So I like to dance. I got into it in college, and have been so blessed by all the experiences dance has brought into my life.

This article is about how I trained for this battle. You may think this is only interesting if you’re a dancer, but I disagree - I think this is interesting if you’ve ever wanted to do something hard! You’ll see how I:

1. created an analytical framework to understand the problem (what makes for a good freestyle?)
2. strategized my approach
3. executed the plan

If you’re worried about your attention span, well I have lots of videos for you. And if you’re just interested in tech, you’ll see a personal app I built to assist this journey.

Let’s go!

What is a battle?

Dance battles are a way for dancers to showcase their skill, artistry, and story in a competitive environment. You may have already seen battle videos on social media - these clips tend to be incredibly popular! Here are a few examples of amazing dancers doing rounds for House battles:

Flash Haddi

Soma

Danzel

The videos of the rounds above come from different stages within a battle. Most battles have two stages:

Stage 1: Prelims When you have hundreds of people enter a battle, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? Prelims let every entrant quickly showcase their skills. You get a predetermined amoutn of time (like 45s) to dance to music from a DJ. Judges assign scores, deliberate, then select the top X dancers to move onto Top Cut. These rounds are NOT head to head, and are instead done sequentially in order to get through many dancers quickly.

Animation of a dance battle prelim: 16 dancers each take a turn on stage, are ranked, and the top 8 advance to the top cut.

Stage 2: Top Cut The great dancers who qualified from prelims get to flex their mastery during Top Cut. This involves head-to-head battles where each dancer gets multiple rounds dancing to music. Judges determine winners from each head to head, eventually resulting in an overall winner.

Animation of a 8-dancer single-elimination bracket: each round one dancer per match is chosen at random to advance, until a single winner is crowned.

I was able to go to Windy City Throwdown IV last year, and I cannot adequately describe the skill of the competitors. There were so many amazing movers that various tie-break rounds had to occur in order to settle on a Top 16 bracket.

In order for me to do anything, I need goals. And because I’m delusional, my goal for this year was to make it out of Prelims.

So… what does it take to freestyle well?

This could be a whole dissertation… and I am by no means an expert. But from what I’ve been able to experience, I believe great freestyling boils down to three components:

• Musicality
• Movement
• Performance

There’s limitless depth to each of these and they are so deeply intertwined, but let me give a brief run-through of each. To be clear, this is MY framework - it may be wrong, and it certainly doesn’t encompass all of what great dancing is. If you have feedback, please let me know! I am a student in this and want any guidance that I can get.

Musicality

Dance is all about how we express music and intent through our bodies. Musicality is a dancer’s ability to hear AND represent the music, and it’s far more sophisticated than you might expect. In my mind, there are two fundamental components (and if you read on desktop, a cool example to illustrate what I mean):

Freestyling in a battle context adds one more requirement to Musicality: Pattern Recognition. Because freestyling requires dancing to music you likely haven’t heard before, the ability to quickly understand the patterns in the music is critical. Quick predictions enable you to make thoughtful choices within a very short time. If you can predict what comes next, you can better plan your freestyle and be more layered with how you dance.

Movement

So music is the foundation, but Movement is how you express the music. What does your body do in order to evoke your inner world externally? How do you take a sound and capture its essence with motion?

I think there are three dimensions to Movement, and how it contributes to freestyling:

• Repertoire — do you actually have knowledge of the “foundations” that make up a style? Club and Street styles allow for a lot of individual expression, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t foundational movements. The foundations are a shared vernacular that expresses what culture the dance comes from. Dance is inherently cultural, so to dance well you must respect its history. And to respect its history, you must have knowledge of the foundations.
• Quality — beyond just knowing the moves, can you do them well? Everyone’s body is different: how do you tailor the movement to your frame? How do you make even the “basics” exciting to watch?
• Flexibility — once you have a repertoire of movements you do well, how do you add variations to find your own voice, or give a better voice to the music? This can involve variations within the movement itself, or in the transitions in and out of movements. I think of Flexibility as your ability to take notes and scales (the basics) and make jazz out of them.

Performance

Finally, the last thing to remember about dance is that it’s a social experience — we dance because it lets us connect with others. Even if you’re dancing in front of a crowd, engaging with that crowd at a human level is critical. Great dancers are great storytellers, and are able to have the crowd in the palm of their hands. There are two parts to this:

• Phrasing and Energy Control — as with stories, dancing requires phrases. Think about how the stakes and tension of a story build over time before a release. We do this because it’s incredibly effective at engaging other humans. Dancing is the same way: great freestyling uses movement to express the shape of the music while controlling the energy of the room and releasing it at the ideal moment(s). A dancer I want to highlight is L2K — his background is in Litefeet, which is conducive to building to an explosive finale, and he is an absolute MASTER at that.
• Personality — dance is also all about personal expression: how does your movement reflect YOU? One thing humans love is being entertained, and people with larger-than-life personalities are entertaining. A great example is ESolo and his “Tio Freestyle”, but I also think Zhané is a master at this. She has an incredible repertoire of movement, but what she is best at is absolutely commanding our attention via her larger-than-life personality.

That’s a lot of theory. So let me make it concrete: here are a few dancers I adore, each with very different approaches. I’ve picked a freestyle from each, and analyzed why they’re so incredible using the framework established above:

Goosie

• Musicality
• Movement
• Performance

Radial fan chart of 8 stats on a 0–10 scale. Highest: Pattern Recognition (Musicality) at 10.

Category	Feature	Score	Notes
Musicality	Hearing	9 / 10	I'd characterize this song as more vocals-led, with the beats offering some accents behind Tiller's vocals. Goosie takes that and makes the vocals the centerpiece of the freestyle, while accenting various beats throughout the larger phrases.
Musicality	Choosing	9.5 / 10	There are some CRAZY choices being made here, both across the sounds of the song and the words themselves. My favorites are the dive forward they do, and the “playing my song” section. It's goofy, but Goosie COMMITS — and that's what makes it land.
Musicality	Pattern Recognition	10 / 10	Goosie hits so many things in here it's insane. Knowing where the vocals are going while also capturing the various beats in the background takes masterful pattern recognition.
Movement	Repertoire	0 / 10
Movement	Quality	0 / 10
Movement	Flexibility	0 / 10
Performance	Phrasing/Energy	0 / 10
Performance	Personality	10 / 10	Such a unique vibe, but Goosie is masterful at controlling the crowd by injecting their own brand of attitude into the freestyle.

Fantaye

• Musicality
• Movement
• Performance

Radial fan chart of 8 stats on a 0–10 scale. Highest: Choosing (Musicality) at 10.

Category	Feature	Score	Notes
Musicality	Hearing	0 / 10
Musicality	Choosing	10 / 10	I think the best moment of this freestyle is actually not even tied to the music at all, but instead tied to Ruthie riffing off of what the MC said! The earring removal is CRAZY, and although not strictly tied to musicality, still fits within the wider freestyle and music!
Musicality	Pattern Recognition	0 / 10
Movement	Repertoire	10 / 10	Ruthie's bag is just so deep. Although this particular freestyle may not be the best example of that, even here you can see her depth in the variety of styles she is able to pull from even for just small moments.
Movement	Quality	10 / 10	In addition to her wide repertoire, Ruthie is excellent at actually doing the movements. The years she has spent honing her craft are clear in how she moves. She is so good, that she's even able to push the energy in her movements to the absolute edge without them losing their groove and feeling.
Movement	Flexibility	10 / 10	Due to her extensive experience in so many different styles, not only can she do many movements, Ruthie can also quickly switch between them while making them all look natural and appropriate.
Performance	Phrasing/Energy	0 / 10
Performance	Personality	10 / 10	There is a level of absolute comfort that Ruthie displays when she's on stage. Her energy and skillset allows her to absolutely command attention, and that is very clear when you watch her move.

Nimbus

• Musicality
• Movement
• Performance

Radial fan chart of 8 stats on a 0–10 scale. Highest: Hearing (Musicality) at 10.

Category	Feature	Score	Notes
Musicality	Hearing	10 / 10	Nimbus is the musicality master! The particular song he's freestyling too also helps him showcase his skill with musicality due to the various beats and instruments that make up the backing track. At various points in this video, I think he manages to emphasize/play with every single sound in the track!
Musicality	Choosing	10 / 10	Did you even see the head shake he does? I mean, that is just inspired.
Musicality	Pattern Recognition	10 / 10	His ability to play with all the different components of the track require unbelievable pattern recognition. He takes his time to deconstruct all the various layers, then is able to masterfully weave in and out of the different layers.
Movement	Repertoire	10 / 10	Nimbus has a deep back of different foundations, but his freestyle tends to not rely on a specific library of moves, but instead using his various abilities to accent music in various different ways. For example, throughout this freestyle, he does moves that aren't 'moves', but rather unique movements building on other things he is able to do.
Movement	Quality	0 / 10
Movement	Flexibility	0 / 10
Performance	Phrasing/Energy	10 / 10	In addition to his excellent musicality, one thing I really admire about Nimbus is his ability to construct a phrase across larger components of a freestyle. For example, the amazing head isolation moment hits so hard because leading up to it, he was doing very large, high energy moves. Contrasting this with the much smaller isolations is critical in order for a move that 'simple' to land.
Performance	Personality	10 / 10	Each dancer I used as examples performs in a very different way. Nimbus's performance hear leans on subtlety and playfulness in order to land the concepts. He knows that his musicality is excellent, so his performance doesn't distract from that. HOWEVER, he is still able to show his personality even with smaller facials.

Strategy

Great, now we have a framework! The thing is, I only decided to start training 3.5 weeks before the competition. In order to make it out of Prelims, I need a strategy, and this strategy has to factor in my timeline, my goal (making it out of prelims), and my current strengths and weaknesses.

So what am I good at?

Finally, I know that I need to actually bring a fun energy to the battle. When I practice, I know I am very serious, and sometimes that appears when I session. But I am not always so serious - when dancing at the club, I am as carefree as can be, and I think this is often when I do my best dancing. So I hope my plan will also allow me to be confident and secure enough to communicate my joy and love of dance while competing.

Execution

Alright, so we all know strategy is overrated — what’s the execution plan? Well, there were 3 parts to it:

• My Dancing
• My Mental
• My Inspirations

My Dancing

Obviously, if I wanted to get better at dancing, I’d have to dance. My dance practice utilized 3 approaches:

Foundations Training

In addition to brushing up on the foundations I feel confident in, let’s also add some spice by introducing new movements to my repertoire.

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Pattern Recognition Training

Actively listenining to House music I’ve never heard will develop my pattern recognition and the speed to do it quickly.

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Open Training

Unstructured time helps me implement learnings and explore. By the time WCTV rolls around, the skills I’ve been honing should be second nature.

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Fortunately, each of those parts also fits cleanly into a different part of my day. I can train foundations in the morning when I wake up, since it doesn’t require too much mental energy and is just focused on repetition (good way to wake up!). The musicality training can happen throughout my workday, since I just need headphones and concentration. And my open training can be done at night by myself, or at classes and sessions with friends.

My Mental

Regardless of how well constructed my dance practice is, my adherence to it is the most important part. In other words, managing my mental state was critical as I prepared for the event.

Here’s what I know about myself: my willpower is not my strongest trait. I cannot grind through tasks just because I told myself I needed to do them. Instead, I am very motivated by:

1. Public accountability
2. Curiosity

So to stay focused, I need to lean into these. This article was actually part of my training process by giving myself a sense of public accountability! I knew that this would eventually be public, and that people would be able to see my training logs and videos (read further). Therefore I knew I had to practice to ensure that I didn’t embarass myself!

Is this mentally healthy? I don’t know…but it worked!

As for leaning into my curiosity, I knew I needed to inject my training with new inspirations.

My Inspirations

Although I often complain about how humans are not built for social media, and that it slowly (quickly??) poisons the mind, I do have to admit that it has been an amazing way to level up dance education and influence.

I focused on a few sources of inspiration for my house dancing:

• Social Media Educators (Jardy Santiago and Cotu Calcium ) - they release so much content on their youtube channels that is specifically for education. Fun fact: when I first started dancing all the way back in college (12 years ago!!), I used Jardy’s oldest videos! I’m glad to see that he has continued to teach and inspire people online, and his playlists are full of different movements and variations that I could play with
• The OGs (Caleaf , Sekou , Ejoe ) - there’s a reason the OGs are the OGs. Although styles have evolved and expanded beyond what they originated, there’s something so raw and effortless about how they approach the foundations. I’ve been especially inspired by Caleaf and his lanky frame. He just makes it work!
• Japenese House Freestylers (Hiro , Soma , Miyu , Boxer ) - speaking of how styles have evolved over time, Japanese house just has a different feel than what you find in the US. I particularly enjoy Soma’s style, and how he is able to turn his lanky frame into a strength (like Caleaf)

Finally, the most important thing is to take advantage of the community around me. After all, I’m in Chicago, the birthplace of House! In addition to great classes with great teachers, dancing at Penny Whistle on Thursday nights is the best training I can get.

The Journey

Results

Alright Imesh, enough dilly-dallying: what actually happened at the battle? So this is where I have to reveal my dirty secret…a week out from the event, I realized that I would not be able to compete…

…

…because I would be running the event!

I knew this well in advance but assumed I would be able to sneak in my freestyle while I was working. At the last minute, I learned that I physically would not be in the same building as Footwork Frenzy…

This article goes into the process of building for Windy City Throwdown. In it, I walk you through my product development flow and how I’m using AI to build anything and everything for my community. In the interim, I did want to share some progress in my freestyle journey. Check out how much I improved from the beginning (left) to the end (right) 3 weeks later:

There’s so much I need to improve: although I like the start of my “end” freestyle and I have a nice groove at the beginning, I kind of get lost halfway through and default to “movement vomit”. In addition, I need to feel more comfortable with a greater variety of moves - I default to the same foundational movements that I feel best at (if you ever see me over-using loose legs in real life, feel free to punch me).

At the same time, this is progress! You can see more confidence in the second video: I’m thinking less and connecting better with the music, and there’s less stiffness in my movement.

Even after Windy City Throwdown passed, I’ve continued to use the tool I built to track my practice. I recently also added a streaks feature for myself, to ensure that I make my practice into a daily habit. If I can improve this much in 3 weeks, I’m so excited to see what I can do after another decade of this.

Parting Thoughts

If you’ve ever wanted to get into dancing, I hope this article inspires you to take that first step. In fact…if you’re in Chicago or NYC, I actually have an app for you.

But even if dancing isn’t your cup of tea, I hope this article still inspires to try SOMETHING new. No matter what you want to learn, the approach of:

1. Analyzing
2. Strategizing
3. Executing

Is all you need to achieve any goal in front of you!

Finally, if you’re motivated technically, the tools available today make it (almost) trivial to build anything you want for yourself. The dance tracker I made for this took about 3 days to finish (including UI refinements!), and it was invaluable in keeping me on track and inspiring me to continue dancing even after WCTV! It’s exciting to see how I’m able to integrate my tech passions along with the other interests in my life, and I’m stoked to see what I (and others!) build in the future.

Lastly, as a thank you, I leave you with the earliest video of my dancing that I could find. Please be nice - this was a…rough start.

That being said, if this guy can learn to dance, anyone can.