R16 World B-Boy Masters Championship

The stage

The atmosphere was figuratively hot, loud music, and the crowd for 2 nights in a row at Olympic Hall, Seoul. R16 World B-Boy Masters Championship was being held on July 7th-8th, 2012. This tournament is to compete dancers from categories of Poppin, Locking, and B-Boy from 16 crews from all over the world to be selected as the best in the world.
The first day was for Poppin, Locking, and Solo B-boy. I was actually late for 30 minutes but fortunately when I arrived the battle had just begun. If you read my previous post about R16 Korea Elimination you will find that the rule is actually the same. It will be 1 to 1 battle. The winner for Poppin is from Korea which is Boogaloo Kin. However, the crowd went a bit hotter when poppin from Kazakhstan, Dauren, came up because he has such an attractive face. The same thing happened for Lockin Zhan Funky from Kyrgyztan because he has such a small body and very cute. But the winner for Lockin is Benson from Taiwan after defeating female locking Cio from Japan. The battle of Solo B-boy was the most exciting and fun. There was this b-boy from Japan whose name is Issei that caught my eye since the first time he showed up. He is really cool and energetic and yes, he won the battle after a battle with Roxrite from USA. There were also some performances by professionals and also from Jay Park but I did not see those either because I was late or because i went back home earlier.

The winners, runner-ups, and men with money
on the first day

The second day was for Crew Performances and Crew Battle. There were 8 crews battling from 8 different countries. For the Crew Performances, each crew will do a 10 minutes performance one by one. They were all awesome but the most interesting one on my opinion was Team Shmetta from Belgium. The did a weapon kind of simulation and it was really cool. But the winner went to Korea team, JinJo Crew, who are also spectacular. The Koreans really made the atmosphere hotter when they were doing the performance. The Crew Battle, of course, is an 1 to 1 battle. Simple System from Kazakhstan had a really tight battle with Team Shmetta from Belgium at the quarto final. Simple System defeated Team Shmetta and they went smoothly to final after defeating Flow Mo from Finland. JinJo Crew was defeated at semi final after a very fierce battle with Massive Monkees from USA. Massive Monkees was really good. They ended up becoming a winner for Crew Battle. My favorite battle throughout the whole tournament was Crew Battle between Massive Monkees from USA against JinJo Crew from Korea. Cube Sound (hip-hop, underground, and street dance team) and Ulala Session came for the showcase.

Ulala Session performing on the second day

Personally, Olympic Hall is a good stage for this competition. The problem is that this place is too far from the center of the city. It takes me 2 hours to go to Olympic Hall from Incheon. I know it is also because I live far away from Seoul, but I think it would be the best if the stage was near the center of the city.
The tournament it self was a blast. The contestant, performing artists, DJs, MCs, the interior, everything was awesome and I enjoyed it at the most. It was also my birthday on July 7th, and I think this was the best gift for my birthday. See you next year R16!

The cuties (lol): (from the left)
Locking Zhan Funky representing Kyrgyzstan,
Poppin Dauren from Kazakhstan, and me ^^

angga | 앙가

PS: Special thanks for Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) for the tickets!

R16 Korea National Championship

Uijeongbu Art Center

Thanks to KTO (Korea Tourism Organization), on June 23rd, 2012, I had a really great opportunity to go to R16 Korea National Championship. Held at Uijeongbu Art Center, I had to take bus and it was 2 hours trip. Worth it? Hell yeah!
What is R16? If F1 is Formula 1, R16 is RESPECT 16. At least that is what I know after reading the introduction page on the R16 website, here. R16 is a world championship for b-boy. Do not know what b-boy is? Click here. The one that I watched was the Korea National Championship to select the best one in Korea and then become the representative of Korea at the World Championship.
Honestly, I do not have a lot of knowledge about this, but I do have interest. The competition was open by a performance from a b-boy: Animation Crew. They were awesome, I got goosebumps all over my body. It really heat up the atmosphere inside the room.

Crew Battle: Korean Assassins VS Fusion MC Crew

At the first time, I really did not know anything about what's going on and what is what. When the tournament began with performance by Animation Crew, I thought this was the competition and I was really excited because if every team was this good, this was gonna be super interesting. But then it turned out that they were only a guest for the competition.
There were three categories competed in this tournament: Poppin, Locking, and Crew Battle. In Poppin and Locking the dancers will have 1:1 battle with certain time duration. The judges then point with their hand who win the battle. It was really entertaining to watch Poppin and Locking dance battles, but when it went to Crew Battle, it was different kind of excitement.
In Crew Battle, two teams will do battle. There are 5 points that will be judged: foundation, originality, dynamics, execution, and battle. I think Crew Battle was more interesting than Poppin and Locking, because it was not one person but it was the whole team battling. Sometimes if both team got the same result then there will be an extra round.
After some tough battles, finally there left the winners who will be representative from Korea at the World Championship. The winner of Poppin dance is Boogaloo Kin, Locking dance is Du Lock (he tried to do some acrobat but ended up hurting his nose, but he won anyway), and Jinjo Crew as the winner of Crew Battle. I hope I can get the opportunity to watch them on World Championship! Fingers crossed!
Awesome b-boy, awesome performance. Worth it!

Want to know more about R16? Do visit their official website: http://www.r16korea.com/xe/

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