The NED Shows's video: NED s Career Day for Children - B-girl Breakdancer Lesson

For elementary students grade K-6. Lesson plan at: http://www.thenedshow.com/lessonplans Video description: Massive Monkees dancer Fides Mabanta (aka "Anna Banana Freeze") achieves her dream to be a professional dancer after she is introduced to a kind of dance called breakdancing. Now she's "breaking" with one of the best breakdancing crews in the world and teaching with "Mini Breaks!" Her inspiring story of passion and effort demonstrates the incredible rewards that come with always doing your best. --- Full Transcript for "How Anna Banana Freeze Became a Breakdancer" --- When I was in elementary school I would always watch old musicals where there was a ton of dancing and singing, and it was always my secret dream to be an artist myself, I just wanted to be like a dancer. My name is Fides Mabanta, I also go by Anna Banana Freeze, and I am a b-girl. I dance with the Massive Monkees Crew and the Vivid Vixens Crew. Watching musicals, like old films, that was the first time that I wanted to be one of those people. I was like, "I want to sing and dance and I want to perform." And then, I really thought that I could do it, too. I think it was in third grade. So I would try like the simple steps, but in my mind I was like, "Yeah, this is hint! This is like a confirmation that I could do this when I get older." So I started breaking when I was 16, so I was in high school. And, it was all because I saw a girl dancing after school. And for some reason, before that moment, I never cared about breaking at all, ever at all. My brother used to dance and he's younger than me, and he would always say, "Oh, you're strong, you like music. Why don't you do this?" And I just had no interest in it. But then I saw a girl dancing, and then it was like, "Oh! That looks cool! I want to try it!" In the beginning I was horrible! It did not look like dancing. But I loved it so much, it was so fun for me that I knew that how well I was doing at the moment didn't matter. That as long as I kept practicing and kept doing my best, and as long as I still enjoyed doing it, that I would keep getting better and better and better. To me, excellence is doing your best, and giving your best effort, and kind of putting all your attention into something. I practiced for two to three hours at a time. I remember the first job I got, I would practice outside. And when it was winter, my friend who I worked with, brought a piece of linoleum or cardboard or something and we would practice on our 15 minute breaks. And at this time I didn't think, "Wow, this is going to be my job!" I just thought, "This is really fun, I really love this." I guess dancing was my first passion. And I just kept dancing. And through dancing I met a lot of other people and a lot of friends, including the Massive Monkees which is my dance crew right now. Sometimes I teach dance classes for little kids. I like to let other people know that they can dance, or, if it's something else that they want to do, they can do it, it's never to late. Kids, they are so open to breaking, because breaking is a lot about creativity, and expressing yourself and exploring and making up new moves. It's about listening to the music and just giving your best effort. Sometimes, your best might just be trying to get through a day as positively as you can. And sometimes, you have a lot of great ideas and a lot of great energy and you can accomplish a lot. So, I think it changes all the time, but, just definitely giving your best. I had always been wanting to do this since I was a third grader. Maybe not necessarily breaking but just dancing in front of people, and sharing it with other people. Fast-forward like 15 years later, and it's my job to be a dancer. That gets to be my job! And I think I'm really lucky, but, I think the little third grader in me, the one that loves musicals, I think she'd be really proud of me right now. --- Archival footage supplied by archive.org. Live STG Dance Footage of the Massive Monkees by Ian Lucero. Breakdancer (on cardboard) footage by Tony Blahd. Dance class footage filmed with permission by Mini Breaks Dance Seattle (minbreaksbance.com).