[bBoy Jai]

hey wassup, this is my first post on this forum . I've been bboying for about a year, jes trying to teach myself moves. The hardest thing for me seems to be the toprock and i never really worked on it. I showed my friend once (whose a breakdancer) and he said either i flop or put too much stress when i try to hit the beats. He also said i need more flow. Yeh all that just confused me and I just got alot of questions on what i should do/work on.

I was hoping someone could clear up what toprock is suppose to be and how i'm suppose to kno i'm doing it right?
should i just put on some music, close my eyes and start dancing? am i suppose to hit a pose when the beat drops or what? sorry the post is kinda long

-jai

[EngynNumbr9]

It seems like you have "trying to hard" syndrome. You're thinking too much when you're dancing, not to say you shouldn't think at all, but when you think too much, you'll find yourself in a bind.

The reason I believe this is because you're wondering if you're "doing it right". There is no right or wrong way to toprock... in general. Toprocking not only includes steps like indian steps and replacement steps, but also your own flavor and style - mix it up and develop your own feel for toprock.

When your friend said you need more flow, I believe that means that you need to let the music take control of you, not you take control of the music. If the beat's hard, you step hard... if the beats soft, you step soft.

If you can make a clip, I can better critique and give suggestion on how to further improve your tops.

Engyn.

[King_Ilze_]

Engyn covering pretty much everything I was going to say. All I got to say is make sure you hit the beats. Just flow with how you think you should move. Toprock is basically just putting yourself into the dance so there aint really much wrong you can do. Get a clip and show it to Engyn, he'll help ya out.

[Syn LSC]

stay loose flow with beats do wat your feet want to do

[Ankyro]

Oooooh... As a newb, I can feel your pain. At the moment, I am sure you are looking at the above two posts and saying to yourself "feel the music? WTF am I, some tree hugging hippy?" At this stage, I would suggest, (and this is simply my opinion) that you check out the toprock guides at the top of this page, get a feel for the style of the movement, and build on it. Once you get the hang of doing set steps to the beat, you can go on to expand your repitoire with your own steps. But start with the tutorials, unless you are gifted, just jumping in and trying to develop your own style that looks good could be... trying. And have fun.