SHARP Spring Style, Starring Phil Wizard

David Stol April 17, 2024

Four years ago, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that “breaking” — or breakdancing, as it’s more commonly known — would make its debut at the 2024 Paris Games, the news raised some eyebrows. After all, ever since its establishment, the IOC has been an organization steeped in bureaucracy and tradition. Breaking, on the other hand, is a sport that could never be accused of stagnancy. It’s an unlikely marriage, then — like a hip-hop producer conducting a symphony orchestra. And yet, for the sport’s top athletes, such as Canada’s own Philip Kim, this summer stands as an opportunity to bring two contrasting worlds together.

“That’s always been what breaking is,” explains Kim, who is known to followers of the sport as ‘Phil Wizard’ (his original crew was called the Wizards). “It’s bringing together all of these different elements. When people think of breaking, they think of the choreography. But there’s this special connection with music, and the physical environment around you. There’s this communal element with the crowd. Breaking has always sort of played in all of these different spaces. So, I think the Olympic audience is just another example of that.”

Like any sport suddenly thrown onto the world stage, fans will quickly scope and seek out the biggest, most promising names. And few b-boys (the colloquial name given to practitioners of this dance style) carry the same cachet as Kim. Last year, the 27-year-old won the Undisputed Masters World Finals in Tokyo, and secured back-to-back first-place finishes at the WDSF Breaking for Gold World Series.

Becoming the first breakdancer to earn an Olympic gold medal would go a long way towards being immortalized in the sport. But, for Kim, his love of breaking runs far deeper than the fame granted by an Olympic podium.

“I was 11 or 12 when I first discovered breaking,” Kim recalls. “There was a local crew, Now or Never, which I saw performing outside the Vancouver Art Gallery when I was growing up. It blew me away. I guess my first thought was, ‘I can get girls this way.’ My second thought was that I needed someone to learn from.”

“I got a card from one of the founders who ended up visiting my school not long after. After a while, I started hanging out with people from the Soul Felons Crew, the Hoodz Crew, people like JBugz, Virn, and Now or Never and started training with them.”

Kim’s description of breaking culture calls to mind the rich, characterful origins of hip hop. Both were born in The Bronx, New York City, and both were forged in a crucible of hard-wired competitiveness and unbridled creativity. Kim explains that the parallels also extend to heated East Coast–West Coast rivalries.

“This was before my time,” he prefaces. “But there used to be a lot more beef, there used to be a lot of rivalries. Breaking comes from street culture and, for a while, there was a lot of tension between crews. Fights used to break out. There would be competitions centred around rivalries that would boil over.”

But, much like most big-market sports, the animosity that once fuelled competitions has given way to a new era. “I think, over time, people realized what was best for the sport,” says Kim. “Not just from a sense of marketability, but from a sense of creativity. Seeing the breaking scene as a single community helps all of us. Now, we feed off of each other. We grow together. I think it’s what helped unify breaking to where it made sense to be accepted by the Olympics.”

And Kim is no stranger to introducing breaking to the initially skeptical. The son of immigrant parents who dreamed that he would land a stable and traditional job after graduation, there existed no proof of concept to ease their minds.

“My parents are so supportive, but it wasn’t always easy,” he explains. “My family doesn’t come from money and, back then, there wasn’t much of a market for breaking. There wasn’t a clear plan that I could show them to say, ‘This is how it’s going to work.’ My dad was a pastor, so even the musical element was a foreign concept in our house. But it didn’t take long before they understood the artistry and the competitiveness and the expression behind it. I think that’s going to be a similar experience for a lot of people this summer.”

Kim’s parents, however, quickly learned that their son’s passion wasn’t just a passing interest, but rather a skill that needed to be honed through countless hours of preparation. And, today, his training structure is as intensive as it’s ever been.

“I work with a personal trainer a couple of times a week,” says Kim. “Then I’m in the gym every other day. I’ll work out in the mornings and then hit the studio in the afternoons. In the studio, I’ll do a combination of looking for new movements, refining the movements that I already have, and practising to be prepared for improvisation. I treat that like a muscle, being able to adapt to a competition. So, yes, it’s creative and intuitive. But there’s so much preparation that allows for that.”

As a former world champion, Kim will fly to Paris as a favourite to take home the gold. But, despite the sport being adopted by the Games, the IOC has altered how the events will be judged to minimize subjectivity — a factor that could influence the Canadian’s odds of winning.

“Historically, the judging system has always been so subjective,” explains Kim. “Judges respected in the community would just be brought in and they’d point to the winning side. Apparently, the [IOC] has developed some judging systems and criteria. But, to be honest, I don’t know how the system is going to work, and I’m not going to change the way I dance for a new system. I’m there to do my thing. If I do well, I do well. If I don’t, I don’t.”

Of course, it would be a distinct honour to become the first b-boy ever to earn an Olympic gold, the consequences of which aren’t lost on Kim. But this summer serves as an opportunity for breaking that transcends the potential for accolades.

“It’s so funny. People have asked me, ‘Has it always been a dream to win an Olympic gold?’ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? No,’ ” he laughs. “For us, this was never the dream. It’s an incredible opportunity and it’s now become a dream. But we didn’t start off in the sport thinking it would get picked up by the Olympics. For myself, all I’ve wanted to do was to be able to live off of this. I wanted to dance and pay my rent. That was the ultimate dream. And here I am. Now, everything is just a bonus.”