Break Bread 10

Breakin Bread 10: Amazing Grace

A Different Spin on the Church

10! A decade! We made it. It is finished. What a crazy 2 weeks of planning. From meeting with Josh Combs (church worship director) to discuss the setup and meeting with the volunteers to plan for breakdown, it has been fun to see it all come together. Volunteers were incredibly punctual and they were attentive in setup and preparation. We had to get hundreds of chairs out of the middle as well as moving pipes and drapes in their proper positions. 

The Venue: Real Life Christian Church in Chesapeake

We started to setup exactly at 3:30 as we began to run around the venue getting it all ready for a 5:00 startup. Needless to say, we finally got everything prepared and music blaring around 5:15... and well... as a promoter, I would have like to have seen things up and running at a very punctual time. We missed the mark; but no blame falls on anybody as we diligently worked at it. There was a lot of prep work such as stacking chairs and learning the pipe and drapes technicalities. Every volunteer was helpful and decisive on what was needed to get done. Big respect to all of them! YFAMD organization had  brought many of the volunteers to help; and on my end, Earvin Marcella, Ray Erpe, Chris Dizon, Ricky Suydan and James Cho had come to help me out. I was absolutely humbled by the amount of man power that had come through for setup and to put it back the way it was at the end of the night.  

Picture of the venue and its setup

Overall, I would rate the jam as “meh”.  Everybody seemed to enjoy it and expressed their joy in coming to the event; however, as the promoter, I would have liked to have seen more attendees. The front door calculated and marked down about 80 people paid... so roughly a total of 120 attended (volunteers and staff included). Again, great turnout for many... but again I was expecting at least 150. Of course, it was only 2 weeks of planning so the days of advertising and promoting were less; so 120 attendee shouldn’t be too much of a disappointment.

On a brighter note, I was pleased with reconnecting with old friends like Nicolette G, Jennifer Copon, Rusty “Prodagee” Udan, Robert “Black Rob” Overton, Art Castro and Rus “Limbo” Lim. Always nice to see old friends come up and support the scene! Even my family came up and stayed a while. My daughters wanted to be staff this year and requested to be the photographer just to earn her badge. That was cool... 

Pic of my family at BB10: 

My family  

Before the finals, I was able to speak on behalf of people who lost a loved one recently.  The b-boy community had been dealing with many losses throughout the years such as Michael Miller (sound engineer; RIP 2017) and Christian Orpilla (community organizer; RIP 2019).  Christian's wife, Tricia Orpilla, was able to speak openly and lovingly on her recently deceased husband.  After her speech, we had a candlelight vigil to commemorate those who have passed away, those dealing with suffering, or those dealing with any difficulties in their life.  It was a very solemn moment with "Amazing Grace" playing in the background as we sat and reflected for that short moment in time. It was definitely different for our region to have a portion of the event dedicated to those fallen members... 

Candlelight Vigil for reflection

We then continued with the Award ceremony.  B-Boy Muchado was working in Hawaii so we had to become creative on how he would give away his annual award. We decided to pre-record a video of Muchado and play it on the big church video screen.  He announced the winner of the Muchado Battle B-Boy Award and was given to Chris "Kid Dizon" Dizon for his relentless pursuit of leveling up around the region. Big congrats...

Next, I was able to give away the next award.  The Alonzo Francisco Award went to Jasic.  I was honored to have given that award to a bboy who exemplifies a bboy in pursuit of growing the community and self.  Jasic recently became married this year, expectant father to be, and teaches b-boy classes at a community center.  He was a great candidate to receive the award this year. Big congrats..  

The battles were dope!  We had up to 18 b-boys sign up.  Big congrats to B-Boy Lucky (Jeff Smash) for the win over B-Boy Kiti.  It was an intense finals in which there was a tie after 3 rounds...so each b-boy had to go one more round to see who would be crowned: The Bread Winner 10.  The crowd was hype!  In the finals, the crowd made a tighter circle and it made the energy of the competition more intense.  When the tie happened, the crowd went nuts...Guerilla Will hyped up the crowd... DJ Mordecai played the music again...and then....the dancers gave it all they had inside them...  Much respect to both dancers...B-Boy Lucky said to me after handing him the award and prize money, "finally...after 10..."  I knew what he meant; I was happy to see him win after all these years... He deserved the win for all his Breakin Bread contributions. 

sidenote: Big shoutout to the judges: Jasic, Jon Squared, and ALLCAPS for doing what they do best.  

MC Guerilla Will and DJ Mordecai holding it down on stage

From R to L: Guerilla Will, Lucky, and myself  

Overall, the event went well for only 2 weeks of planning.  After the finals, the volunteers began to break down and restore the church to its original position. I was humbled by the work they all put in.  Each individual person came up to me and asked, "was there anything else I can do for you?"  The volunteers were much needed to make this thing happen and each person did their thing.  I was truly impressed and blessed to see this emerge. 

Because of all the volunteers, it took only one hour to break it all down and get the church back up to speed.  After locking up the last door to the church, Josh and I were able to take a pic. It was fitting for us to be under the "Jesus Over Everything" mural...  It was such a successful and joyful event; therefore, ALL PRAISE AND GLORY who made it all happen...Jesus Christ... 

From R to L: myself (Johnny Breaker) and Josh Combs (Pastor/Worship Leader)