ALKHOBAR, 23 November 2007 — If you are fixated on doing G-Kicks, Coin Drops, Airbabies and Virgin Flares in your free time, then I hope you have an excellent health insurance policy and some great friends to crank up the volume on a boombox. For those of you who don’t know a Windmill from a Hollowback, I suggest you pop in your ear plugs, because this is a high decibel story about a Saudi Breakdancer called “Swap.”
At school, his teachers think his name is “Abdullah Al-Gosaibi,” but his classmates know better. Ever since he stomped the competition in a battle where he challenged nine rivals, everyone has been calling him Swap.
“It was a competition over in Bahrain, a breakdancing challenge in which I took on all comers,” said Al-Gosaibi, a.k.a. Swap. “The crowd kept yelling, ‘Swap, swap, swap,’ as they ordered out competitors who they didn’t think were as good as I was. The challengers were swapped out of the circle and by the end of the battle, I’d ‘swapped’ my name.”
The son of a Saudi father and Kuwaiti mother, Swap is 19 and lives in Alkhobar where he is finishing high school. By day he is a B student, whose favorite subject is biology. He is polite, well groomed and punctual in his prayers. But once his studies are done and it is time to relax — Swap kicks back, with a bit more energy than most.
“I was fascinated with breakdancing from the first time I saw it on television,” Swap explained. “Then about five years ago I saw a guy who was really excellent performing live. He was amazing. Breakdancing is not easy. It requires a lot of physical stamina, strong muscles, flexibility and creativity. After seeing that first breakdancing demo, I went home and tried some of the moves. I couldn’t even do the simple spins or handstands.”
So Swap spent every spare moment of the next year practicing behind his locked bedroom door. He wouldn’t let anybody see what he was doing, although his mother was aware of his new interest. To support his passion, whenever his mother saw any breakdancing on television, she’d call him to come and watch it. Other than those impromptu television tutorials, Swap learned all the breakdancing moves on his own.
“It was really difficult. In other countries you can go to a gym or studio to learn how to breakdance,” Swap said. “For me it was almost like being one of those guys, who back in the 1970s first learned how to do the moves, improvising out in the street.”
Breakdancing is done to remixed funk or hip hop music. The moves in breakdancing are quite similar to those found in gymnastics and the possibilities for physical injury are the same too. In addition to the expected bumps and bruises, Swap has torn a muscle in his back and had to have surgery to repair a shoulder that was dislocated one too many times.
“I probably would have had fewer injuries if there had been an instructor available to teach me how to do the moves safely and if I’d have had access to a well-equipped gym where I could practice,” said Swap. “It’s my dream to open my own gym someday. We don’t have enough recreation facilities that focus on physical fitness and physical training and there aren’t certified instructors offering different kinds of classes. Most of the gyms in the Eastern Province are either poorly equipped or expensive. Many are crowded and they all focus on the same kinds of training.”
For the present, Swap continues to practice on his bedroom floor. His talent is well known though and so at parties his friends stack the furniture on the side and let his spins become the center of attention.
When asked how he describes his hobby to conservative Saudis, Swap replied: “If they ask me about it, I tell them that breakdancing is just another form of physical fitness, like gymnastics. The bottom line is that we need to start paying attention to the number of overweight people in this country. If instead of sitting in front of the TV, Saudis got up and moved, maybe danced a little, we’d be a much healthier, happier society.”
