Re: @Shardeee_ 's live that I feel like I would've hopped on had I not missed the "foundation" talk. About 90% of my students were beginners and foundations is the first thing I teach them so lemme say my piece real quick for them/anyone who needs to hear this haha.

I was brought up in dance as a locker, inevitably learned popping with it, then hip hop, lead me to focus on this urban choreo ting when I moved here 2017. In a word, what my foundations taught me -- especially as I transitioned to a more choreo-heavy style -- longevity.

(Yes sirs I only started getting into urban choreography 3 years ago) I've seen a lot of dancers get better by skipping the foundation proess and throwing themselves straight to int/adv classes and pushing. That push can get you far...but I feel like it's only to a certain extent

I've seen these same dancers be unable to stand on their own. Unable to keep up once the certain "styles" of choreography they've gotten used to evolve/"die down" for a lack of a better term. I've seen them get stuck with their own movement, choreo or freestyle.

They couldn't understand how they can get their body to move a certain way, what with them getting used to playing a very complex game of "monkey see, monkey do." Some of the same people have come up to me eventually saying "I think I need to learn foundations."

I think when you learn your foundations and learn it HEAVY, you're taught a base set of "rules" only for you to branch out and challenge those rules yourselves. Gives you freedom to explore, find your movement, and adapt to other dances a little easier. Dance evolves everyday.

In a lot of cases, when you skip that process, you're taught all of these things at once only for you to be stuck with only those things. A friend told me when he moves it feels "unnatural" even though he knows he has the choreo down. No shit. Branches don't grow before roots hah

Long story short: Foundations last. In rare cases people may naturally understand movement and could go as far as they can without it. In most cases you may find yourself struggling in the process, unable to adapt. Either way, we're all gonna come back down to basics.

Shit, I'm still having to go back to foundation from time to time...

...I'm also teaching it every other Friday via Zoom in my very intimate, experimental "F.L.O" classes so HMU if you wanna learn!!

I really just wanted to get to the plug haha.