I’ve been asked a few times about the structure of my practices for breaking so I figured I’d put into writing my general schedule and some of the the thinking behind it.

    I dont have a ton of extra time everyday, so I can only fit in about 3 activities in a day. 8-10 hours for work, 2-2.5 hours for practice and maybe 2 hours for whatever extra studying I’m doing on the side, any other time that I could use is lost to sleep or to transitions between things. I don’t have time in that schedule for working out, so it is imperative that I practice efficently such that I dont have to and an I am able to stay fit enough to perform well for breaking. I also will sacrifice one practice a week to do yoga and other excercies that are very difficult to achieve in breaking (aka pull ups and other conditioning for pulling muscles).

    In breaking I split my practice into a 7 discrete sections: warming up, toprock, freezes, footwork drills, specific moves I need to work on, and endurance training, then core strengthening drills.

Warming Up

    I’ve learned from being injured many times that an effective warm is mandatory for a good practive. Times where I dont warm up my practices have suffered. I start moves before my body is ready and therefore run a higher risk of injury.

My warm up consists of:

  • 3 min of jogging and jumping jacks (alternating every 30 seconds) just to get my blood moving
  • 30 seconds of arm circles both ways
  • Circles around all the major rotation points in my body (aka neck, hip, back, shoulders, legs, knees, ankles and wrists).

This whole ritual typically takes about 10 minutes.

Toprock

    I cant say toprock has ever been the best thing about my breakin, but there is no way to get away from it. I’m not super rhythmic and musical like some of my other crewmates in Arch Enemies or the friends I generally practice with, but I have to train to keep it at a level consistent with my groundwok. My toprock must make sense with the rest of my style, so in order to establish that same foundation that I’m very meticulous about the music I listen to while I practice rockin. I usually listen to rap (old school and new school) to train my musicality and presence.

    I make sure my rounds are at least 30 seconds and I try to focus on a different aspect of moving each round. I’ll make sure I work on directionality, levels, steps, and speeds. I focus on one of those concepts a day. That’s probably an oversimplification of how to practice toprocking, but it works for me.

I spend 10 minutes on this.

Freezes

    Funnily enough I dont use my freezes very much in battles and cyphers (though I am working on that) I do run them in practice mostly for conditioning and in case I end up in a situation where I really need them to execute something. I usually pick 3-5 arbitrary freezes to work in a practice, and try different ways of getting in and out of them slowly. Generally speaking though, I will always run handstands, elbow stands, and air babies, and turtles, and work stacking each of those. This section of practice takes about 15-20 minutes.

Basic Footwork Drills

    Since footwork is my bread and butter I usually am pretty thorough on my work through it. I run every pattern 3 times both ways in the sequence 6, 7, 4, 3, 2, 1 (with 1 going all 4 directions), then kickouts and CCs. When I wasn’t as comfortable with all my patterns I would run each of them 5 times both ways. If there are other patterns I’m working on I’ll usually stick them in here too, but I never stick in more than 1 or 2. I also try to mix in one slight twist to this drill each time for practice. For example I will make sure I travel forward with one direction with then backwards with the other. Or maybe I’ll do a get up once I finish one direction, then try to get get down on the other. I suggest throwing as many different wrenches into this drill as possible, but be scientific about it. Change only one thing a day.

Basic footwork drills should take less then 10 minutes (depending on the day and speed).

Specific Move Training

    In this section of time (about 20-40 min depending on how much time I have left in the day) I’ll practice any particular combos I’m working on. Notice that hitherto I haven’t mentioned anything about training powermoves and blowups. That’s because I hate both of them and I find that the majority of my injuries have came from when I really start pushing power moves. Unfortunately though, I’ve recently found that the main thing holding me back in breaking is my inability to do blowup combos and certain basic power (like flares and 90s). So recently I’ve been devoting this section to working on those things. I use this time to play around and develop new combos and concepts.

    At this point I think it’s worth noting learning how you move is going to determine how you approach the dance. To this end, I say experiment, but make sure that you spend the requisite amount of time seeing how whatever you create fits in with the rest of how you move.

    I also say run any given combo/move 5-7 times. Breaking is a patient person’s game. Any movement worth having takes time to build up, but if practiced to the point of over-exhaustion injuries can occur and bad habits will be built. Either of these occuring will effectively triple the amount of time it takes to get a move.

Endurance Training

    For the last 20 minutes of my normal breaking practice I spend this time running full rounds to train endurance. Depending on how I’m feeling on a given day I’ll change how hard a push during the following drill. If I feel energetic I’ll usually practice at battle speed and intensity for the whole drill and run combos that I would throw in regular battles. If I’m tired or down I’ll put on some different music (usually screamo, or something just to help me force through the drill) and step through the rounds a little slower and more meticulously. I’ll pick a few moves each round I want to make sure I hit and try my best to get into those moves with as little crashing as possible. I’ll also throw particular freezes and unfamiliar moves in those days just so i get used to throwing them when im feeling week.

The following is the drill I run for conditioning:

  • 1 min round
  • 45 sec break
  • 1 min round
  • 45 sec break
  • 1 min round
  • 45 sec break
  • 2.25 min break and repeat this 3 times. This whole drill takes 20.5 min.

Core Conditioning

    This is just a 6pack in 30 days app that I do daily. I’m sure there are better workouts out there, but this is enough for me at the end of a long practice. The app says you should be doing it 6 days a week (3 days on, 1 day off) but I dont feel bad missing a day if I’m feeling partiuclarly beat. It’s a supplemental activity. anyway.

Final Thoughts

    I know this is probablly strange to bring up at this point (I dont care, it’s a blog about breaking), but I train my breaking like I work in my job. I try to identify the discrete elements of breaking and make sure I take deliberate steps at improving each of these components. It’s a slow game, but I honestly believe that taking calculated steps and isolating variables will lead to an optimal practice and desired style of breaking.

    The other thing I’d like to close this out with is kind of a personal note. My methodology of practice is a way to forcibly create habits. I am a very nerous person, and when I get nervous during battles I tend to fall back on my habits and the things that I have prcticed the most. So, the logic follows that if I train desired habits, even if I end up in a state of panic I can still perform at a relatively high level. Obviously being nervous will never put me at my strongest or most competitive, but if I can raise the lower baseline of performance then I will inevitably be more consistent.

    It is hard to achieve long term growth with a lack of consitency. I strive for consistency in breaking and I believe my practice habit is the best step towards that.