Planet B-boy was awesome. Maybe not a great film or whatever, but A and I saw it this week and could not stop grinning and toe-tapping the whole way through. I basically cannot think of anyone I know I wouldn't recommend this to, so just go see it -- especially since it might go away soon (it's still playing at the Varsity here in Seattle).

It follows five crews going to the annual breakdancing battle of the year in Germany -- one American, one French, one Japanese, and two Korean (one the defending champs from the previous year). We see each team training, here some about their personal stories, and learn a bit about b-boying like the different national styles. But mostly we just see a lot of really good dancers doing awesome moves. at the battle of the year, each crew (18 from various countries, plus the defending champs) does a six-minute show, where they're judged on things like creativity, skill, and synchronization (and yes, there can be a fine line between b-boying and boy band moves). Then the top four teams are chosen and they battle -- dancers from each team alternating in showing off their moves and responding to each other.

If I have one complaint about the movie it's that they didn't let the dancing speak for itself as much as they could have. Both the shows and the battles were sliced up, edited, when they could have just let us see the entire flow. Like, it was hard sometimes to figure out what a battle was really like, and how the back-and-forth went. That's not to say that the background stories weren't worthwhile too; we really enjoyed seeing some of the parents, especially the skeptical ones who came around to being totally proud of their kids' b-boying.

here's some show videos, from the japanese team, ichigeki, korean team, last for one, and defending champs, gamblers.

Another pretty good night of fencing. I tried different shoes for footwork (my old gray new balance gym shoes, which are basically running shoes) and they were awful. I think I'll try some fencing shoes, or something similar like squash shoes. In footwork, we practiced some moves based on taking a half step as a feint, then backing off (or attacking). You do a little head-fake or maybe an extend with the half step forward to make it convincing. I'm trying to use the half-step (in either direction) to mess with distance and open an attack.

I forget who all my bouts were against, but one was against Alec, who killed me last time we fenced. He's a big imposing guy, and he would chase me down the strip, daring me to try and take his blade, then he'd disengage and hit me. This time, I used my newfound lessons (and confidence) and would back up, then at the right moment tap his blade to take right-of-way and attack, or step in and take his blade. a few times I just counterattacked and managed to land. He still got more of those points than I did (and won our bout 5-3), but I forced him to rethink his attack. Then I fenced Laren, who destroyed me, though I had a few good moments.