Hip-Hop

In 1976 some house parties in the Bronx, NYC gave rise to a phenomenon that is still shaping culture today. Hip-Hop tends to borrow from existing sources: a DJ takes samples and beats from songs and mixes them together to create a new sound score; the MC or rapper borrows from West African folk poets and Jamaican musicians who have been reciting rhymes over percussive beats for centuries; beatboxing stems from ska and scat in jazz; fashion samples from impoverished and even imprisoned human populations; graffiti borrows surfaces other than conventional canvases and displays in unconventional "galleries", but borrows from numerous established and conventional techniques.  But since this is PE, our investigation of Hip-Hop will focus primarily on dancing, which draws from West African dance, East African dance, Capoeira, Jitterbug, gymnastics, and so much more.  At the core, Hip-Hop dance is street dance.

Our use of Hip-Hop is designed to foster strength, coordination, muscle and movement memories, strength, stamina, speed, awareness and rhythm, but also gives us a chance to support creativity, innovation, risk taking and management, and self-expression.

Hip-Hop has been so successful that in just 37 years that the influences can be felt globally.  The "open source" nature of hip-hop, a form that freely borrows from existing forms, allows it to fluidly be adapted by young people world-wide.  Hip Hop is a fusion.  There is salsa-infused Hip-Hop, Jazzy Hip-Hop, Balletic Hip-Hop, Tap-infused Hip-Hop, Bollywood Hip-Hop, even Hula-heavy Hip-Hop.  There is a Hip-Hop movement vocabulary, but there is also an expectation that a dancer manipulates, alters, and varies the vocabulary to establish a unique signature, style, or "trademark".  Take a move and innovate a new way to do it to impress all the b-boys/b-girls in your "crew" or at the "battle".  If you take a move but never make it your own, you are "biting".  You can "bite", but you then have to "flip it" (innovate something new in it or do it your own unique way).

So why Hip-Hop?  Isn't is a celebration of bling and conquest?  Hip-Hop is a reflection of culture as much as it is a culture to in itself.  If a culture celebrates bling and conquest, so will the art generated therein.  If the culture embraces innovation, creativity, self-expression, physical and mental flexibility, whole-bodied health, that is reflected in the art.

Hula and Isolation; Cat & Mouse; Catching Fish

In January most classes spent part of the time learning a Hula dance, which was aimed at our Multicultural Event's focus on Polynesian Culture.  Some students were concerned by or embarrassed about all the isolated movements of the hips, which opened dialog about cultural normalcy of dress, diet, exercise, and movement.  The conversations and context about culture and it's correlations with movement is a useful tool for understanding wellness practices that are as effective as they are unfamiliar.

The study of Hula was neither terribly in-depth nor intense, but serves to tune a students bodily awareness to in isolated group of skeletal muscles; to challenge movement and muscle memory; to challenge directional and spatial awareness; and as an unexpected "foot in the door" for the hip-hop lessons that will follow.

The introspective, low-intensity nature of the Hula lessons were paired with high intensity games of Chase called (Dog&)Cat&Mouse and Catching Fish.  These games requires speed, agility, quick decision-making,  fluid focus, spatial awareness, and attention to detail.

Cat&Mouse is a sprint game of chase.  Students stand in groups of 2 or 3 and serve as bases (or Mouse Holes).  One student is designated Mouse, another is Cat, and you can figure out who is chasing whom.  If the Cat tags the Mouse, the Mouse becomes the Cat (and Cat becomes Mouse) tries to instantly tag back.  Either Cat or Mouse can go to a base of students, join the group, and bump a new Cat or Mouse off the other end.  For a much more challenging version, add a Dog who chases the Cat who chases the Mouse who chases the Dog...

Catching Fish is a version of a Blob Tag and Infection Tag and uses more stamina than sprinting, and requires very different strategies and solutions.  One student starts chasing all the others.  A student tagged joins the tagger's hand until they are a group or "net" of 4, at which time they divide into 2 nets of 2 and pursue other "fish" (those yet un-tagged).

Next students will explore a cultural and dance phenomenon: Hip-Hop.

Be Healthy,
Matthew Smith