What is B Boying?
B-boying (also called breaking, b-girling when performed by women) is a style of street dance developed by African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx borough of New York City during the early 1970s. B-boying consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. B-boying is typically danced to hip-hop, funk music, and especially breakbeats. Practitioners are called b-boys, b-girls, or breakers.
The dance form emerged as one of the four foundational elements of hip-hop culture—alongside DJing, MCing (rapping), and graffiti writing. Its modern dance elements originated among the poor youth of New York during the 1970s and early 1980s. It is tied to the birth of hip-hop, whose DJs played songs featuring rhythmic breaks for dancers. Unlike its media-coined label “breakdancing,” “b-boying” and “breaking” are the original terms. The majority of the pioneers and most notable practitioners prefer these original terms.
Origins & Lineage
Breaking evolved as part of the hip hop movement that originated among African American and Latin American youths in the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a disc jockey and emcee at a party hosted by himself and his younger sister Cindy at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, an event often cited as the birth of hip-hop culture. Herc placed on the turntables two copies of Brown’s 1970 Sex Machine album and ran “an extended cut ‘n’ mix of the percussion breakdown” from “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,” signaling the birth of hip hop.
The terms “b-boy” and “b-girl” were coined by DJ Kool Herc to describe dancers who came to his parties. The “b-boys” and “b-girls” were the dancers to Herc’s breaks, who were described as “breaking.” Herc has noted that “breaking” was also street slang of the time meaning “getting excited,” “acting energetically,” or “causing a disturbance”. Breaking was born when street corner DJ’s would take the breakdown sections (or “breaks”) of dance records and string them together or loop them. This provided a raw rhythmic base for improvising and mixing, and it allowed dancers to display their skills during the break.
DJ Afrika Bambaataa credits James Brown’s “Good Foot” with the inspiration for many of the moves. Other moves came from martial arts, such as Capoeira (itself having origins from enslaved Africans in Brazil). After developing the dance for over five years, many blacks grew tired of breaking and had stopped by 1978. The first generation of B-boys, including the original Zulu Kings, the Twins, Clark Kent, were done by 1978.
The Rock Steady Crew is the most famous breaking crew in hip-hop history, organized in the Bronx in 1977 by teenage b-boys Jimmy Dee and Jimmy Lee to preserve the acrobatic style disco was eclipsing. Richard Colón, better known as Crazy Legs, was featured in the earliest stories on hip hop dancing to appear in mainstream press, and as president of the Rock Steady Crew brought the form to London and Paris in 1983. Classic movies people first saw breaking in were: Flashdance (1983), Breakin’ the Movie (1984) and Beat Street (1984).
How It’s Practiced
B-boying unfolds through four primary elements, each with distinct vocabulary and purpose.
Toprock generally refers to any string of steps performed from a standing position. It is usually the first and foremost opening display of style, though dancers often transition from other aspects of b-boying to toprock and back. Toprock is performed in an upright position, and is often the type of move that a b-boy/b-girl will start a sequence with. Common influences in toprock include salsa, traditional Native American dances, and the signature moves of James Brown.
Downrock (also known as “footwork” or “floorwork”) is used to describe any movement on the floor with the hands supporting the dancer as much as the feet. Footwork is characterized by sequences of circular steps with the hands and/or feet supporting the body. The bulk of it is strictly performed on the hands and feet only. The foundational 6-step and its variants form the bedrock of downrock vocabulary.
Power moves are acrobatic moves that require momentum, speed, endurance, strength, and control to execute. The breaker is generally supported by his upper body while the rest of his body creates circular momentum. Some examples are the windmill, swipe, back spin, and head spin. Some power moves are borrowed from gymnastics and martial arts.
Freezes are stylish poses, and the more difficult require the breaker to suspend himself or herself off the ground using upper body strength. A freeze is a pose in which the dancer stops moving completely in the middle of a set. The freeze provides the perfect opposite to the breaker’s moving action.
The breakbeat provided a rhythmic base that allowed dancers to display their improvisational skills during the duration of the break. This led to the first battles—turn-based dance competitions between two individuals or dance crews judged with respect to creativity, skill, and musicality. These battles occurred in cyphers—circles of people gathered around the breakers.
B Boying Today
The dance spread worldwide due to popularity in the media, especially in regions such as South Korea, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and Japan. Major competitions like The Olympics, Red Bull BC One, and World Breaking Classic use the term “breaking”. Breaking made its Olympic debut at the 2024 Paris Games, a watershed moment that brought the form to the largest global sporting stage.
Today’s practitioners encounter b-boying through multiple channels: organized battles and competitions (from local cyphers to international championships), workshops and classes offered by pioneer crews and contemporary teachers, online tutorials and documentation, and community jams that preserve the culture’s participatory spirit. Crews continue to serve as the primary social unit, offering mentorship, identity, and collective practice space.
The global community maintains strong connections to the form’s New York roots while developing regional styles. Traditional New York Style is based around kicks called “CCs” and foundational moves such as 6-steps. Euro Style, created in the early 90s, is very circular, focusing not on steps but more on glide-type moves such as the pretzel, undersweeps and fluid sliding moves.
Common Misconceptions
“Breakdancing” vs. “Breaking”: The original practitioners of the dance used breaking, and breakdancing was used by the media to commercialize the dance. Breakdancing was a term mistakenly coined by the media, reportedly when the manager of Rock Steady Crew, Cool Lady Blue, referred to it as breakdancing during the Roxxy European hip-hop tour. Many practitioners view “breakdancing” as an outsider term that dilutes the culture.
It’s Not Just Power Moves: While spinning headspins and windmills capture media attention, inside breaking culture, a strong toprock is essential. “You cannot call yourself a b-boy or b-girl unless you have toprock in addition to footwork, freezes, and power moves”. Foundation, musicality, and individual style matter as much as athletic prowess.
Breaking vs. Other Funk Styles: Breakdancing is also inaccurately used as an umbrella term to describe other funk styles like popping or locking. These are distinct dance forms with separate lineages.
Not a Gymnastics Routine: Every b-boy or b-girl has their own unique style developed both consciously and subconsciously. Each b-boy or b-girl’s style is the certain attitude or method in which they execute their movements. Breaking prioritizes improvisation, musicality, and battle strategy over choreographed sequences.
How to Begin
Seek out local b-boy/b-girl communities through hip-hop centers, community centers, or university clubs. Most cities with active scenes hold weekly practice sessions (“sessions”) open to beginners. Start by learning basic toprock steps (Indian step, crossover step) and the foundational 6-step footwork pattern.
Key resources include the documentary The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy (2002), which features interviews with originators including DJ Kool Herc and members of Rock Steady Crew. Joseph Schloss’s ethnographic study Foundation: B-boys, B-girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (Oxford University Press, 2009) provides scholarly insight into the culture’s values and practices.
Respect the culture by learning its history alongside its movement vocabulary. Understand that becoming a b-boy or b-girl involves more than learning moves—it requires engagement with hip-hop culture, its music, its values of originality and battle ethics, and its community structures. Find a crew or mentor who can guide you through both the physical practice and the cultural knowledge that defines authentic participation.