Choi freestyles most of her routines and is in charge of her training schedule.
Breaking music is picked live by a DJ, so Choi said everyone prepares differently.
She said she choreographs 20% to 30% of her routines, and the rest is freestyle.
Olympics.com reported that breakers’ moves fall into three elements: top rock, down rock, and freezes.
Top rock refers to moves done while standing, such as a Crossover Step or an Outlaw Two-Step, while down rock refers to the moves done on the floor that we commonly associate with this style of dance. Down rock includes various power moves like the air flare, in which “breakers balance on one hand, then the other, as they spin their legs around through the air, passing them under their hands,” per the Olympics.
Finally, freezes are when the breaker completely stops moving, typically in a “difficult-to-hold, acrobatic position.”
“I just make sure I hit some notes for technical difficulty and stuff like that, but then outside of that, whatever song comes on, you just kind of connect and go,” she said. “It adds this element of surprise because the thing is, we don’t even know what’s going to happen, so how could the audience know what’s going to happen?”
Choi said breaking is also different from other sports because it doesn’t have “a traditional history of having coaches.”
“So I go to practice, and I pick everything I’m going to do. I plan out my sessions every single day, and then even then, it’s like I go to a lot of community centers, and so they open and close when they want. Sometimes I have to book my own studios. And the people I practice with change. Nobody’s telling me what to do,” Choi said.
However, she does have a strength and conditioning coach she sees three times a week, and she recently started working with someone to help her breaking, but she said she’s still scheduling everything on her own.
