Breaking Glossary

A power move circling the body around the shoulders with the legs extended and the hips high, hands touching down alternately. A step beyond the flare in both control and cost.

A male breaker. The term predates 'breakdancer', which came from press coverage and is still avoided inside the scene.

A female breaker. Now a competitive division in its own right at every level up to the Olympic programme.

Spinning on the upper back with the body tucked. One of the first power moves most breakers learn and a common entry into longer sequences.

The competitive unit: two dancers or two crews trading rounds until the judges decide. Everything else in a breaking event exists to produce battles.

Copying another dancer's move or sequence, especially the opponent's, inside the same battle. Judged harshly because originality is an explicit criterion.

A rapid finishing sequence of power moves run together, usually into a freeze. Placed at the end of a round for the same reason a routine ends on its hardest element.

The knockout draw after the qualifying stage — top 16, top 8, and so on to the final. Losing a battle ends the event for that dancer.

Directly challenging a specific dancer, in a cypher or on stage. In a structured event the bracket does the calling out instead.

A freeze balancing on one hand and the same elbow driven into the side, with the body angled off the floor. The base position for a large family of freezes.

Failing a move — falling out of it or landing off balance. A crash is visible to everyone and weighs directly on execution.

The judging control in comparative systems: instead of scoring each dancer, the judge slides toward whichever one was better on that criterion. Centre means level.

A team of breakers competing together. Crew battles run the same round structure, with members taking turns rather than dancing at once.

The circle where breakers take turns, outside any bracket. The cultural root of the sport and still where most of the dancing happens.

An extra round danced when the judges split evenly and no dancer has the majority. It exists because a tie is a legitimate outcome of a round, not a computation failure.

Everything performed with hands on the floor — the footwork level of the dance, between toprock and power.

The transition from standing to the floor, from toprock into downrock. Judged as part of the round rather than as a separate move.

A power move swinging the legs in a wide circle while the weight passes from hand to hand, the body never touching the floor. Borrowed from gymnastics.

How smoothly one move becomes the next. A round of hard moves with visible pauses between them scores worse than a smoother round of easier ones.

Steps performed at floor level supported on the hands, the core of downrock. Counted in steps — the six-step is the reference pattern.

The established vocabulary of the dance, learned before anything personal is built on top. Judges read a lack of it quickly, whatever the difficulty on show.

A held position, usually balanced on the hands, head or shoulders. Used to end a phrase and to hit an accent in the music.

A continuous circle traced on the head and hands with the body inverted. Distinct from a headspin: the head rolls rather than pivots.

Spinning on the crown of the head, hands off the floor once the rotation holds. Among the most recognisable power moves outside the scene.

An event built around cyphers and open dancing rather than a bracket. Where the culture is transmitted, and often where a competitive event starts.

In breaking a judge compares rather than scores. Depending on the system that means one call per round, a set of sliders, or a criterion-by-criterion comparison.

One of WDSF's two breaking systems: five criteria weighted equally at twenty percent each. This is the system used at the Paris 2024 Olympic tournament.

How the dancing sits in the track — hitting accents, riding the break, changing quality when the music changes. A judged criterion in every published breaking system.

Bringing something the judges have not seen, whether a new move or a personal treatment of a known one. The direct counterweight to biting.

A move built on continuous rotational momentum — windmill, flare, headspin, air flare. High risk, high visibility, and no substitute for the rest of the dance.

The qualifying stage before the bracket, danced to a DJ set rather than head to head. Judges rank or select dancers; the selected ones are seeded into the draw.

One dancer's turn inside a battle, usually between thirty and sixty seconds. Rounds alternate, and the majority of rounds takes the battle.

The reference footwork pattern, a six-count circle around the supporting hands. The pattern most other footwork is built from or measured against.

A power move rotating the body while the legs sweep over the floor and the hands land in turn. Often used to link other power moves.

Passing a limb through the gap made by the others without breaking the shape. Reads as control rather than as force.

A comparative judging system using three sliders, one per broad domain, instead of a long criterion list. Faster to operate than criterion-by-criterion systems.

Another word for a round — the turn a dancer takes on the floor.

The standing part of the dance, performed before going to the floor. Sets the character of the round and the relationship to the music.

The link between two elements — toprock to footwork, footwork to power, power to freeze. Where flow is either created or lost.

WDSF's other breaking system: six criteria across three domains — physical, interpretative and artistic — judged on cross-faders. Used at WDSF championship events.

Balancing on the hands with the elbows dug into the torso and the body flat, often rotated. The base of a family of hand-balance moves.

The range of moves a dancer actually shows in a round. A narrow vocabulary repeated well still reads as narrow, and every published system asks about it.

World DanceSport Federation, the body that governed breaking at the Olympic tournament. Publishes two breaking judging systems, not one — Trivium and Level A.

Continuous rotation on the back and shoulders with the legs swept in a V. The power move most dancers learn first and the base of many variations.