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The first time I came in contact with something bboy related is sometime in 1999. I was 3rd grade then, extremely active, playful and easily influenced. Who isn't?
I don't remember what exactly the competition is. I think it's the gymnastics world championships. I can't say for sure, because I just googled for some significant event to be influential enough to be broadcasted on cable TV.
It wasn't me who started trying some gymnastics shit first. It was my brother. He was trying handstands, and he was FIRST GRADE. In retrospect it was pretty insane because he managed to get up and stay there for a tad longer than a second. It wasn't neat, to be sure, but it was nonetheless commendable for the first handstand attempts!
Having saw that, I believed that I could do it. Thinking that: if I can stand on my legs, why can't I stand on my hands? So down I went, but I remembered to keep my legs straight because that's how the gymnasts do it.
When you're young, you don't have the amount of knowledge you have when you grow old. You get a greater sense of the world, especially in terms of dangers and threats. All these come from injuries, accidents, flops, bloopers. But in a sense of the term, all forms of aches and pain; heart aches, emotional scars which indelibly had adverse effects on you, your actions, psyche or mind. I was without any of these then, so enabled me to look at things in an innocent, or should I say, more ignorant manner.
I looked at my batman and power ranger toy the toy basket. Picked it up, and balanced it on its hand. Then I thought that if this stupid toy which has no ability to correct its balance can balance on one hand, why can't I? After all, he really really resembles a human being! That's how I got splits too. I opened the power rangers' legs and thought: if i can stretch my arms so far, why can't I stretch my legs anywhere close to that?
So one day I was in my school's auditorium, with polished, varnished wooden planks on the floor, and a few other friends fooling around about an hour before the after noon session starts (school starts at 1pm), I suddenly decided to do the handstand. Why I knew I was going to go upside down, feel the rush of blood to my head, and stare at nothing but the ground to help my balance, I didn't know I was going to stay up there for 10 seconds. By no means it was all skill. It was mostly luck. I could do something, but I didn't realize it. It wasn't anything awesome, but it was something worth remembering. So much so, that I had it in my mind, somehow, through these 12 short years.
I can't really recount any really bboy-related experience I between then and 7th grade. Because bboying wasn't even heard of then. Nor was I interested in gymnastics at all. I mean, what I see other than the handstand were somersaults, insane combos, superhuman strength. While I got inspired by the strength part, the other 2 didn't really inspire me. I started doing pull ups in 3rd grade, and that went on till 5th grade, with decreasing frequency to the pull-up bar. By then, I could do 10 pull ups. That was all there was I guess, besides playing normal elementary school stuff. There wasn't anything dance related at all, aside from the fact that I did not want anything to do with it.
It is in light of this ignorant and innocent mind processing which allowed me to get splits and handstand by just looking at the TV. It isn't any sort of a big achievement or anything. But this very perspective which we 'grow out' of, I will come to get it back much later as I grow up. Because it has this debunking capability, mixed with determination and belief, which I found very useful to have a heart having gained a head.
I will explain more on that later.
Labels: journey
