Breaking it down: How the Bay Area hip hop scene shaped the newest Olympic sport

Long before he earned the nickname "Bionic" for his fast, powerful dance moves, Jonathan Bayani was just a middle school kid with a bike, a pocket full of quarters, and an obsession with martial arts video games.

"This is the liquor store we used to bike to — to play Street Fighter," he said, standing in front of the store in Fremont's Ardenwood Plaza. "This is good memories right here for me as a kid."

But it's what happened after the quarters ran out that would change his life forever. Walking across the small shopping center that's been virtually unchanged since his childhood in the 1990s, he told the story.

"I would always hear music coming out from that area, and I was wondering, what the heck's going on?" he said, walking toward a glass door at the end of the row of shops. "I would see kids a little bit older than me getting down — B-boying."

Entering the echoey hallway that still has the same yellow walls and beige tile floor as it did 30 years ago, he recalled watching teenage boys spin on their heads to the beat of a boom box, eating Round Table Pizza and guzzling soda. It wasn't long before he became one of them.

"My whole body's been on this floor," he said. "I've laid down on this floor."

In the early 90s, aspiring B-boys and B-girls all over the Bay Area would congregate at informal practice spots just like this one, to work on their dance moves — anywhere the floor was smooth and level, perfect for spinning and sliding. It was a renaissance of the art form many people know as breakdancing — which started in the streets of New York in the 1970s.

Dancing: the original social media

"The original social media was dancing," said hip hop historian and choreographer Buddha Stretch, speaking to a dance class in San Francisco. "That's how you met people, that's how you communicated. You didn't have to say a word. Enter a party and you start dancing, and everyone wants to know: Who the hell is that?"

And just like social media today, dancing in the early days of hip hop became a contest to be the most liked by the biggest audience.

"If I wanted to battle you and I knew you, I'd come to your house, knock on your door, and ask your mom, can you come out?" Stretch said. "Their entire neighborhood's cheering against you. And you know if you won, if you got them to cheer for you."

Breaking goes west

Before long, breaking had made it from the streets of New York to the studios of Hollywood.

"The movie 'Flashdance' came out," said Aki Starr, founder of the San Francisco dance crew Renegade Rockers. "Kids all over the world, they're seeing these moves they've never seen before, they're like, 'What the heck was that?' And they wanted to copy it."

The year was 1983, and Starr was one of those kids. Their dancing on sidewalks and playgrounds began attracting attention from the city's performing arts community.

"The San Francisco Ballet decided on their opening night, 'You know what? Let's include breakdancers, because this thing is about to explode.'" Starr recalled. "So the Ballet got all these kids that were breaking off the street, and said come on, come to the Ballet, we're gonna do a grand opening. So here we are, these kids, we don't know what we're doing, we're just like, 'Whoa, free food, let's go!"

For the kids, the invitation to perform for patrons of the Ballet was a portal into a whole different world.

"All these ballet dancers practicing, stretching, doing their pliés, the ballet shoes — and here we are, the urban kids with the shoes that are flapping, no shoelaces, we can't afford shoes," he said. "We were just street kids."

But after showcasing their dance skills for San Francisco's performing arts elite, those street kids were offered scholarships and rehearsal space at the San Francisco Ballet — and some of them formed what would later become known as the Renegade Rockers.

Cyphers and schoolyard battles

In 2023, on what might have been the hottest day of San Francisco's ordinarily chilly summer, hundreds of dancers packed into City Dance Studio for a celebration. The Renegade Rockers were marking their 40th anniversary with an old school dance jam, set to a soundtrack that included James Brown and the other classic funk, R&B and soul music that gave birth to breaking in the 1970s and early 80s. And just like the old days, this party began with a cypher.

"A cypher is a circle of dancers," explained B-Boy Wicket, who joined Renegade Rockers in the 1990s. "It's a communication thing through movement. I can be in a country where we don't speak the same language, but through dance, we speak the same language."

Wicket described a cypher as a conversation without words: each dancer who enters the circle contributes something by doing a few moves, then it's someone else's turn to enter the circle and add to the conversation.

"Sometimes you'll have an argument in a cypher," he said, continuing the metaphor. "And that's what will spark a battle."

Of course, a battle is where this party was headed — with dance crews from around the Bay Area and beyond signing up to compete against one another, and long-time Renegade Rockers serving as judges. For as long as breaking has been about self-expression, it's also been about competition.

"I don't care who they are, who they're rolling with — I don't care if they're the legend in their city — I'm smoking them," Wicket said of his battle mindset when he was a young dancer.

Today's dance competitions happen in studios and auditoriums, with entry fees and judging panels. But it was different in the 80s.

"They would battle in front of the high school," said Aki Starr. "The cops would always show up because it looks like fighting. But they were like, 'They're not fighting...'"

Wicket interjected, "He's spinning on his head!"

Across the pond and back

Breaking had reached the height of its popularity.

"It got so popular that cops would show up and they would start dancing too," Starr said.

But that very popularity would become its downfall. By the time the masses began calling it "breakdancing," it was already on its way out of style.

"Every commercial, every TV show," said Buddha Stretch. "It became a fad because it got overly commercialized. And it does what everything does: It went back underground."

At least in America, that is. Breaking was still alive and well in European pop culture, where young dancers were taking the old moves to new heights. And by the early 1990s, the blurry VHS tapes of their seemingly-impossible feats were starting to make their way back across the Atlantic.

"In the 80s, there'd probably be a couple of times you could spin on your head," said Jason Moreno, known in the dance world as Jayrawk. "But once it got to Europe, they could spin forever."

For Jayrawk and the other dancers in San Jose's Style Elements Crew, those tapes were like gold.

"We used to hide tapes from each other," he said. "So if you had this tape, you are not going to give it to an opposing crew, because it's the only way to gain an advantage. ... Like, wow, look at this. This is a gem. We can not show this to anybody."

The King of Pop does hip hop

But the secret was already out. As a new wave of breaking swept over the West Coast, Buddha Stretch got an offer he couldn't refuse.

"Teaching Michael Jackson hip hop," he said, still incredulous 30 years later. "It's like — is this really happening?!"

It was a star-studded, 9-minute music video for Jackson's hit single, "Remember the Time" — set in a fictionalized version of ancient Egypt built on the Universal Studios lot in Hollywood, with appearances by celebrities including Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson. Stretch was front and center, visible just over Jackson's shoulder during the song's long, elaborate dance break.

"It's Michael Jackson," he said. "It doesn't get more top anything than him. Like, he's the King of Pop. Now, I'm teaching this guy this stuff that my dad used to kick me out of the house for."

Blurry VHS tapes

Breaking was back. And Aki Starr went out to recruit a new generation of Renegades.

"I looked over the balcony, and the first thing I see was these legs spinning," he recalled of his visit to a friend's house. "I was like, 'Whoa, that's some nice form! Who is that kid?'"

The owner of those legs was none other than B-Boy Wicket. His name comes from Star Wars, by the way. He was a fan of the Ewoks television series growing up. And as he spun on his head in a backyard that day, he had no idea one of his idols — a dancer whose videos he'd studied for countless hours — was standing there watching.

"I didn't really know what he looked like, because in the video, you couldn't really tell — because of how many times it was dubbed," Wicket said. "I realized, oh, sh—! That's Ak!"

It was a common story in the days of blurry home videos. Tapes had been copied so many times, faces became unrecognizable. Dancers had to be recognized by their moves.

"The highest currency in this dance is individuality," said Kid David, a Renegade Rocker who's also NBC's play-by-play announcer for breaking at the Olympics.

For an audience that's never seen elite competitive breaking before, it's his job to help explain the artistry of the dance — and why it's not always the highest flips and the fastest spins that garner the win.

"As a commentator, we're telling a story," he said. "Why did that guy win? Why did that girl lose?"

With his own blurry VHS tapes, Jayrawk explained that a lot of it comes down to style.

"I was proud of that one," he said, pointing to the screen as one of his old dance battles played. "That was a halo, but I was holding my wrist while I was doing it."

"I made it my own," he added. "The hardest thing to do is be original."

In fact, there's a word for breaking that's not original: It's called "biting." Stealing someone else's moves could even mean losing a battle.

"I used to get so upset when I'd see that," Jayrawk said. "I'd say, 'Hey, I made that up!'"

It's not all head spins

The emphasis on originality is one reason the dance is always evolving. But the basics stay the same: a round of breaking lasts 30 seconds to a minute, and it's made up of five parts:

1. Top Rock: The beginning of a round. The dancer makes a first impression on the audience and the judges by dancing out onto the floor standing up.
2. Go Down: The "drop" in which dancers go from upright to horizontal (or even upside down) in an eye-catching way.
3. Footwork: Once on the ground, dancers perform moves with their feet, in time with the music.
4. Power Moves: Spinning moves, including head spins, back spins and flares.
5. Freeze: The "exclamation point" that often comes at the end of a round, in which a dancer stops on the beat and stays frozen for 2 to 3 seconds, often upside down.

In the 90s, West Coast breaking was all about the power moves. In part, that was because young West Coast dancers had learned to break by watching movies and videos where the big spinning moves grabbed all the attention. But as breaking became an international competitive phenomenon, they soon learned that power wasn't enough to win a battle.

"You know, somebody that you compete against is going to have the same moves," Wicket said. "So what's the difference? Oh, because you're faster? That's not enough. It's got to show your identity, your character, your personality."

Wicket speaks from experience. For decades, he said, he tried to dance as if he were somebody else.

"And a big reason for that is because I'm gay," he said. "That's scary. You know, especially in hip hop. So I would try to camouflage my personality, my sexuality. ... But I realized, you can't keep hiding like this no more. And once I started to realize that, then I saw my dance start to change."

In the early years, he said, he couldn't watch his own videos without cringing. But once he began embracing his identity, he said, it was a different story.

"Then I was like, 'Yeah, lemme rewind this! Damn, this look dope!'" he said. "I couldn't stop watching myself!"

And neither could America. Long after he danced in the 2004 movie "You Got Served" (including the breaking solo in the movie's opening scene) he's still inspiring young dancers.

"There are breakers that come up to me all over the world that say, 'Hey, I just want you to know that "You Got Served" is why I started dancing,'" he said.

Two turntables and an iPad

But at the Renegades' 40th anniversary dance battle, Wicket played a different role. In addition to being an accomplished dancer who's now on the faculty at Texas State University, he's also a music producer and a DJ. And in breaking, the DJ just might be the most important person in the room.

"In breaking, you cannot pick the music," Wicket said. "That's what makes it so exciting, is because you don't know what the DJ's gonna play. ... It's the music that dictates everything."

Dancing in response to the music is part of what judges are looking for as they decide who's the better dancer.

"The host will say: 'We're gonna take it to the judges! In 3, 2, 1,' and they'll all point to their side that they choose," he said.

But in the Olympics, judging goes far beyond pointing left or right.

"We have an iPad with five categories: ... Technique, musicality, originality, vocabulary and execution," said B-Boy Crumbs, a member of Style Elements who's judged Olympic qualifier events.

The judging screen features sliders for each of the five categories, and each one makes up 20 percent of a dancer's final score. That means the competitors and the audience can instantly see what the judges liked and what they didn't.

"So if I see this person is really killing the music right now, I'm messing with the music bar and giving him a good score," Crumbs said.

With no stopping between rounds, judges have to be quick and decisive. In Olympic breaking, there's no such thing as a tie.

"It can come down to the slightest detail of, it sounds silly, but even who's dressed better," he said.

Dope fits for dancing

Far from silly, fashion plays a big role in hip hop culture, and in breaking specifically.

"I'd rather lose a battle in a dope fit than win a battle in a really wack fit, which I see a lot of people doing," said Maarek Morales, known to his fellow dancers as Daydream.

Around him, laughs and cheers of agreement erupted from the other members of Elephant Graveyard Crew. They win battles all right. In fact, Elephant Graveyard was the grand prize winner at the Renegades' 40th anniversary jam. But when they're not busy smoking other dance crews, you might find them combing the aisles of a Bay Area thrift store.

"I think we're all kind of into vintage fashion," said Rahul Doraiswami (better known as Rahul the Tool). "We like to go thrifting and find like kind of unique pieces."

But it's not just style they're looking for. It has to be style that can move.

"When we go thrifting, I go to the pants section and I pull out a pair, and I'm like, 'Can I dance in these?'" said Jeremy "Jerz" Viray.

"When you go to the changing room, you have to top rock," added Josh "Juicebox" Domingo, who proceeded to enter a fitting room and perform dance moves in the mirror.

The pants didn't pass the test, and he returned them to the rack.

"Way too big!" he laughed.

But when it's the moves, and not the pants, that aren't working, that's the real value of dancing with a crew.

"It's easier to take feedback from someone you know has your back, instead of just a random person," said Vicki Chang, known in the breaking world as La Vix.

And far beyond feedback, a crew is like a family.

"They bring out like the best in my breaking," said Daydream. "And I just have the most fun."

"I'm gonna cry!" Jerz interjected under his breath, eliciting a laugh from the group. "You do care!"

But all joking aside, it's that sense of family that was more needed than ever when La Vix found out she just missed qualifying for the Olympics.

"Just being able to be around them and remember why I like breaking ... and why I want to dedicate my life to doing it ... is really, really helpful," she said.

The next generation

But just up the road in Martinez, Olympic dreams are alive and well. Though breaking began on the streets and sidewalks, the B-boys and B-girls of the next generation are learning to break on the polished wooden floors of a dance studio.

"Being in the Olympics ... that's going to be motivating for these kids," said their teacher, B-Boy Precise, who's danced all over the world — including with the Golden State Warriors, and now the Golden State Valkyries. "(They're) going to be watching this on TV, saying, 'Wow ... let me see how far I can take this!'"

For some of his students, ages 6 to 11, breaking runs in the family. Some of their parents even danced with Precise earlier in his career. And already, they're starting to find their own favorite moves and develop their own signature styles.

Breaking faces an uncertain future as an Olympic sport beyond the 2024 games in Paris. Precise hopes it makes a lasting impression on audiences around the world, and gives these kids something to shoot for.

"Because I see through their eyes how hungry they are to learn and to get good," he said. "That used to be in my eyes when I was their age."