Tips from Invent: foundation = the building block of originality!

[Inventfmc]

Foundation is one of the most important aspects of any dance. In terms of street dances and funk based dances its also super important to learn foundation. But you MUST remember that foundation is just the beginning!

The true key is taking that foundation and tweaking it to suit WHO YOU ARE!
If you learn a technique or foundation take it right away and flip into something different!

Look at the idea of houses. The foundation is always the same... A solid block of concrete at the bottom, but then theres sooooo many houses that look different from one another. So build your dance like your dream house! You need to foundation on the bottom to keep the house standing, but everything above ground can be what you want it to be.

Peace.

[MikeyP]

i agree

thumbs up

[SantaCruzIce]

Good advice fo sho sho. As newbie, the hard part that I have noticed is knowing when you have the foundation and it's time to branch out and add your own flavor to a move or combination of moves. I do think it's important to experiment and play with the dance, but my point is, it's sometimes tough to know when you have that foundation and it's good to move on, as opposed to trying to add your own flavor when you don't have the foundation down. I guess that's why it's important to always re evaluate, study yourself, and learn from good mentors.

[Inventfmc]

Thats the thing mr santa. I think you are confusing foundation with technique.

You can know the foundation in and out but have horrible technique. Just as you can have great technique without foundation.

When you understand the foundation then you can certainly move on. If you wait till you have the technique perfect you are almost stunting your own growth. We all know with these dances that there is no perfect technique haha. So if you are waiting to perfect technique before trying to bring yourself out in the dance you will always stay basic.

We are all constantly learning with the dance, so i would encourage people to grow by breaking the standards while still making sure they know the basics.

Remember: basics are what get you started. Its like being in a footrace and expecting the starting gun to get you moving. Its your own will and doing that moves you towards the finish line.

Remember when building a house you have a choice of design and building materials. If you stick with just the foundation and dont build anything on top of it all you are doing is putting a tent on the foundation site and calling it a house.

[Switch Step]

No perfect technique?!? Have you seen my hits!? LOL... Just playin, but yeah.. I guess founation is pretty important..Technique+Foundation=Unreal though to me.

[Jeremiah]

foundation=fundamentals in all types of art fundamentals are most important, i hear some peeps knocking on learning foundation and say its not original and biting, that it is boring, and they've seen it all before, however i think that they are being a bit close minded, dance is a discipline, and in order to move on to the harder movements one first has to master the simple ones..polishing up on the basics is what works best..invent showed me a clip of a ny popper big mike supreme and i was like daaaaaammnn! simple movements with precision popping/ hitting, basic but clean and AMAZING...i find that ogs (in any discipline) really appreciate solid foundation, that is the first thing they look for "does this young cat know his basics?" and then from there once one masters the basics, one begins adding their own flavor, ..a martial arts student is conscious of his sensei and the elders, paying respect to those that came before is VERY important in anything, they've been doing this dance before i was born so i feel like it is important to pay attention to the groundwork that they layed, the movements are all dictated by the music..popping is drum beats.. origins back to African ancestry, "the tribal circle", one of the primary reasons for dancing was to invoke spirits of ancestors... sorry for rambling, invent always has great insights :)