Creation vs Cleaning

What is up y'all~ bboy Ndure here once again to share some of my thoughts regarding bboying.

As IL Break 8 approaches closer and closer, many bboys who intend to participate are starting to get hyped up and start to train hardcore for the event. I can't blame them, as I am one of those bboys that intend to be part of the battle with my crew.

However, as of late, my thoughts are torn and split into two during sessions: Should I make new things/combo for IL Break or should I just practice what I have so far and clean it up as much as possible? Every damn time I go to session, I find myself try to create new things at first, but then immediately shifted to clean up my old combos because I suddenly experience a change of heart and feels that doing so is truly the right decision. This is legitimately a never ending cycle.

Originally, I didn't have so much thought about this topic. That is, until one of my crew mate, Justinian, talked to me briefly after I viewed his battle video at his school, Indiana University. He told me straight up that he just did an old set which Rox-it,one of the judges of the event, had seen a gajillion times already. Justinian stated that he just didn't feel comfortable doing new things after a long and exhausting Friday he had. This comment, although may not be perceived as significant, definitely caused me to think.

What would you do 2 months before participating in a bit event? I recalled two years ago before IL Break 7, one of my senpais, Josh Ong, told me that people usually have their "experimental period" in the beginning of the year, then about a month before people started to just practice the same sets over and over again until they can execute it flawlessly. However, not being a firm believer of sets, I find this suggestion to be inapplicable to me. So I started to think what I can do in order to prepare myself when it comes to utilizing the session time. And trust me, it is definitely not as easy as 1 + 1...

For me, because I realized that I have very limited arsenal of moves, I decided that each time I session I should dedicate a good 15-30 minutes to experimentation. By constantly experiment, I should be able to create new moves or combos that I can truly call my own. Then for the remaining time period, I should practice various combos that I want to work on and to be included in my getdowns when it's time to show the judges what my version of bboying is about. And since I am a firm believer of improvising according to the music, I would only practice combos and not sets. There's a huge difference, in case you don't know it yet :P

So the take home point of this post? Well, don't have one in mind XD Well..to be exact, I don't have a CLEAR one in mind, as the answer to each bboys will be different. If you feel like you have very limited arsenal like me, then it probably would be wise to dedicate at least a portion of your session time into the creation process. If you feel like you have enough arsenal but they are not to the point where they are presentable yet, then you should work on cleaning up those mess. If you are just unsure of where you stand in this spectrum, then just do whatever you want really. Afterall, what you do on the day of the battle can't be predicated by premade sets, but be modeled after your interpretation of the music.