy it exactly. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't copy exactly what he did. At first it was a frustrating thing, but then as time went on I learned that, that was a good thing. That was actually me putting my own spin, my own style into it.

As time progressed? probably two or three years? I realized that the overall consensus within the dance community was to be original. Being original is virtuous. Copying is a bad thing. The combination of realizing that originality was held in such high regard and the fact that I was failing at copying made a light bulb go off in my head. I decided I should just create my own style. More and more I just fed into that mentality and developed what I have now, which is, I think, a semi-original style. Of course nothing is purely original. You get influenced by a lot of things. One, obviously, is all the people in the breaking scene."

I really liked when he admitted he copied people, because that's what I did too. I used to watch videos of an old Pylon glowsticking video, and copy my moves. Of course now I know it's bad but like a certain saying goes, "Fake it, until you make it".

I 'faked' it, by copying figure 8, stomach traces and learning concepts from GS.C (like tossing, which never occured to me, actual tracing, like head trace/leg trace and stuff like stalls/kicks) But once I got to a point where I learned a lot and I didn't need to copy, I 'made' it, you know? Now I'm coming up with more original moves and combos now that I have that foundation.

None of us can truly be original either, because in some part of our glowsticking and especially stringing, we share same moves (figure 8, or spiral, stuff like that) It's the combos/and many other factors that can set us apart

"How much do you practice?
Well it?s changed. When I started it was everyday, as much as I possibly could. I would come home, open the garage, and practice until it was dark. Then when I started college, it took less of a priority, but I was still doing it on a pretty regular basis. Nowadays I almost never set time aside to practice. I practice whenever I feel like it. It?s spontaneous practicing. Whenever I?m listening to music and I hear a good track, I get off my ass and practice in front of the mirror for a good two minutes. Right now it?s not a big priority, because I have a job now and I?m doing other projects that kind of take away from my dancing."

I am also at the point where I do not regularly practice glowsticking anymore. I just randomly bust out while listening to a song, and very rarely do I take the time to crack fresh sticks and glowstick for a good hour or 2. I know for a fact Wes knows what I mean (cuz we both don't really practice anymore, at least not like we did back in the day), and probably even Dave/Paul.

"With all the people and dance styles that have come before you, how do you stay original?
That?s hard. I think that in the very beginning when most people start, it?s kind of necessary to copy people. But once your dancing matures I think videos can be a little unhelpful. You can watch them over and over again so you?re kind of brainwashing yourself into wanting to dance like that. I?m not saying that videos are a bad thing. I?m saying that they are good to some degree, but I just think that they are easily abused."

I also have to agree with this, because videos are only a small picture of what someone can do. I remember seeing Will's and Wes' videos but when I saw them for the first time at Halloween, they had way more moves and were much better than the videos. I believe videos only show a slice of what someone can do and they are defintely better in real life.

I also think videos are easily abused, because there are some people who just watch the same videos over and over and over. Skill stagnates and subconciously, they attempt to glowstick like the person in the videos. I get loads of random PMs, from people telling me how they watch my videos regularly and how they want to 'rave' like me. I think that watching videos too much is just not 'healthy' relative to your dance progression. Just goes to show that moderation is the best and that doing anything too much has consequences.

"To what extent are your moves choreographed versus just letting it flow?
It?s about?I would say 75% all freestyle and 25% pre-choreographed. But the thing is a lot of my freestyle is in a sense pre-choreographed because even though I?m doing things off the top of my head, they?re small routines that I already know how to do. For the most part when I do go out in a circle or during a contest, I?ll usually think of two or three moves to do during that set. I?ll have those moves like on standby in my brain. And then everything else in between those moves will just come off the top of my head."

How do you guys feel about this? I defintely have my 'combos' that I pull off exactly the same everytime. Like small setups inbetween my freestlye.

For example, trace, trace, trace, then a setup where I get both sticks in one hand, double helitoss, trace, trace, trace...etc..

Is this the case for you guys too? I really don't think it's possible to be 100% freestyle, without using a combo you use a lot or practice

"The competitive aspect is good though. I like the fact that there is competition and battles, because that only makes you better. One of the big reasons I practiced really hard was for the sake of competition. I wanted to basically take everybody else out."

This of course, is coming from a bboyer, but what about glowsticking? Here's a hypothetical, what if glowsticking was competitve? Do you think we'd be better? Would more 'taunting' type moves come out? What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading this far (if you actually have ) please discuss

Chen

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