Review 2022

From the ongoing pandemic to the rise of virtual dance classes, it was a year that will always be remembered for its unique and historic moments. However, in this throwback, we’ll be reminiscing about Rocking (Uprocking).

Rocking Showcase – Battle of Month

On May 21, 2022 as part of the event Battle of the Month, a group (Anna, Sophie, Jenso, Simon, Kenan) of dancers took to the stage for their first Rocking showcase in front of an audience. Here is a short takeout.

Floor Lords 41st Anniversary 2022 Boston, Massachusetts

Also this year Floor Lords Anniversary took place celebrating their 41st anniversary with Rocker of the Night 300$.

About Floor Lords
Floor Lords are a well-known dance crew from Boston, Massachusetts. They were founded in the 1980s and have gained a reputation for their impressive breaking skills and dynamic stage performances. The crew has performed at various events and venues around the world, and they continue to be active in the dance community in Boston.

The Return of United Styles 3v3 crew championship


Incredible Breakers/Full Circle/Floor Lords Crew

Incredible Breakers and Floor Lords crew from Boston came a long way in Hip Hop History, especially through the connection of R.I.P Valentin (Float) Becerril. Also this year, Incredible Breakers came together on the anniversary to share their love and knowledge with the Community!

Incredible Breakers & Full Circle at Floor Lords 41st Anniversary 2022 Boston
Incredible Breakers

Rockers Delight 5th Anniversary

Congratulations to us (Simon, Kenan) on the Rockers Delight 5th Anniversary. It is a great achievement and a testament to our dedication and hard work in organizing the event for the dance community. Here’s to many more successful years of Rockers Delight!

The architects behind Rockers Delight

Observation of Rocking on Social Media – Instagram (IG)

If you’re into dance, IG is a great place to discover new dance styles, trends, and choreographers. Whether you’re interested in classical ballet, contemporary dance, or something more experimental, you can find a wide variety of dance content on the platform, and observing this content can be a great way to learn, be inspired, and connect with other dance enthusiasts.

One of the great things about observing dance on IG is that it allows you to see a wide variety of dance styles and techniques. From traditional forms like ballet and salsa, to more modern urban dance styles, you can find examples of almost any type of dance on the platform. But the focus here is Rocking (Uprocking) from NYC!

Rocking (Uprocking)

Rocking, also known as uprocking, is a battle dance style that involves fast feetwork and energetic body movements. It is often performed as a battle dance, with two dancers facing off against each other and trying to outdo each other with their moves. Rocking is characterized by its aggressive, high-energy style and often involves such as burns, jerks, freestyle, spins, hand gestures, and freezes.

Observations

A lot of the shared videos about Rocking on IG have a few things in common.

Execution of Jerks

It can be observed that in a lot rocking videos on IG, individuals rock against each other, jerks are not fully executed regardless of different rock styles from different boroughs in NYC and different style of jerks. But usually in most cases a jerk is into a squatting position meaning you drop down!

To be excluded here are obviously old generation rockers, who may not able to go down all the way because of knee injuries over the years!

Freestyle

When rock dancers perform solo dancing to show off their personal style, it can be noticed that the variety of styles does not feel natural and basically does not fit to each and every individual. Freestyle can involve a wide range of techniques and styles, and there are many different ways to approach it. Doing simple feetworks with a groove can be very nice, but it is required to be on beat, all the time.

The most important thing is to find (a) style:s that works for you, and to have fun with it.

Final words…

Also to be mention, is that social media platforms like IG has influenced dance by making it more accessible. When in the past, people might have had to seek out dance classes or workshops in order to learn how to dance, but today, there are countless dance tutorials and instructional available online. This makes it easy for anyone, regardless of their location or dance experience, to learn how to dance from their comfort of their own home! If you are an experienced dancer, social media can be a great source. However, there are also downsides when learning dance via social media.

No matter, in general it’s important to find an instructor or resource that is suitable for your skill level and interests. As you progress, you may want to consider trying different styles or levels of instruction to find what works best for you.

If you are not trained or experienced in/with rocking foundation, it’s important to seek the assistance of rockers with experience in rocking foundation.

Automatic handling of cookie warnings (GDPR/DSGVO consent forms)

There is nothing more annoying than going to a website and getting a big warning about cookies instead of the actual content you are looking for – e.g. https://www.facebook.com/

Facebook web site that shows annoying cookie pop-up

The good news is all modern browsers block or at least drastically limit the number of third-party cookies. This is already a big win for preventing cross-page tracking. But you can also do some additional configurations and use 3rd party extensions to have pretty much an automatic handling way to get rid of those annoying cookie pop-up’s.

uBlock Origin

In this blog post https://bloqspot4rockers.de/2019/11/03/protection-against-web-tracker-and-advertising/, i’ve already mentioned uBlock Origin and its capabilities in regards of filtering web content. Here we need to tick additional filters, if you haven’t done so.

  1. click on uBlock icon and go the Dashboard
  2. switch to the tab : „filterlists“ and add the following checkmarks to
  3. Click the Update button before configuring your filters. Click it and wait a few seconds then tick the following filters:
  • AdGuard Annoyances
  • Fanboy’s Annoyance
  • uBlock filters – Annoyances
uBlock Origin filter category Annoyances

Last but not least, click on Apply Changes!!! This is required to save your settings.

Firefox Browser Add-ons

Here are browser extensions that offer different functionalities for the end user to get rid of annyoing pop-up’s from showing.

A heads up first! These functions can cause problems, which would have an effect, for instance that certain web pages are not loading properly. It can also be that some web sites still display annoying cookie pop-up forms.

I don’T Care About Cookies

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/

As the name suggests, if you don’t care about cookies this extension might be the right candidate for you to get rid of cookie warnings from allmost all websites. But there is also a downside when using this add-on:

In most cases, the add-on just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups. When it’s needed for the website to work properly, it will automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories, depending on what’s easier to do). It doesn’t delete cookies.

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/

Again, if you don’t care about cookies at all you gonna love this add-on!

Consent-O-Matic

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/

A browser extension that automatically answers consent pop-ups for you:

Cookie pop-ups are designed to be confusing and make you ‚agree‘ to be tracked. This add-on automatically answers consent pop-ups for you, so you can’t be manipulated. Set your preferences once, and let the technology do the rest!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-matic/

There are 6 preferences you can toggle based on the data processing purposes found in 680 pop-ups (of the top 10K most popular sites in the UK).

Currently, Consent-O-Matic only works on relatively few German websites. But it already relieves users of click work in some cases – especially if they spend a lot of time on English-language sites.

Consent Blocker

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/google-consent/

Blocks consent dialogs by either injecting the consent cookie(s)/storage item(s) or blocking requests to the consent management platform.

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/google-consent/

In a small test run, this extension performed best, when it comes to blocking capabilities. Still some web sites (e.g. https://www.golem.de/) display pop-ups.

Of course, there are many other browser extentions, like AdGuard that is probably used by many to block advertisements. However, it is individually adjustable and can also be used to additionally or exclusively block cookie banners only. I personally do not use it, simply because uBlock and the above mentioned extension „Consent Blocker“ works best for me. However you can easily try them out and then decide if the particular extension is suitable for you.

Additional resources:

https://piwikpro.de/glossar/consent/

https://gdpr.eu/gdpr-consent-requirements/

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/simple-questions-what-are-cookies-what-do-they-do/