Breaking
Breaking
Find out how world champion B-Boy Victor deals with pressure
Being mentally prepared is equally as important as physical fitness and skills when it comes to competing at high-level competitions around the globe. Find out how Victor stays calm under pressure.
When people see a b-boy or b-girl dancing they probably see them as easy going kids enjoying spinning on their heads, dancing to music, and doing a lot of fast footwork on the ground. However, breaking has grown into an internationally competitive art form, with hundreds of competitions put on every year all over the globe. The biggest of these competitions takes place in sold out arenas, thousand-person seated venues, and massive stadiums, in front of enormous crowds.
Victor doing an airchair freeze
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
Victor Montalvo, aka B-Boy Victor, is one of those b-boys who has achieved high-level status as one of the best breakers in the world. We met him to find out if a dancer of his calibre and status still feels the pressure and nerves of competition.
Yes, I still get nervous before every big battle, really nervous
Even after many years of competing, winning Red Bull BC One twice and taking the bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, the Mexican-American b-boy admits: "Right before the battle my legs are shaking, my body is shaking, I really get nervous." As with any champion, winning can lead to the pressure of having to win again, and again, to fulfil the expectations of friends and family. Victor says that his nerves come from: "the pressure of trying to win, the other b-boys, your family telling you that you'd better win and bring me that belt. Your friends saying, 'you're going to kill that shit.'"
Victor probably feels the weight of family pressure because he was taught to break at the age of six by his father, who used to be a b-boy back in Mexico but never became a competitive, worldwide famous breaker like his son. So, when Victor won the Red Bull BC One World Championship in 2016 in Rome and was rewarded with the championship belt, he gave it to his father.
After a decade of competition, though, Victor's learned how to block out all external pressure and expectations placed on him.
I just don't listen to them, I block them out, clear my mind and just kind of meditate
It's not easy to consistently win breaking competitions – the art is a mix of dance and daring, complicated, acrobatic movements which breakers can fail to pull off in the pressure of the moment.
Victor inside the Infinity Cube
© Markus Berger / Red Bull Content Pool
And the biggest mistake guaranteed to lose the competition for any breaker, making it easy for judges to vote against them, is if they fall out of their moves, which is known as 'crashing'. Victor is no stranger to this fear of crashing, but he's learned to talk himself into being okay with it and not to dwell on it if it happens during his rounds in the competitions.
Victor reveals: "I say in my head, 'Vic, calm down, you're good, don't worry. If you crash it's okay, just play it off, just have fun. If you crash just go to another move. That stage is yours.'
"I say this to myself and when I'm there I'm just like, 'yo, I got this.' And I remind myself that the other person is nervous as well, so that makes me feel better. But I get more nervous about crashing and I try to just erase that from my mind."
For Victor it's just about getting through the opening round and then he's all good, and he's never had a battle where he couldn't get rid of the nerves he felt:
"I'm always nervous, but after the first round it just goes away. That first battle you're thinking so much, like what to do, what rounds to do, and not to lose. It's always that first battle in which I'm like super-nervous, but after that first battle I'm good."
Victor and Menno posing in Salzburg
© Markus Berger/Red Bull Content Pool
So how did he learn to deal with the pressures of travelling the globe and trying to execute and win in competitions against other high-level breakers from all over the world?
"I learned it from just battling all the time," he says. "And I also learned it from boxing as well. I watched a lot of Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard, and a lot of other boxing stuff, and I take that mentality and put it into breaking. It makes you feel better and it helps out a lot."
And what advice would he give to others also trying to compete at the highest level but finding themselves suffering from the pressure of nerves?
"A lot of breakers don't let it out and it gets to them," Victor says. "For me I just tell them to stay grounded and block everything out of their heads. Keep a clear mind and believe in yourself as well. A lot of people don't believe in themselves, they worry about battling certain b-boys because they've won this and that, or because he has this or that move.
"None of that matters, you just do your own thing, think positive, go out there and just kill it. Don't worry about anybody else, don't worry about the crowd, just worry about yourself! Feel it and everybody else is going to feel it, so have that aura, don't be cocky but stay confident. Believe in yourself before and during the battle."
With that mindset in place, he won his second Red Bull BC One belt in 2022, in New York City. During the competition, he went first in every battle, which breakers all over the world perceive as a sign of confidence. In a recent episode of the Distrct Talks podcast, he admitted that he went first to calm down his nerves.
This approach served him well in New York and in the Olympics Games 2024. With his laser-sharp focus, Victor took the third place and won the bronze medal in breaking's Olympic debut.
