G-moves online hip-hop dance school - dance,hiphop dancing,dancing

The beginning

I was born a long time ago and decided that im not gonna share that date anymore. I never thought that i was gonna be a choreographer or a dancer. After primary school ( it was hard work already ) i went to secondary school and i had nothing to do with dancing, except between 1989-90 when i was a regular visitor at the local teen disco. I went with my best friend, and we tried to dance like Mc Hammer or Vanilla Ice ( because at that time they were our big idols ), from 5pm till 8pm every saturday. The music didn't matter. When the Dj played hiphop or '80s pop songs we were dancing hiphop. When he played techno we were dancing hiphop anyway and when he played soft and romantic songs...well... we were just sitting and watching everybody else dancing in couples and sometimes we were dancing hiphop. On the weekdays afters school we watched Yo! MTV Raps and tried to record the latest videos and learn the latest steps so we could be prepared for the weekend. I was thirteen at that time and i didnt even realise that somewhere outside of our village there was something called a dance school.

When i turned fourteen somehow other things took a bigger role in my life. Application to a new school, football, karate, swimming. I had been boxing too but only for two weeks because the stronger guys ( which means everybody ) kept hitting me in the classes. I didn't even look like a punch bag. So i didn't care about hiphop dancing at all.Anyway, i spent five years in my new school which was nice in retrospect because finally i had a girlfriend. I got some new friends, played more football and basketball with them and we had lots of fun together, and laughed a lot. It was all lovely but after my final exams i got a letter that said i needed to spend my 9 month duty in the army. I didnt laugh. Sounds weird doesn' it. I found it pointless and a waste of time, but i did it.

I was twenty and i was just about to finish my duty when my best friend showed up with an article from a magazine that was advertising a hip hop dance course. We started to talk about the old days when we used to go to the teen disco and danced in the middle of the circle, so we decided to take a look.

It was february 1998 when i saw the first hip hop class in my life. The dance teacher danced very well and i fell in love with hip hop dancing second time around. I decided that i wanted to dance like him. I was amazed how much this style had progressed since the last time i danced. I had three classes every week and i was practising almost every day because my movements didn't look the same as my dance teacher's, plus i had 6 years to make up for. I was never satisfied with myself ( i'm still not ) I guess that's what made me progress very quickly. After about a year my dance teacher decided to stop teaching hiphop dance for some reason so i had to look for a new place, but i didn't find anything like him, so i started to create choreographies for myself. They were not good but at least i did something. A couple of months later i found a class which i liked, but after 3 months i couldn't progress because every time some new member joined we started everything from the beginning.

One day when we had class i was practising my own steps in the break and one of the guys ( he was also a student ) came to me and asked me what i was doing. I said i was doing nothing special just practising my own steps. He asked me if i would be able to do a two minute choreography for a party, because our dance teacher didn't have time to do it and the party was within a week. I said i don't know let's try it, so i did my first proper choreography and my first show in december 1999, me and three other guys.I did the choreography to a song called Men In Black by Will Smith and we were wearing black clothes and sunglasses ( what a coinsidence ). I desperately wanted to record it but the battery of the camera had died after 30 seconds recording ( so typical ). It wasn't my camera. I didn't have one. Anyway the feedback was good, organizers liked it and we were asked to do an other one. I had been dancing only for 18 months then. We did our second show but our team still didn't have a name. Before our third show ( that was new years eve and we had to dance in a ball where everybody was over 40) we were thinking about names. We didn't have any idea but because we were wearing black clothes and dancing to Men In Black, we decided that we are going to be the BLACK TEAM. I'll never forget the moment when we were sitting in the dressing room literally 1 minute before we needed to go on stage and the "mc" ( an old guy who didn't speak english ) said to the audience : " Ladies and Gentlemans give a round applause to a young dance group! On the stage.....( he was hesitating )...... The BLACK TIME dance group! " We looked at each other and didn't know if we should laugh or cry. We thought it sounded quite all right so we kept it.

What happened after this? We started to do our Black Time hip hop dance school which wasn't really a school.It was a big warehouse, a tape recorder and 2 pieces of mobile mirror and they were very heavy. There was no heating so in the winter we were dancing in gloves and scarfs.We started with 4 students and i could tell you thousands of stories that happend after but i think this is enough for now. What we achieved as BLACK TIME the next 7 years you can see if you click on achievements. And other time i might tell you more...

The present

Dancing brought so many nice moment in my life. I can recommend everyone to start dancing! It is healthy, making you more confident, giving you stamina and purposes.

Currently im setting up this online dance school which hopefully will be successful and a lot of people will find what they are looking for. Meanwhile i do workshops in various countries and make choreographies for competitions for different teams. I was asked many times where i get the inspiration from!? Well...most of the time the music inspires me. The music gives me the ideas and the style. For me every song is a picture or a movie if i listen to them with my eyes closed.

How do i choose?

I just sit in front of my laptop and start to listen to the songs. If the first 10 seconds of music grabs me, i give it a mark, which means i will definitely use it someday. This is what i call "First selection".

When i run out of these songs i start to listen to those which were not chosen first time round. I listen to them for a longer time, through my headphones and loudly. If i have chance i make the room completley dark and close my eyes. It sounds totally different.Try it, you'll see for yourself !

Other things inspire me too.

I like watching other people dancing in every style. They give me energy they recharge me especially the very good dancers. Doesn't matter if it's ballet, latin or ballroom dancing... I also watch hiphop dancing but not too much because i feel i would loose my style if i was watching them on Youtube day and night. I think i can always learn. I can get nice ideas or a few new moves from other dancer or dance teacher. I think this is not bad. Give and take! That's the way of progressing.

"I must look good!"

Often i have to do routines for teams that go with more than one song.Then they can practice with different songs with different bpm. In these cases i often improvize the movements than try to remember what i did. If im wearing clothes i like on me,(for example a hat that looks good on me - which is rare - with matching socks and accessories...etc.), i feel more confident and better because i feel satisfied. So when i wear good clothes i can improvize better.

Im surrounded with a lot of people and objects.Sometimes the most absurd things can inspire me or give me an idea like a bunch of flowers or an advertisement on the wall. Don't look at the things only with their original function! If you live your life with opened eyes and opened mind you'll find what inspires YOU!

The future

Who knows? But one thing is for sure. I want to dance hiphop and  have a lot of plans and ideas for the future. One thing for sure, if the hiphop online dance school works how i expect it there will be a lot of suprises for the students.