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This Saturday I entered a 4 on 4 bboy competition with my crew. I had been training a fair bit for this though I was a bit distracted by my toothache (wisdom tooth struggles) but I think we all came off well.

We won our battle but didn’t advance because the judges were choosing the top 8 crews from all the winners (there were 34 crews). One of the judges said we were really close to the top 8 and another said we should have made it, but I’m just happy with how well we did.

I’m planning on entering another on January 1st at York University called Breaking the Cycle. I’m hoping that we do a fair bit better at this one.

Without further ado, here’s the battle!

In case anyone is wondering, I’m the 3rd guy to go out in the red hat, vest and shoes

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I’m sick of all that anti-MSG razzmatazz. Anyone know anybody that has suffered due to MSG? Seen a study with empirical evidence of negative side effects?

Ok, just checking. Cause it turns out that all negative reports on MSG have been based on anecdotal evidence.

Good ‘ol wikipedia helped me out here.

In April 1968, Dr Ho Man Kwok wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine where he said, “I have experienced a strange syndrome whenever I have eaten out in a Chinese restaurant, especially one that served northern Chinese food. The syndrome, which usually begins 15 to 20 minutes after I have eaten the first dish, lasts for about two hours, without hangover effect. The most prominent symptoms are numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitations…”. This comment began a global health scare about MSG and “Chinese restaurant syndrome” was born. Considerable research has failed to find any syndrome related to MSG (or in fact any negative health effects at all), and Chinese restaurant syndrome is largely resigned to urban legend status. However, the damage was done, and MSG is still thought of as suspect by a large proportion of the general public, and many foods continue to be labelled “MSG free”.

Thanks “Dr” Kwok, you asshole. Way to ruin it for the rest of us! Also, have you tasted MSG?!? THAT SHIT IS DELICIOUS!!! I mean, really! I went to a Chinese restaurant in Toronto and they had an MSG dish on the table for spooning onto your food!

The Ajinomoto (味の素) company was formed to manufacture and market MSG in Japan; the name ‘Ajinomoto’ means “essence of taste”.

ESSENCE OF TASTE!!!

That says it all right there. Rant over, now go and eat some Chinese food without one of those lame-ass “No MSG” signs.

Peace

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Not being able to dance is killing me on the inside. It’s affecting me a lot worse than I would have originally thought it would.

The way my bboying has always gone is that everyonce in a while I’ll have a style epiphany that will change my style of dancing completely and when I get one of these creative surges I try and take the most advantage of it as I can. Because if I don’t then I will forget the styles and techniques that I want to experiment with. So I have to get them into muscle memory as quickly as possible by practicing as much as I can.

The problem for me right now is that through I don’t know what I’ve had a huge inspiration and my recent direction of training has had a huge effect on me and I’ve been coming up with new techs and styles constantly. This is killing me because I know that if my knee weren’t f***ed up and I was doing physiotherapy then I’d be getting better so quickly with this inspiration and new ideas.

To make things even worse, my friend from Incheon, Changshin, is coming to visit me next Thursday all the way from South Korea. Practices with Changshin always pushed me to new levels because he has such a positive energy about him and such a strong concept of foundational techniques. I still remember to this day the one practice he took me to in a mall at his hometown and how he and Seungju and I were just going nuts coming up with new stuff.

All I can do is hope that my knee will be 100% healed by Thursday or I can tell you I for sure will be practicing on it, which is a terrible idea because I can’t even put weight on it with it bent all the way.

Here’s hoping.

Have any of you ever felt a similar way after having one of the most important things in your life taken away from you? What did you do and how did you cope with it? All advice and anecdotes are welcome!

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