How Krump can improve your creativity and endeavours

Do you ever feel like you’re in a creative rut? Like you’ve hit your creative limit? Like all of your juices are completely exhausted? Well Krump can give you the fuel that you need to create with clarity and connection to your very essence without the chatter of your mind getting in the way! How you ask? Well shit, Krump was created to freely express yourself!

If you’re a choreographer or a somatic movement coach the Krump way can change how you perceive movement, how you can move and what you can say through your movement. Krump has foundations that utilise every part of your body and with intention can guide you to your place of unique flow and connection to the higher power that flows through all of us. As much as Krump is about the moves and technicality it is more about your unique ability to show yourself in all of your rawness, good and bad, dark and light. This means vulnerability and transparency in where you’re at and who you are, no fake shit! On a scientific level we you will activate neural pathways that were dormant and increase the levels of dopamine in your brain which then improves your quality of life, confidence and expression.

Here are three foundations of Krump that you can use to tap into both your left and right brain hemispheres:

STOMPS

Stomps are the way we travel in Krump and there are 3 basic stomps, the scoop, the kickback and the gallop. The scoop is the first stomp you’ll ever learn, mechanically it’s, kick out (like you’re kicking a soccer ball into a goal), bring your knee up and then back in and down. The kick back must start from stance one (where both feet are shoulder width or past that with your feet pointing at a 45 degree angle) and let's imagine that your right foot is kicking up to your left butt cheek and so we’re on the same page it's you tapping your ass cheek with your right heel, then you place it back to where it started. And what your left foot does is twist on your heel from the 45 degree angle in and back in one quick motion. Now we must put them together for it to be considered the kickback, so the left and right movements I just mentioned are to be done at the same time, right foot to left butt cheek and down and left foot twisting at the heel inward from a 45 degree angle and back to it’s starting position. 

BOUNCE

The bounce is one of the first fundamentals of any Freestyle Street Dance (ie. Hip Hop, House), some call it the groove but Krump dancers specify that the bounce is separate from the groove. Technically speaking the bounce is an up and down motion using our knees and gels every other Krump fundamental together. Without the bounce we’re rigid and everything is harder to execute because we then have to exert more energy to get our point across. The Bounce creates more fluidity and flow of movement in our rounds, it allows us to transfer our weight, change our stances and shift our balance. It allows us to go from one thing to another, it is something that can connect the other fundamentals of Krump together.

ARM PLACEMENTS

Arm Placements help Krumpers create shapes and pictures with their dance. This improves expressive storytelling, feeling and execution of details and arm swings. Technically, Arm Placements are where, and how you place your elbows with either extended arms or bent arms using Krump language and gestures. Without an Arm Placement there is difficulty in executing arm swings or jabs in a variety of ways and they can emphasise your movements and ideas in different ways. Arm Placements can make or break the clarity of your dancing. Because our arms are an extension of us Arm placements are the first sign of a Krumper gearing up for creation. Our arms are extremely important in Krump and help us stand out in the dance world because of how we use them with power, strength and speed. Arm Placements give your Krump dance its physical shape.

Starting with these three fundamentals of Krump can help you create new mental imagery and give you the opportunity to explore many different concepts and ideas through simple shapes, feeling and using your feet/legs to travel ways that are unusual to the everyday person.