How to Steal Like a Breakdancer

Where do original ideas come from? Is anything truly original?

I’d argue that nothing is truly original but a derivative of something else.

Take breakdancing (1).

I used to breakdance a lot growing up. And a core concept in breakdancing is that when you master the fundamentals, you start looking in different areas for inspiration such as karate, gymnastics and ballet, and you experiment. This is how you develop your own style and create “original” - or how the breakdancers like to call it - signature moves.

A perfect example is brazilian b-boy, Bboy Neguin. His style is influenced by capoeira - a brazilian martial art. You can see this in his style, it’s distinct. It’s a reflection of him and his culture, yet it still looks like breakdancing.

So perhaps rather than calling it stealing it’s inspiration. An important note here, is that when you do take inspiration from other areas, you respect where you’re taking it from. In addition, you add your style to it so you’re not plagiarizing the move.

Whether that be breakdancing, writing, or entrepreneurship. Take inspiration from a variety of different areas, understand it, add your own flavor to it, and make it your own.

As a bonus, here’s one of my favorite breakdancing clips from back in the day: Red Bull BC One 2005 - Hong 10 vs Lilou

[1] In the hip hop community, Bboying is the preferred name over breakdancing though I’ll stick to calling it breakdancing in this blog as that’s what most people call it.