In the break scene, people recognize me
as one of the top contenders. I do have a bit of a target because I've been performing
well. Vancouver hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics. I remember the energy. To be here and, knowing that
now I'll be a part of it is kind of a crazy feeling. I'm ranked number
one in the world. I don't really see myself
not being on the podium. And so, there is
a lot of pressure. I fight for breaking, the community. Because I think
we're showing ourselves for the first time
on such a big scale, and I want people to fall in
love with it the way I did. So we're on our way to
my parents place. We're going to
have a nice dinner together, I just came back from Brazil. Have you seen this, Mom?
The one I posted. Of course, I have. -Have you?
-Yes, I've seen it all. My parents are a big part
of why I want to push myself
to go further. You know, it's
more than just me now. We moved to Vancouver in the winter
of 2005 and started a new life. They had sacrificed so much. All they wanted for us was
stability with a good life. We are traditional
Korean family. We want our son going
to finish the university. Breakdancer - not really a good future. He pushed himself. Practiced, and practiced. I dealt with a lot of insecurity kind of growing up, but
breaking was kind of my place to forget that almost. When you were actually
dancing, you didn't think like,
“Oh, I'm good.” You just like, were in that flow state and
just kind of going with it. But I remember when I was a kid,
Mom told me that… I don't do cool stuff,
I just do weird stuff a lot. My Starting Line is coming to the studio. And for me the why has always
been because I love to dance. I saw Breaking
on the streets of Vancouver, and the very first crew
that I saw, a local crew
called the Now or Never Crew. You know, they were
spinning on their heads they were doing these crazy flips. They were doing things
that I had never seen before, and it just kind of
blew me away. It was a funny coincidence
that one of those dancers, Jheric, actually came to my school, my elementary school
at the time, and they were teaching us
hip hop choreography, gave me a card,
and I started taking classes, and I just
kind of fell in love with it. What I really remembered about him, we taught him the basic step. It was called The Three Step,
and out of all the kids, he had the most creative way
of doing it. Right away, you could tell there
was something special about him. Most people have like a bald
spot from spinning on your head. It was spinning today,
so I don't know if it's bleeding now,
but it was bleeding. But you just reopen
spots a lot because you're kind of
on the same it’s like a lot of wear and tear. This is the infamous Robson Square where Vancouver hip hop dance
culture pretty much started. It's open spaces
that everyone feel free
to just come and hang around selling and training, whatever you want to,
not just breaking, hip hop, poppin… I think I remember
calling specifically. So I saw the power
and I was like, It was always like easy. Robson Square is like what I consider
kind of my second home. For the longest time,
I would come back from school, do my homework, whatever,
and then I would go there from like maybe 9 p.m. to like 11 or 12 p.m.. It definitely played
a huge part in my early days. - Korean food?
- Yeah, it’s a good place. Oh nice. - Jheric, this is called Haemul Pajeon.
- It's like a seafood pancake. Mom makes it at home. With Jheric and Taio
with all my friends, it's so important
to have people that understand
the lifestyle that I live and that support
has meant the world to me. When I teach at the schools. Like, “Breaking is going to be
in the Olympics this year.” and everybody is like, “What?”. I was in Vegas last week. Tons of kids. If you go to Asia, it's insane. And I think that's the nice thing about
the Olympics is people start pushing. It raises the level like
the overall level of breaking. Yeah, I feel like I'm like drinking the food right now. Korean food is the best. One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight. One, two, three. When I teach kids,
I really teach just the foundation,
creating the top rock. Look up, look up, look up. You get down. Nice. Footwork. It's good. And then you do your freeze. Everybody should try something
different. Add your version of that Crazy to think Jheric, he was the one
that started me along the path and he still supports me
today. Would never imagine
the breaking is going to be an Olympic sport. And now having Phil represent
Canada is a really big deal. Okay, hips forward. Like you're
marching into that turf. Leading up to the Paris Olympics, My motto has always been: stay ready, so you don't have to
get ready. We're going to single leg
deadlift. Breaking is extremely
physically demanding. Working with
the trainer has helped me kind of balance out my body. I do a lot of, like, high
intensity interval training. Drive, drive, drive. Let's go. And that helps
significantly with stamina. Nice. My objective is to make sure
I'm giving him the physical tools that he needs to accomplish the creative whatever is coming in his head. Give me a little pause
right here. And that he's able
to just keep training and stay healthy. 2017, that was kind
of the pivotal moment for me. I had graduated high school. I was in university. It was not what I wanted to do, but my parents
really wanted me to do it. I was struggling mentally
almost every day, being like, “What am I going to do
with my life?” He told me, “Father, going to university,
it’s like going to prison. I want more of a free life.” I just like to dance. And I knew it was such a small percentage
that actually make it. So this event was like
a last ditch effort of like if I won this event,
then I would actually pursue this. If you think about it like that,
you should be free to live your life. I told my parents at that time, like,
this is what I really wanted to do. Just give me a few years
to kind of prove and show you
that I can do this. And luckily,
we have not had to have that conversation after that. I’m not just fighting
for myself. I fight for my family,
I fight for my crews, and then now my country. If I live
with too much stress, you want to do really good sometimes --
- It changes your performance. Yeah. I think for the Olympics,
I want to show something new. To be honest, like the Olympics was never big for me
personally. I was never into sports. Like I just watched Breaking. I'm very fortunate now that this is kind of
part of my life. I'm going to keep going. After the Olympics,
the next day, I'm going to go back to train. The next week, I have another event. I'm doing all of it. At the end of the day, I do this
because I love to break.
