URBAN DANCE FREESTYLE
Freestyle plays a large part in all the urban dance styles. Nearly all of these dance styles started out as freestyle dances. Only later were they choreographed into routines and taught inside dance studios.
When you freestyle what you are basically doing is dancing to the music and expressing yourself to the music in whatever way you feel.
You can freestyle in one style or in multiple urban dance styles depending on how you feel.
Learning freestyle is slightly different from learning dance routines because you have no one telling you what to do at each point! It is largely about self discovery and learning about what you like to do.
It will be natural to do the moves that you can do best in freestyle, as you get better you will find that moves and combinations will come out spontaneously that you have never even done before!
In the beginning it can be a bit of a thinking game as you wonder what you're going to do next. As you become comfortable with freestyle though you will not have to think so much and you will just feel the music and dance.
It is important to know how to do the style of dance you learn well, otherwise you will be limited in your freestyle.
If you only know 1 or 2 moves you will be limited in your freestyle, so try and learn your style of dance properly. In some styles of dance there are many moves, whilst in other styles there are only a handful of basic moves to learn.
However you do not need to wait until you can dance perfectly before you attempt freestyle. You can start anytime and as your dancing gets better, your freestyle will improve also.
Most styles of dance have certain styles of music that they are usually danced with. For example breaking will use hip-hop music and funk music with a breakbeat usually, in fact it will use anything with a breakbeat.
Find out what style of music your dance is normally danced to or ask for advice from other dancers if you need to. Then get a hold of some of that music, put it into your boombox or whatever sort of music player you have and start freestyling.
It is fine to practise like this at home or with your dancer friends. Some people the first time they freestyle will actually be in a freestyle circle! Kudos to them! However for a lot of people this will be too scary and they will at least have had to have had a few attempts of freestyle at home before trying something in a circle.
Remember in freestyle you don't have to do any set moves so you don't have to try and include every single move that you know. Just dance how you feel in the music and if you want to put in a certain move at a certain point then you can.
Once you get better you may even feel tempted to take part in dance battles in your chosen dance style.
In these freestyle battles you will be pitted against other dancers in your chosen dance style usually for some sort of prize for the winner.
Whether you enter battles is up to you - you can even set up informal ones with just your friends for fun.
At the end of the day in freestyle you do what you want, not what others tell you.