The Red Bull BC One World Finals, which is a breakdancing or breaking competition, held its annual competition in Gdansk, Poland a few weeks ago.
Logan Edra, aka Logistx, from California is part of a new studio in South Florida called BreakinMIA and she was the announced as the winner of the competition in the B-Girl category.
The 18-year-old revealed what it feels like to have won this tournament, explained how she got into breaking and spoke about her future plans.
How does it feel to have won the Red Bull BC One World Final 2021?
I’m still processing it, it’s been over two weeks since I won the title and every day I’m discovering something new about what it means and what it actually means to myself, to the hip-hop scene, to the athletic world, to Red Bull and even for society as well.
It’s still new because this is only the fourth year where B-Girls have their own separate bracket, so it places a new position for B-girls to work towards, a title for B-Girls to work towards. It’s always been prestigious but it’s even more prestigious now because it’s almost like B-Girls have another championship that has to be won in order to be crowned as the top. So, for me I don’t know, I’m still processing what it means but for me the value it in is more on a personal level.
I appreciate and I respect and I admire and I even glorify the title because it’s so prestigious and it is very grand but for me it’s more personal because I think this win represents I guess the rebirth of a phase in my life where it was hard for me, a lot of things personally and even with breaking I kind of lost my passion and I was going through a lot with my family. So, it just represents the ending and the cherry on top of a chapter of growth for me. It means so much, I’m processing it, every day I always discover something new about what it means to me.
Did you have any nerves at all during the tournament?
I always get nervous so there was no way I wasn’t getting nervous. I have bad anxiety even when it comes to things that are not battle-related or work-related, I suppose. I still get anxiety and it’s something I’ve dealt with my whole life, so I’ve been able to take therapy and I’ve gotten really close with my therapist in the past year.
But when I was there honestly, I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be because I mentally prepared myself three months in advance of the battle and I wanted to win. I told myself I’m not going to leave Poland without the belt and I’m not going to go there without winning the whole thing because I just really believe in myself and really believed in myself for this specific championship, and I was just like “I’m going to win” and I don’t accept any other outcome but me leaving with the belt.
Obviously, I already know and I’m aware that there’s things I can’t control but the only thing I can control is my energy and myself and my thoughts and my emotions so everything else is out of my hands but that’s why I had to learn the power of adapting to change and the environment.
So, I was pretty confident when I got there and just because I use a lot of visualisation to help and mentally prepare me for the whole experience, I visualise myself at the hotel, on the floor practising, on the stage with the other breakers, warming up backstage – so I already saw all of this in my mind before I got there. And so being there I was so prepared that I felt really good and I was not only prepared but I was prepared to adapt to anything that was different or uncomfortable so I was pretty confident the whole time, pretty calm, especially every time I went on stage whether it was for the rehearsal walk out, to battle, each time I felt good walking on that stage because that used to get me so, so nervous. But because it made me nervous, I was like this can’t make me nervous I have to work on this, so I had to visualise that walk out so many times so I felt good.
How did you get into breaking in the first place?
I got into breaking 10 years ago – I was already dancing but what got me into breaking was seeing a bunch of kids spinning on their heads and doing all this crazy s**t and I was just like what is that? And I thought it was already interesting, I was like oh my God are they breaking?
I saw this class that was going on was actually being led by a B-girl and in my mind, I was like I didn’t know that females could get really good at this because her being a teacher it was like woah, she must be really good. So that inspired me to really try it and get into it and as soon as I got into that class, I just fell in love with doing it.
With a lot of things, I learn really fast especially if I have someone teaching me, if I have to follow something I learn so fast and so all these things that I was following and learning from my teacher it was so fun because it wasn’t that hard. I was getting things so easily, doing a lot of after school activities.
Growing up I’ve always followed directions really well, like a teacher’s pet so I was just having so much fun and learning in this class and that’s how I got into it.
When did you decide you wanted to start taking breaking seriously?
After my first year of breaking I don’t know how or why but I guess I was like I could be really good at this. But at the same time, I never told myself that, it kind of just went into that phase of my journey.
It’s always been so casual until I took dance as a whole professionally because once I took breaking professional it was everything, it was breaking, choreography, it was performing – I went professional all at the same time. But breaking has had I guess a smoother, less abrupt transition in terms of going professional. I don’t know, I think breaking I didn’t see as something to go professional in, but it wasn’t until recently where it’s like oh there are a lot of professional opportunities.
It’s hard to explain because I didn’t make that decision and I don’t remember that chapter where I was like oh, we’re taking it professional, because I always did it for fun, I always did it to level up and I guess it just worked out with going professional.
Normally when I first started you couldn’t make money doing breaking, it just wasn’t possible, people just did it for fun. And then as BC One started getting bigger, or I should say Red Bull and Monster started getting bigger, the events started getting bigger. Then we’re still in that phase of realising that we can take this professionally and be financially stable hopefully in the future.
I think we’re all still in that phase as a whole in terms of the hip-hop community. So, it was a very gradual shift but for me I think it’s always been not just breaking but dance choreography – art as a whole.
Who inspires you?
I really looked up to my first crew, Underground Flow, B-Boy Villn B-Boy Mpact and B-Girl Val Pal are huge inspirations to me. They’ve been my mentors and also just big brothers. They’ve always been huge inspirations and also my new family in South Florida, BreakinMIA, all inspire me so much each and every day. They inspire me as breakers, and I’ve seen them climbing up to the top and I do believe that. B-Boy Zeku and myself have already been at the top in terms of battling, travelling, competitions.
Other people outside of my circle would be B-Boy Cloud, he actually competed at the Red Bull BC One World Finals, he’s just an overall artist, he’s not just a b-boy, he’s an artist and he creates to create, not just to compete or battle. He just really expanses artistry always.
What's next for you?
I’m going to be taking a break for probably a few weeks because I’ve been training so much my body is catching up to me and I’m exhausted. I don’t want to travel a lot, I just want to be home with my mom and my cats, my boyfriend and train at home with the boys. I’m going to continue training because it’s my lifestyle now and it’s fun.
So, when I get back to Florida, I’m going to go back to training, I’m probably going to start teaching more at our studio and just really help our studio build more because it’s just doing so much good for the youth in our community in South Florida – our studio is called BreakinMIA.
We’re fairly new, the faculty is so young, we’re all younger than 24, most of us are 18/19 years old but we’re running the studio all by ourselves and we’ve gotten so much support, a lot of love and also a lot of hate too just because we’re young and thriving but I’m going to be building with them for a while because they’re my family. But other than that, I’ll definitely come back to battling next year, I just have to reinvent myself and rest and reset and get back to training.
Words by Lucy Roberts for Female First, who you can follow on Twitter, @Lucy_Roberts_72.
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