If you’ve been practicing your favorite dance style for some time, you’re probably itching to get some dance battles started. With free video lessons, Howcast will teach you essential dance battle moves, how to start a dance battle, and what to expect.

How to Organize a Dance Battle

There are a few key things you need to consider when organizing a dance battle:

• The Venue: You need to have a place designated beforehand for your dance battle. It’s a good idea to start looking around for one sooner rather than later, as quality venues can be expensive and difficult to book.
• The DJ and Judges: In order to have a truly worthwhile event, you need to have a skilled DJ and qualified people to serve as judges. Like with the venue, you should start looking around sooner rather than later for these (and keep a budget in mind).
• Prize Money: A mistake many people make when organizing dance battles is not having the promised prize money ready in advance. People often think that the money they get at the door will serve as the prize money, but this idea collapses if too few people show. If you promise the winner money, make sure you actually have the money.
• Promotion: Knowing the right people and getting in contact with them about your event is crucial in making it a success. Promote your battle in advance, and you’re more likely to see a good turnout.
• Community: Try to find and immerse yourself in a solid dance community in your area, and just get to know the people in it.

How to Win a B-Boy Battle

Are you thinking about joining a B-Boy battle? Here are some tips to improve your chances of winning:

• Stamina: B-Boy requires lots of stamina, meaning you’ll need to increase your stamina leading up to the battle. We recommend giving yourself some tough love and continuing to practice your B-Boy even when you’re tired.
• Strategy: A winning B-Boy routine requires a good bit of planning in advance. You should know ahead of time what moves you plan on performing, and how you’ll be performing them. You should also have backup plans. You never know when a competitor will one-up you and you need to change up your original plan.
• Weaknesses: Know your competitor’s weaknesses and your own. This way, you can use their weaknesses against them and keep them from exploiting yours.
• Attitude: Most importantly, you need to have a winning attitude. If your competitor is doing really well, don’t be a poor sport about it. Just do your best, and have fun along the way.

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How to Win a Krump Battle

When you’re preparing for a Krump dance battle, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Practice: Anyone will tell you that practice is crucial. If you’re serious about winning a Krump battle, you’ll need to practice consistently.
• Musicality: Being able to flow with the music is an essential dance skill to develop, especially in a rhythm-oriented style like Krumping. This means that in addition to practicing the moves themselves, you need to learn how to use those moves properly with music.
• Variety: Most dance battle judges are looking for variety. You need to make sure you have good form, unique twists, and that your personality shines through in your movements. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Perfect every aspect of your performance.
• The Kill-Off: This may be the most important part of your performance, and it comes at the end. Your kill-off is basically a final, clever, perfectly manipulated move. A fantastic kill-off can save even a terrible overall performance.

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How to Win a Tutting Battle

Many of the tips we mentioned for Krumping battles are true for Tutting dance battles as well. You need to practice, move with the music, and have a great kill-off up your sleeve. Here are a few more tips:

• Be Ready: This falls in line with the musicality aspect, but we want to emphasize that you should always be ready for what’s coming next. Once you start to really understand the music you’re dancing to, you’ll be better able to plan on your feet—a vital component of winning a Tutting battle!
• The Beat: In Tutting, aligning your movements to manipulate the beat is so powerful. When you combine this beat manipulation with your knowledge of the music, you’ll have a much easier time transitioning and getting your point across.

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How to Win a Turfing Battle

To close this dance battle, here are a few tips on how to win a Turfing battle:

• Attitude: Keep a watch on your attitude. On the dance floor and off, it’s important that you show respect toward your competitors.
• Interaction: In Turfing, or really any dance battle, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a battle, and not necessarily a performance. This means that there should be some level of interaction with your competitor as opposed to only dancing for the audience. Keep it respectful, but whenever possible, do interact with your competitor. Watch and respond to their dance moves and get them to react to yours.
• Biting vs Chomping: This one is so crucial in a Turfing battle. To break it down, biting is taking a move that your competitor just did and putting your own spin on it—sort of like saying “That was a cool move, but I can make it look even cooler.” This is completely fine. Chomping is when you just steal your competitor’s move. This is boring and is unfair to both your competitor and the audience.
• Make it Your Own: When you Turf, make each move or 8-step your own. Add your own spin to basic moves so you can really wow the judges.

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Get Out There & Have Fun!

Now that you have a few tips and tricks up your sleeve, it’s time to get out there and have fun! For more free video dance lessons, check out Howcast’s vast library of fun and detailed dance tutorials.