A few days ago I posted this as my facebook status:
Next time someone asks me
in a job interview what I consider to be my biggest strength I'm going to say
‘krumping’.
A
bunch of folk commented and posted videos and stuff in response. It was cool
and it reminded me of my first encounter with krumping.
Best
Kisser had taken Mr PP away to visit his folks for the weekend and I was home
alone for the first time since he was born (TFTF wasn’t born yet). I was very
excited because I was going to cram all the things into a weekend that you
can’t do with a toddler around, starting with going to the loo alone.
Cycling,
tick. Breakfast with the girls, tick. Walk on the beach, tick. Afternoon nap,
tick. Rent dance movie, tick.
The dance movie I hired is called Rize. For
those who haven’t seen it – and many haven’t it seems – it’s a documentary about
krumping. Well it’s also about stripping (not THAT kind of stripping), popping,
clowning and all sorts of other street dancing, but mostly it’s about krumping.
Having
never experienced this particular dance scene, I was enchanted by it. It seemed slightly
dangerous. The music was hard
hitting and rough but not in a Metallica kind of way. More rap. More ‘brothers-in-the-hood’.
I
watched it for a while and thought to myself, I wonder how hard it is to do? It
didn’t look wildly technical like say, ballet or ballroom dancing. What I did
notice is that it must be pretty bloody tough because those krumping bodies
were buck man. I knew that my body, for instance, looked nothing like theirs.
I’m
sure a lot of folk who watch krumping think it’s a load of old toss. For
instance, I knew exactly what my Dad would say if he was watching the movie
with me. He’d say something like “it just looks like a bunch of people waving
their arms in the air and throwing their bodies around the floor (actually, it
does look slightly like that to the ‘untrained eye’) but (knowing better) I’d
correct him and say “No Dad, that would be performance
art. This is krumping.”
Anyhow,
after watching it for a while I thought I might give this krumping shit a
whirl.
Meanwhile,
our elderly neighbour had heard what he later called “loud, ghetto, music”
coming from our side of the fence. He thought we’d all gone away for the
weekend and was very alarmed to hear activity in the house. Thinking he’d investigate before
sounding the alarm, he’d sneakily snuck up to the front door and was peering through
the glass pane.
It
was at that moment that I was breaking out my poorly executed krumping moves. Out
of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement at the door and I tried to disguise
what I was doing as best I could, which was pretending that a giant spider had
crawled down the back of my shirt and that my flailing arms were attempting to claw
it off my body.
Immediately
I dashed to the front door and sheepishly greeted our neighbour. All the dear
chap could say was “Oh. It’s you. I thought a whole bunch of home-blokes (I
think he meant to say “homies”) had broken in and were throwing a party”.
I
couldn’t look him in the eye for weeks after that and I swear, every time he
saw me I could see the twinkle in his eye.
(This post is dedicated to our
awesome neighbour, Riz. We still miss you and I’d happily make a krumping arse
of myself again if it meant we’d get to share a glass of wine with you.)
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