Residual Cultures in Our Lives Part II

Hello everybody! Bboy N-dure here once again on the Suburbaknightz Blog! Today's post will be a rather short one because I believe I have covered the import part about residual cultures in bboying in the previous post. So today's post is mainly going to be like a recap and application!

So if you have read the first part to this article, you should already be familiar with the terms framework of intelligibility and residual culture. And previous I stated that one should embrace the crashing incidents during practice and think of creative ways to get out of it. Through time, you can easily accumulate tens and maybe hundreds of ways to get out of a single crash!

But what does that have to do with residual culture?

Let us recap quickly! Residual culture means the remnant of the past that can still be seeing in the present and dominant culture, or mainstream.

That means, whatever you do in the present day on the dance floor is BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU BUILT ON IN THE PAST! You learn how to initiate a set; you know how to transition from toprock to downrock; you know how to do power moves; you know how to properly end your set, etc. All these feats you can accomplish is all because you have the experience, or residual culture, from the past practices that gave you the knowledge to do what you can do and will do!

Hence, my continual emphasis on practicing thoroughly and "correctly" is understandable.

The way you practice also affects your framework of intelligibility. This is how people find ways to make variations out of moves! Play around with your moves and experiment ways you can make it your own. By doing so, your framework of intelligibility will be different from another's framework of intelligibility. Hence, the difference in styles.

Well, that pretty much summed up everything I have to say regarding the topic. This is just a connection I made when studying up for a class. Hope you guys will find it interesting!

Cheers!

N-dure

Residual Cultures in Our Lives Part I

Hello readers! N-Dure is here again to share some more thoughts with you all! This time, an interesting thought came across my mind as I was studying for my Gen Ed exam. One of the many terms that I have to know and recognize is the term "residual culture". My TAs in the class related this concept to the term Hip Hop during the review session Monday night. This caused a chain reaction in my framework of intelligibility and ultimately caused me to want to share this petite random thought of mine with you ^_^

So first, let's define the term. what is "residual culture"? To simply put, residual cultures simply refer to the remnant of the past that can still be seeing in the present and dominant culture, or mainstream.

So you may ask? What does that have to do with bboying? o.O

To answer this question, let's go ahead and define another term that I mentioned earlier: The framework of Intelligibility. The framework of Intelligibility is what differentiate you from me aside from the obvious difference in genetic composition. In short, the framework of intelligibility is one's personal experience. But how does these two concepts relate to bboying?

I urge you to think about of the time when you repped on the floor. Did you plan out your set and carried it out exactly as you thought you would? Or did you grab a few main ideas and wing it on instinct? I better hope the answer is the latter, because that's how it's suppose to be!

But how can a bboy do that? How can a bboy just dance on instinct and still manage to dance to the beat? The answer is obvious: Through practice practice and practice! Through practice, a bboy can accumulate enough experience that can accommodate almost every single possible scenario. That is, if a bboy practice the "right way".

As any bboy, beginners and veterans alike, should have notice by now, crashing is simply inevitable. When you are doing your thing on the floor, sometimes things are just not going to workout exactly the way you want it to be. Maybe your hand slipped, maybe your footing wasn't at the right angle or timing, or maybe your mind went blank and you did something else that you didn't mean to do...all these things will ultimately lead to one thing: crashing.

However, one should not be discouraged by that. Do not lose that confidence! Even if you crash, one can easily recover or cover it up by doing some other motions! But it is HOW a bboy know what to do to recover from his mistake that is worth investigating.

When a bboy crashes in practice, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT just get up and repeat until you pull off your set or combo successfully. This is NOT how you can accumulate experience to recover from crash. If you crash once, chances are, you will encounter the same situation in the future when you attempt that same thing again. Instead, stay in that position, if possible, and think for a second how you can recover from the crash. This is very important! This is how you accumulate your experience, and this is how you get better!

This conclude part one of today's thought! Part two will come soon enough!

Peace out for now!

N-Dure

Just Some Food for Thoughts~

Well hello everyone! It sure has been very busy for me since the school started. Because of the initial need to figure out a good balanced daily schedule in the last two weeks of school, things are rather hectic to say the very least. I barely sessioned because I simply didn't have the time to. With the upcoming pressure of MCAT as well as academic performances, I hardly can muster up any motivation to put myself on the dance floor. But I still long for an opportunity to bboy. I am sure once I do, I will be able to feel the joy of it once again~

In any case, a friend of mine posted a very interesting article that I thought would help out anyone in almost everything. Well, in this particular scenario, I think it would help out any bboys out there tremendously. So here's the link to the article:

http://ryanwaggoner.com/2011/01/youre-working-hard-but-are-you-working-on-the-hard-things/

I strongly suggest you to take your time and read the whole article. After reading it, pause and think about what you have been doing in session. Are you really, honestly, and truly utilizing all your time when you practice? I am sure most of you will probably come to a sudden realization that, according to the article, we are not really maximizing our efficiency. I myself am one of those people.

My mentor, Benny Ben from Rivers/MZK, once said to me that "everything that you can't do is your weakness". After reading this article, these very words emerged in my mind almost immediately. When we practice around people, don't we tend to usually practice things that we can do pretty well or practice things that we are on the verge of obtaining? This is a rather interesting social phenomenon. Perhaps a social behavior that causes this would be the fact that we would love to be seen when we accomplish something grand. I am sure every single one of you knows the joy of getting a new move. Whether it be windmills, flares, suicides, or whatever. We want to show to the others around us that we are not "weak".

However, if you practice what you already know, would you gain much from doing so? Some would argue yes! By constantly practicing and rehearsing through things that we know how to do well, we may discover new combos or new ways to go into those moves. HOWEVER, is this truly the best option if you want to learn everything there is to learn? Obviously no.

There is a Chinese proverb that is translated like so: "Failure is the mother of success". Only through failure will you learn the way to become successful. Likewise, one can only gain knowledge by trying and failing. You will not learn a move simply by watching the video. You have to watch a tutorial and actually attempt to learn the move. This will require you to make some mistakes, which is inevitable. But through those mistakes you will eventually reach the goal.

So I urge the bboys out there that are reading this article. When you practice, keep this article in mind. It is a good thing to review what you have, no doubt. But do not constantly do what you can already do well. Practice those moves that will make you look like a loser (after all, that means those moves are the ones you can't do well). Don't give a damn about what other people think. After all, you will show them what is up when it really counts on the floor.

Just my two cents. Cheers!

N-Dure