How to bone break dance

It sounds brutal but it’s been a revelation for the dancers, the self-expression proving highly cathartic. “Dancers can be the life of the party and all that,” says Bain, “but a lot of us are reclusive, and the things that go on in our head we don’t necessarily vocalise. But we do want to say it, and this is a great way to learn how to get it out.” In fact, if you’ve ever seen a dance show and wondered what the dancers were trying to say, flexing might be your thing. As Bain puts it, you can watch an angst-filled performer but think, “I get it, you’re upset – but about what?”

“I think that’s the beauty of it,” says Nyembo. People think dance is backflips and splits but Gray wants to communicate actual things that are happening in the world and our own understanding of it. “He wants it to be so real that people feel uncomfortable. So he gets a reaction and we can make people question themselves.”

The opportunity to address real-life issues is crucial to the flexors, who tackle racism, injustice, social problems and their own personal experiences. The Armoury show in New York directly responded to the shooting of Michael Brown and the choking of Eric Garner, as well as the tensions and unrest in post-Ferguson America. For the US cohort, flexing represents more than a dance style: it’s a voice for the young and marginalised – and that’s something Gray wants to spread to the UK.

As bodies jerk, judder, surge, spiral and contort across the studio, Gray’s deep voice sends out a rallying cry to his dancers. “Power through our practice!” he shouts. “Freedom and power!”

FlexN Manchester is at the Old Granada Studios, 11-18 July. Flexn will also be performing at the 2015 Brisbane festival, Australia, 23-26 September.

the importance of stretching – mattzworld

[This post is a little different from most of mine, while it’s still about dance injury/recovery and it can be applied to ballet, it is focused on the style of Bone Breaking.  It was written in collaboration with nolamahon, who’s blog focuses on health concerns for ballet dancers.]

Bone breaking, or flexing is a style of dancing which involves physical contortions of the body which look as if they would be physically impossible or would break the dancers bones. These moves are often integrated with other styles like tutting, waving, and gliding. These dance moves rely on illusions to make them seem more impossible than they actually are.

However, these dance moves do require that one pushes the limits of how their body can stretch in certain ways. As anecdotal evidence for this, when I (Matthew) learned how to do one of these moves in high school which involved locking my hands together and pulling my arms from the front to back and back to front, I had to practice with a lanyard using less and less of it before I was able to do it with my hand actually interlocked. Given that this is the case, stretching should be considered very important for ensuring safety when practicing these moves.

In any sort of exercise stretching is important, and it’s particularly important in dance.  For something like bone breaking stretching can not only help to prevent injuries, but it can also help to increase the range of motion in a joint and make the dancing easier.  Mayo Clinic has an article on stretching in which they outline some important things to remember when stretching.  Some of the main points from this article are commonly known, like the importance of warming up before stretching (stretching is NOT a warm up!), keeping up with your stretching, and focus on major muscle groups.  However some of the points listed are less obvious.  One important thing to keep in mind is that stretching should NOT hurt, while you should feel some tension or a light burn, it shouldn’t cause pain. There is also a common misconception that you should bounce lightly in (or push in and out of) your stretches.  This is actually not a good idea, as bouncing can cause an injury, you should instead hold a steady stretch for 30 seconds to a minute.  And, of course, if the exercise you’re doing heavily uses one area of the body or set of muscles you should give that area extra focus.

When stretching, it is important to note that that there are two things a person can stretch, muscles and ligaments.  Yogadork.com has an article addressing this idea in regards to yoga, but can be easily applied to bone breaking.  Stretching your muscles should be the goal, as stretching muscles doesn’t make any permanent changes to the body.  In contrast ligaments (which have the purpose of supporting the bones and holding them together) are not designed to stretch, and as such they do not un-stretch and return to their normal length.  When this happens across the majority of the body it is called hypermobility (when referring to this in just one joint it is called a hyper-extended joint).  Since your tendons are meant to hold your bones in place, if they stretch out too much it can make your joints unstable and as such, the surrounding muscles have to tense up massively to make up for the additional stretch of the ligaments.  So, while many people who do bone breaking have hyper-extended joints and use them in their dancing, it’s important to not force hyper-extension in non-hyper-extended joints.

In a perfect world, you would stretch every time you exercised, but for a lot of people that isn’t totally practical.  Instead, you should stretch at least a couple of times per week.  Remember, if you’re stretching correctly, your flexibility won’t stay if you stop using it.  As far as what exactly to do when stretching, it’s a good idea to find a general full body stretch (like the one on the Feelfit Channel on youtube) and then follow it by a more specific set of stretches to target any body parts you personally want to stretch out (like the stretch with the lanyard mentioned by Matthew).  It’s also a good idea to change up your stretching routine every once in a while.  If you never change your routine you run the risk of falling into a rut or failing to stretch certain body parts.  Whereas if you find new routines regularly, you’re more likely to hit everything you need.  While doing these it’s important to remember the tips mentioned before.  Make sure you’re fully warmed up, don’t bounce in your stretches, and don’t push yourself too far.  It’s important to remember that you probably won’t be magically flexible to begin and that gaining flexibility can take time.

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Breaking or break dance (break dance) - one of the most spectacular areas of street dance, which includes torsion, energetic "runs" and sudden stops of the dancer (freez) during his exit. The dance style began to form in the early 70s in New York in the Bronx area. Only a few years have passed and from the underground dance breakdance has received worldwide fame and recognition. Today, breaking is one of the strongest dance subcultures, with a developed technique, system of events and a real street spirit. On this page you will see break dance lessons for beginners.