Finding Your Own Style
One of the exciting things about freestyle is that it's about you - what you do well, what you like to do and your way of doing things.
You have a tremendous opportunity to express yourself in hip hop dance freestyle or any freestyle. And with time you will develop your own style.
How does this come about? How do you become a dancer with your own style as opposed to a copycat dancer or a similar version of other dancers?
There are many facets to this. One way you do develop your style is by the way you do moves. Whatever moves you do, chances are they will have been done in some shape or form by a dancer before you.
However you can put your own personal stamp on the moves and do them in a way that is different from others, that is unique to you.
To take an example the style of locking was created when Don Campbell had a tendency to freeze up or lock up on movements. He decided to make a dance out of it.
Your style is about you, what you have tendencies to do. As long as what you are doing is not wrong or flies in the face of the technique required then it's worth letting out. But as far as styling is concerned that is up to you.
Freestyle is not so rigid that every dancer is expected to dance the same. It's more interesting when the dancers are different and bring something to the table that is different to the others.
You will also develop your own style by not modelling yourself completely on one dancer. It is fine to have dancers you do base yourself on, but you can't be a carbon copy.
You need to bring some of what you do into the reckoning, and the best way to do this is to ask yourself when you're dancing if you're trying to be like other dancers.
If the whole time you are dancing you are trying to be like other dancers, then your own personal style will never come out. It will be more like a mixture of your dance inspriations and favourites.
You will inevitably be influenced by the dancers you like to a degree, the thing you need to watch out for is that it does not stifle your own personality.
A good way to combat this is to just freestyle and at no point say to yourself that a move should look a certain way. Instead see what comes out. Some of it will not work because moves generally can't be too far from the established norms but you will see just how far you can go with it.
Once you lose this fear of not looking like other dancers, your style will come out much more readily and freely and it will become more rewarding to you as a dancer.