As promised, in this post I will talk about "The 10 Battle Commandments" that Alien Ness organized in this book. Again, I will be doing this from the perspective of the Suburbaknightz Crew because, after all, this blog is dedicated to mainly the SK members. However, I will also summarize what Alien Ness has to say for each of the commandments. So fear not!
1. Don't Sleep!
Well, the title of it all is rather deceiving. what Alien Ness really mean by this is to "ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED".
Dancers are bound to have their off days, whether they are experienced or inexperienced. With that said, any given dancer has the potential to win in a battle against any other dancer. The chance is never 0%. From experience, I know that Suburbaknightz Crew are very humble and will never underestimate our opponents. Great job following this commandments knightz!
2. Never Show Your Whole Arsenal!
As many bboys/bgirls SHOULD KNOW, there are always cyphers at jams that hosts battles. This commandment is really straight forward. Never show EVERYTHING you have in the cyphers if you are participating in the battles. If a bboy fail to follow this, then the bboy will definitely ruin the element of surprise, which is, arguably, the greatest weapon a bboy or a bgirl can utilize.
Going off tangent for a little, I recall my mentor, Benny Ben, implied something different. To him, competition is not the most important thing in a jam. A jam is a place where one can experience and test where he or she stands in the scene. As mentioned in one of the previous post, cyphers is THE best way to do so. However, since this book is mainly written to provide battling tips, one should see what Alien Ness' mean.
Ya...about this commandments. Maybe because we have limited arsenal, we are pretty guilty of doing this. So just keep working on expanding our vocabularies and techniques and we will eventually over come this weakness! Alien Ness suggests that we should try to organize our moves/sets into two categories: Cypher moves for the show and burners for the battles.
3. Never do any Moves that are not Mastered!
Again, pretty straight forward. Don't do things that you are not sure of. Many experienced bboys know that one crash is pretty much all it takes for you to lose the round. Therefore, a bboy must make every round counts! Doing moves that you are not confident with will only do you harm. Leave the practicing part at home/lab!
Well, most of the knightz are guilt-free in this matter. Personally though, I am like the worst when it comes to doing moves that I JUST learned in battles. Definitely not a good thing....
4. Never do Multiple Runs!
Well let's take it easy and define the term "run" in this case. The term "run" most likely refers to a get down, or a set. Ever see a bboy do a pretty quick set on the floor, stand up and pause for a beat or two, then get back down to the floor again? That's what Alien Ness means by multiple runs. To his standard, he find that redundant and will bring negative scoring. How? Well think about it. If you do one clean run first, stood up, and then do another run, can one guarantee that the second run will be as clean as the first one? No. You are spending some extra energies that you could potentially save for later. On top of that, if your second run is sloppier than the first, then it will most definitely affect your scoring.
Again, my mentor Benny Ben mentioned something that is a little bit contradictory to this. In one of his sessions, he taught Blujay and I a few transition that will allow us to stand up after a run, and then proceed for another run to continue the flow of the set. So my best guess is that this is probably more of a personal taste. But if you are going to do a second run, you better as hell make sure that your second run can either top or maintain your energy from the first round to make it count!
5. Never Follow a Move with the same Move!
I guess Alien Ness is a man that emphasizes simplicity when it comes to words :P. But again, like the title suggested, do NOT do the same move that your opponent before you did. According to Alien Ness, doing so is only a waste of energy. One is better off use another counter move to fend off the round. However, he did mention that there is an exception to this rule, and that is if you are absolutely certain that you can top your opponent in that move or to use it as a way to mock your opponent. Otherwise, it is better to use another counter move so you can save the move your opponent just did before you for another round. This is, apparently, very effective against opponents with limited arsenal.
Alright guys, let us be honest. How many of us actually do the moves RIGHT AFTER our opponents when we know that we can do it either on the same level or better? I know that I am most certainly guilty of this. Evidence can be provided in our most recent battle against Cypher Rangers @ Cypher Central. I went and did plane millz right after my opponent. Is this one of the exceptions? Whether be a yes or no, definitely need to avoid this!
6. Less Talk, More Concentration!
Ever see one crew continuously bash on the other crew while the opposing crew was doing a getdown in the no-man's land? Oh hells I have seen too many of these. The crews will not be mentioned, but many outstanding crews that doesn't really need to trash talk down the opponents constantly violate this commandment. Save up that energy and try to at least leave a good impression at the end of the battle, even if you lose. According to Alien Ness, most trash talkers that he had encountered were remembered as trash talkers rather than good bboys, even if they did win the battle.
Growing up in the suburban area, it is rather hard for us to jump right into the "bboy mentality", or the "confidence", so to speak. To many inexperienced suburban bboys, showing "confidence" can sometimes be labeled as simply being rude to the opponent. However, I know that the Suburbaknightz Crew have the ability to find the balance between being rude and showing confidence simultaneously. In fact, we did in all our battles. But to many judges, perhaps a more aggressive approach would be preferably. But hey, that's who we are. If they don't like it, too bad.
7. Strategy Wins Battles, not Moves!
Many bboys often times are judging a battle by seeing which side can offer the most variety of impressive moves. However, while having many good moves are great, knowing when to use them is truly the key to winning battles. When you see a bboy that clearly outdo you in power moves, would you go out there and respond with your own power moves knowing that you are probably going to not impressive the judges and audience? There are two things you can consider doing at this point: You can either just throw a wasteaway set to give your opponent this round while saving up your energy so you can do an impressive set in the next; or you can respond with something you have saved up in your sleeve and utilize the surprise factor. Alien Ness spoke about in the past how he should have lost many battles, but because he can strategize well in these kinds of situations, he emerged victorious.
Well, like many bboys, I tend not to have a plan whenever we have a battle, putting commandos aside. Whenever the opponent outdo me right before my run, I tend to just go in and try to outdo him with the best of my abilities. Like the rest of the knightz, we attempted to outdo our opponents every single time by going all out. By doing so, we are not using our arsenal very wisely, and this can be fatal in battles. Perhaps we should start having some kind of plans before going in.
8. If it's a Battle, Let it be Known!
Since this commandment really applies to battles during cyphers, this really doesn't apply to the Suburbaknightz Crew YET, since we haven't encountered a battle during cyphers yet. However, to those that did, make sure that your opponents KNOW that it's a battle. Don't just go say you owned the guy without the guy even realizing that it was a battle. I know it sounds silly, but this has happened in Il BReak 7 and School Yard Brawl.
9. Keep your Eye on the Prize!
I have seen too many battle footage/battles where bboys will attempt to do a freeze or toprock while NOT FACING the opponents. This pretty much defeats the purpose of even doing a battle in the first place. Keep your eyes on the opponent to show that you have got that confidence! If you don't, it could potentially lose you the battle! KEEP YOUR FACE FACING TOWARD YOUR OPPONENTS DURING TOPROCK AND ALL THE FREEZES! One way to practice this is to place an object on the ground and set it as the "returning point". For every set/freeze you do, try to end up facing that object in the end. This is the training method recommended by Alien Ness.
As of now most of the Knightz don't have too much problems with this commandment. In fact, I would say we are pretty decent in this aspect. But I know for a fact that we can't truly follow this 100% of the time. So more training to raise up that percentage!
10. Admit your Losses!
Finally, the last commandment. Since Alien Ness actually worded this commandment better than I can, I will quote him for this one: " THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD IS WHEN ONE CANNOT ADMIT TO LOSING A BATTLE. TRUTH IS, IN A BATTLE ONE PERSON HAS TO LOSE. IF IT'S YOU, MAKE THE BEST OF IT AND COME BACK STRONGER".
This is probably the most important commandment in my opinion. When you enter competitions, there WILL be times when you lose, it is as simple as that. Don't be one of those assholes that will criticize the choices made by judges when they decided to fail you. Instead, go up to them and ask them why they think you have lost the battle. Learn from your mistakes, and come back harder next time!
The Suburbaknightz knows our limitations as bboys and college students. We can't dedicate 100% of our time to bboying because we have our academic priorities and expectations to meet. We know that we are definitely not as good as bboys who dedicate their time 100% and wholeheartedly to the art. While power to them, we know that there are battles which we simply cannot win, and we acknowledge that. Great props Knightz!
Well this is it! The 10 commandments of battling. I apologize for such a long post...but hey, if you really want to get something from Alien Ness, take your time to read it, review it, and apply it. The next post about the book will be titled "Preparing for Battles: Section 1". Look forward to it!
Cheers!
N-dure
