Fire on an Italian beach

In the middle of July I found myself at one of the beaches of Cesenatico, Italy for the event Clash Fyah. It's part of a yearly week-long event called The Week. Clash Fyah was actually three days, from the 11th till the 13th of July. I was there only on the 12th. This was the busiest day I think, because you had everything: workshops, battles and a party. The other days only had workshops. I didn't attend those, because I arrived at around 19:00, at which time the last workshop had already started. I did participate in the battles, since it was the main reason why I was there.

The event's location - a beach - and the time of day - the evening - gave it a pretty "intimate" vibe. There was the dance floor (on top of the sand), a sound system and a DJ booth. The sound system was a real eyecatcher!

There were two battles: mixed/male and female. Both followed the same format: a preselection from which the judges selected the top 8. The judges for the mixed/male battle were Slip, Wyaless (BG Dancers) and Baggy (Winelicious). On the female side, we had Nieka OG, Jasmin Halper (Xqlusiv) and Baggy. From Slip, Wyaless, and Baggy, Wyaless is the only who I had as a judge before. I don't think I ever participated in a battle where Slip or Baggy were judges.

After the preselections for both categories, Mad Mike, the host, announced who got through to the next stage. Among those selected for female were Carolina, Linda, and Eleonora. From the male side, I was selected, among others such as Carolina and Eleonora.

The matchups were determined randomly by the organisers. My quarter final was against Lincoln. We got the song Active by Jahvillani (I think), which is a New School song. Ooh, yes, Di Mad Spirit was the DJ for both the battles and party.I lost in this battle, so it was one and done for me. The votes went as follows: Wyaless gave a tie, Baggy voted for Lincoln and Slip voted for Lincoln as well.

After talking with some of the judges, I understand what I need to work on. But I’m not convinced that his round overall was better than mine, honestly. He is a good dancer, but this specific round, for me, it felt that he was just doing steps for the sake of doing steps most of the time. There was not a lot of creativity: he was just going through the motions. I haven't seen any videos of this battle, so my opinion might change if I can review what happened.

Looking back on both my rounds in the preselection and quarter final, I'm happy with what I did, considering what I know I can do and what I've been working on. Overall, it was a nice event and I'm really considering going back next year!