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ARTICLES
Katch Life Newsletters
Balanced Life Magazine
Georgia Strait - "Would-Be B-Boys and -Girls Hop to It in Classes"
Vancouver Province - "We've a 100% success rate"
New Westminster News Leader - "Hip Hop Wellness"
Penticton Herald - "Women to take center stage at awards night"
Penticton Herald - "SOWINS - Achievement Awards"
Penticton Herald - "Spotlight On Women"
Penticton Western News - "Wild walker - Participating in the Katch Life Warm Up"
Southern Exposure - "MS Walk - Katch Life Warm Up with Mayor Jake Kimberley"
Keys To Success - "Strengthening The Core"
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Balanced Life Magazine
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JANUARY 2004
Volume 7, Number 1
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FEBRUARY 2004
Volume 7, Number 2
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MARCH 2004
Volume 7, Number 3
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APRIL 2004
Volume 7, Number 4
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MAY 2004
Volume 7, Number 5
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Georgia Strait
Would-Be B-Boys and -Girls Hop to It in Classes
By Gail Johnson
A few minutes into Valerie Ho's Friday-night intro hip-hop class at Harbour Dance Centre, one thing becomes clear: no matter how stylin' your moves may be, you gotta have edge.
The 25-year-old Ho kicks off the hour long session by leading some two dozen 20-somethings through a few basic tips. If it's your first time, you should be able to follow along providing you've ever set foot in an aerobics class. And if you're finding her choreography a bit tricky, just hang tough and keep trying. In loose jeans, a black T, runners, and a sideways cap, Ho cranks Salt 'N' Pepa's "Shoop" and starts stepping from side to side, sliding one foot across the floor to meet the other. She's hunched over, a posture that would seem most undancerly to many dancers.
"If you have a ballet or jazz background, you never lift through the spine in hip-hop," Ho tells the rapt crowd. "You don't stand up with a straight back in this class. Whatever you do will always look better down here," she says, planting her body down and leaning a bit forward. "Hip-hop isn't about what you do, it's how you do it. It's not the move, it's the groove."
To prove her point, she shows everyone the grapevine--a four-step pattern that's a common motif in fitness classes--which she calls "the hokiest step in the world".
"You can take the same step and make it hip-hop with added attitude," she says. "This is about finding your flavour."
For the unpretentious Ho, hip-hop isn't just about finding the right flava on the dance floor; it's also a culture she embraces. With degrees in human kinetics and education, she's moving to New York in the fall, officially to teach high-school math but primarily to experience hip-hop at the source.
Locally, hip-hop classes are now offered everywhere from dance studios to gyms, where the form is often framed as a fresh approach to fitness. Songs by the likes of Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, and Eminem (or at least edited versions thereof) fill community-centre courses across the Lower Mainland.
Clearly, potential B-boys and -girls don't have to be familiar with the political theories of Chuck D. to take part. For Ho, the most important aspect of her classes is that people have fun. But can you actually teach people to walk the walk? Or are those who learn hip-hop in a classroom utterly lacking in street cred?
"Anyone who studies anything knows it's incumbent on the student to seek out knowledge; that's what it's all about," she says. "About a third of my class are actual dancers, who don't necessarily want to be involved in the culture. They just wanna dance. That's cool, too. I totally respect that."
Ho considers herself a lifelong student of hip-hop, a perspective she learned from Mr. Wiggles, a legendary dancer whom she considers her mentor.
"He said, 'Always think of yourself as a student,'" Ho says. "You never know everything. That's why you're always learning."
But much of what the MTV generation catches on the tube doesn't always reflect the style's roots. And while the movement itself was originally a way for youth to express themselves on the streets, now it's a way to make a few bucks as an extra for Christina Aguilera.
That's something Katrina Hazzard-Donald touches on in "Dance in Hip Hop Culture", which appeared in the 1995 book Droppin' Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture (Temple University Press). She argues that--like so many other artistic forms--the mainstream style aims to appeal to the "cult of youth".
"Since the popular market has recently embraced hip hop as a marketing strategy, movement and music once identified with African American, West Indian, and Latino male street associations are being used to sell everything from pastry to autos, and they are being incorporated into aerobics classes and exercise videos," she writes.
"At the same time, widespread acceptance of hip-hop music has led to modifications in the masculine, confrontive nature of the dance....Hip hop songs are increasingly danceable, even using the movement of a previous era. For television and movies, in dance competitions, and in commercials, professional choreographers have adopted hip hop energy and style."
Whether choreographers have their facts straight, however, is another story. Georgia Straight music writer Tara Henley recently went to one Saturday-afternoon class at a West Side community centre and says she was surprised to hear the instructor's take on hip-hop's roots. The woman said the form originated in tribal dances of Africa and was brought to America by slaves. Street hip-hop, or "break dance", as she called it, is "very dangerous" and is practised in the ghettos of Detroit.
"After giving a grave warning about language," Henley says in an interview, "she proceeded to throw on Ludacris's 'Rollout' [(My Business)] and perform a wild mix of pelvis gyrating, Scottish Highland steps, and the running man."
Hip-hop, when referring specifically to dance, is an umbrella term that includes breaking, popping, locking, and freestyling.
Ho says she's most at home with freestyle. And, though she sometimes questions people's understanding of the genre in general, she says its accessibility is ultimately a good thing.
"I'm sure anyone who listens to the Beat appreciates the music, but I doubt they know anything about hip-hop culture," Ho says. "But on the other hand, more people are still getting interested."
Stella Tinglin, a 34-year-old cosmetics-company brand manager, started learning the style about a year and a half ago. She's always had an interest in dance, but the hobby took a back seat to things like college and career. Then a girlfriend urged her to drop in on a hip-hop class.
"I liked the vibe," Tinglin says in a phone interview. "At first I stood in the back; it was intimidating for sure....I love hip-hop music; I like that beat, that funky street feel. A lot of it is your attitude; not everyone can pull it off. It's not like ballet--'This is how you do a pli .' I prefer the approach that you do it in your own way."
She's part of a growing wave that wants in on the action, and recreation professionals are responding to the demand. Take the beginner's hip-hop course that just started at the South Slope Family YMCA, whose membership is largely an older one.
"The members want it," says Lela Dawson, the centre's director of programming in an interview, noting that people aged 16 to 60 have expressed interest in hip-hop. "We all like to dance. It's a feeling of accomplishment, and they feel cool when they do it....I don't feel uncomfortable or too old," says Dawson, who's 43.
Personal trainer and Kinesiologist Katrina Lewis, 27, will be teaching the YMCA's class and can attest to its wide-ranging appeal. She has taught hip-hop -based classes to everyone from a women's group from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to kids as young as seven at summer day camp.
"It's so much fun," she says in a phone interview. "I get pumped up just thinking about it. These classes are about having fun and enjoying life."
In the end, that's the feeling Valerie Ho hopes to share in her classes, no matter how into the hip-hop scene her students may be.
"I just want people to be comfortable with moving, to be comfortable with their bodies, and not to be too self-conscious to move in front of other people," she says. "So many people dance inside this box. It looks like they want to do more but get so caught up in, 'Oh, I'm going to look stupid.' It kills me that someone wouldn't move because of that.
"The joy you get out of movement...Executing movements is not dancing. Dance is an emotional experience. Somebody else said it, but if I could express what I wanted to say in words, I wouldn't need to dance."
*The Georgia Straight, Volume 37, Number 1842, April 10-17/2003
YMCA Hip Hop Class
*Katrina Lewis is now Mrs. Katrina Bennett.
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Vancouver Province
We've a 100% success rate
Communications skills are essential to those with an entrepreneurial passion
By John Bermingham
Staff Reporter
Katrina Lewis was sitting alone in her Vancouver apartment, wondering what to do with her life. The 27-year-old got the idea to teach fitness skills to busy people. But it was small-business training that turned the key for her.
Last week Lewis gave a seminar to 60 people, and has ambitions to address audiences across North America.
Lewis a recent graduate of the Youth Entrepreneur Program, run through SUCCESS, now in its eight year.
On Friday, the Coquitlam YEP program was unveiled, with 15 eager self-starters learning to make their dreams real.
I was alone, but then I got a support network to get my business off the ground, said Lewis, who did the YEP program in Richmond. They believed in us.
All 13 of the latest graduates from Richmond were either running their own firm or employed within six months of completion.
We have a 100-per-cent success rate, said SUCCESS CEO Lillian To. In this global world, our future economy depends not only on people getting jobs, but on how we can create jobs out of our entrepreneurial opportunities.
Competition was intense merely to be accepted into the Coquitlam program.
There were 214 inquiries from young people, 66 full applications, out of which 15 businesses we chosen.
The program will teach the youth how to write a business plan, market their concept and run the company.
SUCCESS business advisers give them one-on-one counseling and mentor them through the growing process.
The latest batch of YEP ideas run the gamut, from fashion design to house cleaning to electronics.
Frank Cal, 29, from Coquitlam, has developed an electronic monitoring device for refrigerated containers. He's hoping to export to China and is off on a trade trip there later this year.
Joyelle Brandt, 28, from Port Moody, has turned her love of photography into a line of gift cards, based on nature images from the Tri-Cities area.
Andrew Bennett, 23, came down from Kelowna to do the YEP program. His plan is to open basketball camps for at-risk youth.
Since William Benavides, 25, came from Colombia in 1998, he has trained in music and production. He has now set up a music production company to promote Latino music in B.C. and make jingles for Hispanic radio.
Heidi Jakop, 26, from Vancouver, is using her presentation skills to tailor-make promotional packages for businesses, in the form of gift certificates.
Evelyn Humphreys, YEP program manager, said she looks for two things in a YEP candidate that point to success.
The number one thing they will learn in the program is communication, she said.
Without being able to communicate and connect they are not going to be able to make it in today's world.
The other is more intangible, but just as important.
The number two thing is passion. If I can not see a sparkle in their eye when they are talking about what they want to do, it's not going to happen.
While most small businesses do fail, mainly due to financing and cash flow problems, Humphreys said it's possible today to run a business with no money at all.
Humphreys did it, putting together a distance education program, and running SUCCESS training, with only a computer.
You just have to create a new way of doing things, she said.
The motto YEP students created for themselves is: Success is not the stair. Success is the jump.
*The Vancouver Province, Sunday, August 10,2003
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New Westminster News Leader
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Southern Exposure
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Keys To Success
Strengthening The Core
After he tore the cartilage on the right side of his hip during the 2001 season, Ratliff sought advice from trainer Alex McKechnie. Ratliff credits McKechnie's approach as a key to his full recovery from hip surgery and is a cornerstone of Ratliff's workout program to this day. The McKechnie approach focuses on what is known as core strengthening. Ratliff believes it improves his game and helps to keep him out on the court:
He [McKechnie] worked with Shaq and Kobe and those guys on how they can become better players by having more command of their core ... where if somebody hits you, you have the strength enough to come right back on balance. There's never you falling over or getting in awkward positions, causing you to have injuries. It's you always maintaining a certain balance when you're playing the game.
Instead of weights, Ratliff's core training involves oversized rubber bands called Thera-Bands. He wraps the bands around his upper and lower body to provide gentle, steady resistance. With the bands on, he performs motions that are similar to the things he does on the court. Unlike weights, which usually only provide resistance in one direction, the Thera-Bands create resistance in both push and pull motions. Because the motions are slow and controlled, Thera-Bands also do a better job of exercising entire groups of muscles and tendons, rather than isolating individual muscles. According to Ratliff, "It's like a whole body workout in one movement." With the whole muscular system equally in shape, the body becomes better able to absorb awkward motions and bad landings.
Core strengthening is now a part of the training routines of many NBA teams. In addition to helping prevent injury, it's a perfect fit for Ratliff's approach to the game. Since his defensive tactics depend on his advantages in movement and quickness over bigger players, it makes sense for his training routine to promote agility, balance and control.
Ratliff Training with Alex McKechnie
Katrina from Training with Alex McKechnie
Katrina from Training with Rick Celebrini
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