Gang Fang's Blog

I went to the Massive Monkees Day battle yesterday, with a headache and pretty bad shoulders. I went anyway because a friend responded to my team up request and I had to be there for him, it was a 2v2 battle.

The crew we battled is gigabot crew, or two members of the gigabot crew. One is a kid, and the other is a teenager I assume. They advanced to Top8. They are very good, so that makes sense.

I didn’t realize until I am writing this, this is actually the first time I battled kids, or those who are good enough that they have made a name for themselves, Lil mushroom from Beijing came to mind. A few years ago when I lived in Beijing, I got this depressing thought that how came I wasn’t even as good as kids, a 7-year-old kid! Then talking to a PT friend helped me understand a bit their advantage.

As I observe more, I notice a few more advantages in those young dancers, or battlers really (otherwise they wouldn’t have been seen by us all) and a particular one striked me yesterday. So I will put them together as follow:

1. Physical advantage:
   • their body is growing, which makes it easier for them to acquire flexibility and strength than adults. This is a big deal because coupled with the fact that their body is also much lighter, they naturally achieve a relatively higher level of athleticism, compared to that in kids, because that is what matters in generating energy in a battle and being judged in my opinion.
   • Another factor, which is my speculation, is they are more in tune with their body, or at least more easily able to achieve a level of attunement, than adults. They don’t have bad habits in body use to get rid of, and the body awareness needed to perform well can be picked up quicker given the first point.
2. Psychological advantage: this is mostly about dancing on stage or in an event. Kids don’t have psychological baggages and they are typically freer and having more fun based on what I saw (at risk of selection bias tho). This is a completely different story for adults.
   • They have expectations, expecting a certain level from themselves and expecting reactions from the audiences. And expectations kill creativity and a good round. I was told by Alex the Cage that I should dance with intentions, as in where I am moving my arm at a given moment, rather than expectations, like doing something expecting reactions from the crowd. The logic is simple: when an expectation isn’t met, disappointment follows, which gets in the way of your mental flow.
   • Also, for adults, showing off in front of people can be more difficult given that many cultures value constraints and modesty. And this is something I have been struggling with for a long time.
3. Generational advantage: this last point, is what I figured out yesterday by watching the gigabot crew. The observation is, they are ALL very good. At risk of selection bias again, I would say they are good because they are taught by AJ Megaman, who is great at dancing and probably also teaching, and this really matters. All the experiences and mental work an adult needs to do to level up, is all distilled and passed onto the next generation in a much more efficient manner with good teaching. And this knowledge gap is very hard for adults, especially amateurs, to bridge because they simply haven’t gone far enough to see and learn enough. This generational advantage also comes in the form that kids don’t have a life to manage, and they are free to pursue the next level as they wish.

After the analysis, what we can learn from these youth dancers/battlers? I think there are two:

1. Maintain fitness, prevent injuries and slow down bodily decay. Attention should be paid to injuries introduced by dance or, surprisingly, non-dance activities as our body ages and life responsibilities grow.
2. Remember that dancing is instinctive and subconscious. What a 7-year-old kid can’t do is complex analytical thinking. And dancing doesn’t require that. All we need to do is to remind ourselves: LET GO AND HAVE FUN.