Team USA breakdancer and Roxbury native Alex Diaz on what to watch out for at this week’s Olympics

Local breaking crew Floor Lords performed this past Sunday to celebrate the historic initiation of the sport as an Olympic event.

Breakdancing will be making its Olympic debut this week as an officially recognized sport at the Paris Games. Breakdancers, termed B-boys and B-girls, from around the world will face off in solo battles for the first-ever Olympic medals awarded in breaking.

Roxbury dancer and Team USA athlete Alex Diaz, otherwise known as B-boy El Niño, is president of a Boston breaking crew called the Floor Lords. The group performed at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport on Sunday to celebrate the initiation of breaking as an Olympic sport and demonstrate what the competition will look like. Diaz was joined by dancers Vayu Kieta, Alfred Hibbert, and Nic Fortenbach to perform in front of the gathering crowd, spinning, flowing, and propelling from limb to limb to hype up onlookers.

The crew was formed in 1981, making it one of the oldest breaking groups not just in the country, but the whole world. Before him, his uncle, Lino Delgado, or B-boy Leanski, was president and one of the earliest members of the crew.

Following the performance, Diaz had some advice on what newcomers to the sport should look out for.

What is breaking, and how will it work in the Olympics?

Breaking is a one-on-one competition, and each dancer will get two solo rounds to showcase their expertise. Because DJs mix the music live, dancers don’t know the songs beforehand and must perform an improvised routine. However, they come prepared with sets and combinations that they’ve practiced beforehand, said Diaz.

Athletes will be scored based on five criteria: technique, vocabulary, originality, execution, and musicality. This means that the judges are looking at how a dancer’s form is, how they are using the different elements of breaking, whether they are listening to the music and following the beat, and what originality they are bringing to the table. Armed with iPads, judges will issue their scores by moving sliders for each of the five criteria, then calculating a final number.

There are four main elements of breaking. Toprock is movement that is done standing up, typically as an opener to the routine. Power moves are the main acrobatic moves of breaking, which require high speed and momentum. Footwork is how the dancer performs on the floor, with both their hands and legs supporting their body weight. And lastly, freezes are an abrupt halt of all movement to accentuate a beat.

Breakers must be original in order to stand out from the rest. For example, Brazilian breakers may incorporate a bit of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, said Diaz. Being of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent, he likes to mix a bit of salsa dance into his routines.

The DJ gives both dancers the same song to fairly evaluate which one performs better, then switches to a different song for the next round. All music is the same BPM, or beats per minute.

Preparation for Paris

Training consists of practicing either improvisation or sets and combinations. For example, a common combo is a windmill to baby freeze, said Diaz, who teaches the windmill to his beginner students aged four to 11. In addition, breakers must repeatedly practice improvisation to show judges that they can go off-script without messing up, thus earning more points. Nutrition, strength training, and recovery are also just as important as practicing breaking, said Diaz.

“The dance keeps evolving as much as the human body lets it,” said Diaz.

Early breakers in the 80s would head spin, then drop onto their backs, but that has largely changed into something more complex and difficult since then, first into continuous head spinning, then into posing or grabbing one’s legs or chin while spinning. One move called the flare was adapted from gymnastics, resembling the movement an athlete does on the pommel horse apparatus.

Who is on Team USA?

The U.S. roster consists of Victor Montalvo, or B-boy Victor, Jeffrey Louis, B-boy Jeffro, Logan Edra, B-girl Logistx, and Sunny Choi, B-girl Sunny.

“Breaking was invented here, and I think a lot of the breakers from the U.S., we just have what we call the essence,” said Diaz, who expressed confidence in Team USA’s chances. “I’m hoping we get the gold, but overall, I think that we will at least be on the podium for sure.”

The competition will be fierce, though, according to Diaz, and France will have the home field advantage. The best veterans and up-and-coming breakers from around the world are sure to put up a strong fight, including big names like Phil Wizard from Canada, Hiro10 from Japan, B-boy Menno and B-boy Lee from the Netherlands, and Hong 10 from South Korea.

A member of Team USA, Diaz is heading to Paris later this week to support his teammates and witness history in the making. He will not be competing, as only the top two B-boys were chosen for the Olympics— Diaz placed fourth.

What was the process like to get breakdancing into the Olympics?

The journey was an arduous one— “Oh wow, it was a lot,” Diaz chuckled.

The community-based group Breaking for Gold USA partnered with USA Dance, a ballroom organization that already had ties to the International Olympic Committee and the World DanceSport Federation. They also had to come up with a point system and set up six national qualifiers around the country to find Team USA. This entire process then had to happen worldwide too.

But the hard work was worth it, said Diaz, all for the “greater good of this Olympic dream.”

Viewers can tune into the Paris Games’ breaking competition on Friday, Aug. 9th and Saturday, Aug. 10th.