By: Kyle Xu

It’s now been over 50 years since the world has seen the birth of the sport of breaking: on August 9th and 10th, breaking will make its debut as an Olympic sport.

Breaking was first discovered by Black and Hispanic youth of New York City in the 1970s, and soon it became popular across the entire hip-hop community. Now, it will become an Olympic sport in Paris, where B-Boys and B-Girls will show off their skills.

“This was something we did to release,” said Beta Langebeck, a B-Girl who judges breaking competitions. “These kids now, it’s a different opportunity. They get to elevate and compete with the best.”

It’s important not to mix breaking up with “break dancing,” which is a media term and is regarded with shame in the true breaking community.

In Paris, competitors will not know the music that the DJ will play: instead, they will have to improvise. Each one-on-one battle will only last for a minute, so it will be customary for breakers to switch moves rapidly.

But Breaking isn’t just prancing around and nodding your head to the beat on the floor. In fact, there’s breaking terminology too.

Toprock is the first session of a breaker’s performance. First, people start out by shaking out those rhythms standing up. Toprock is the foot, hand and arm movement that B-boys and B-girls use while standing. It’s not actually the main course – think of it as an introduction to a breaker’s own unique technique, style, or rhythm. You can also call Toprock uprock as an alternative.

Then the breaker needs to use a move to bring themselves down to the floor: sometimes a knee drop or backward ankle slide. It acts as a transition.

That’s when footwork happens. Footwork is one of the major actions you think of when your mind jumps to breaking. Breakers support themselves on one or two arms while their feet kick out a flurry of exciting movements.

Breaking also has its own names for amazing moves: windmills, headspins, airflares, and much more.