Learn How To Breakdance: Essentials To Get You Started

Shoes - need to be flexible, light, provide good grip and offer good support. Running shoes are the best.

Pants/Shorts - Excessively baggy pants or shorts mask movement which makes you look like a moving block instead of fine tuned dance machine.

Shirts - Same as above, Cotton shirts get soaked in sweat. Shirts with designs on the back may cause excess friction when spinning.

Knee Pads - Protect against bruised knees.

Elbow Pads - You don't have to wear elbow pads all the time, but it's a good idea.

Wrist Supports - Are your wrists hurting from dancing? Once your wrist and forearm strength and flexibility are developed you will not need any support. Until then use gymnastic wrist wraps.

Gloves - This is a preference issue, the right type of glove can help or hurt you depending on its padding and slickness.

Helmet - There's no better piece of gear for practicing headspins than a good skateboarding helmet.

The helmet provides a flatter surface to spin on for those of us with odd shaped heads. The padding inside the helmet is much more comfortable than a beanie.

Head spin Beanie or Hat - You can buy or make these, its just a normal beanie with material from a lawnchair or trampoline stitched on that provides a slick surface to spin on.

Any large smooth area is perfect, and you ideally want a big, open space where you should be able to jump all over the place and not hit anything.

High ceilings, so you can do handstands and jump around

A padded floor, beginners need mats when learning new moves. Wrestling, gymnastic, or workout mats all work.

Once you perfect the moves move up to a slick surface such as linoleum, hard wood floor or marble.

You can also use talcum powder to make a slick floor silky smooth.

You will want some feedback, so large mirrors are key or have a friend use a camcorder.

Music is essential; this is an element of hip hop after all.

It's all about practice. Have patience, when you learn how to breakdance it's challenging and to perfect it takes time. Better yet, it's a lifestyle, so you will be doing this for years to come.

Get some friends together and have fun, this is a form of creative expression and it should always be fun. If you put in the hard work you will get the results, stick with it and continue to evolve your own unique style.

At the end of the day, what you put in is what you get out, so put in the practice.

Even though there are some fundamental moves of breakdancing that are in essence the same, it is important to develop your own style.

Invent your own moves and transitions between moves, look to others for inspiration but again spin it to your own unique flavour. It's all about being creative and expressive with your physical body, each has their own unique creative expression that breakdance will bring out.

Also look to other area's outside of breakdance for inspiration, as the original roots of breakdance started and evolved from other areas of dance. Check the likes of gymnastics, different areas of dance and martial arts for further inspiration.

Flexibility:

Important so your body parts can move in a full range of motion making the harder moves easier to perform.

Stamina:

In any sport you need to be able to compete, breakdancing is no different, so you need the cardio and endurance strength in your muscles to be able to last while performing.

Strength:

Straight forward, you need the strength to control your body while moving. You want to focus on both endurance strength and explosive strength for the quicker movements. Without strength you won't be able to perform smooth movements and could cause yourself injury.

It's very important that before you begin any sort of practice you warm up your muscles to avoid injury and to help with flexibility. You need to make sure all the muscles you will use are stretched out.

Almost all the breaking moves will require you to have a strong core and upper body, so look for exercises that focus on these areas and strictly work with BODYWEIGHT exercises. You won't need weights at all, although using weights wont bring a negative effect to your routine it is best to start with holding your bodyweight.

Some of the bodyweight exercises you will come across are hectic enough even without weights, the buff guys pumping out bench presses in the gym will even struggle with some of the easier exercises, as using your bodyweight targets more muscles and helps them to bind together. If you just use gym machines or barbels you will only target specific areas, and we need to develop full body strength with breakdancing.

Search some out on the internet and you will see what I mean. Start easy (pushups, raises, presses, flys, crunches, ) and move to variations when you get stronger (handstand pike, diamond and elevated pushups just as an example). Keep exercising and building your strength as this is key with breakdancing and any form of dance.