 In this episode, we will be interviewing Daniel Du, the founder of Stance Elements, which is now the largest breaking and open-styles dance media platform in the world. In it, we will cover how he built Stance from zero to its millions of collective followers in just seven years and what he did to get there, how he even got into breaking and dance, his time as a Peace Corps member and an Alaskan park ranger, what, and how that shaped him, his Olympic Dream Project and his insight on the future of breaking and dance. Welcome to the Movement Media Mentor Podcast, the show where we help movement artists, dancers and creators share their greatest movements through advice and stories on media and video creation. Daniel Mann of many powers and many platforms, but continuing to hold it down for the breaking movement, competitive dancing, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me on this podcast, Kai. Of course, man, dude, it's been a long time coming and I think this is finally a good moment to have you because you have been someone that, well, I've been working with for almost four or five years now, you've taught me a lot, given me a lot of opportunities and I'm super grateful for you and I think you have a lot of stories to share because your face, Daniel, is not typically something that people see when they are unknowing of stance or consuming your content or even understanding what you do and the work you put out. So this is definitely a rare occasion and I appreciate you for making the time to come out here and so I wanted to ask you a few questions about your journey and how you even got stance elements to get started because a lot of people think, and you know this, a lot of people think that stance is a very big company with a lot of members that makes a lot of money and has a lot of X, Y, and Z but in reality, when you flip it around, you go into our group chat, there's less than 10 active people and you can tell all the different balls you're juggling and in fact, this is not the case, it's very, very, it's very different from the inside than from the outside, I'm sure you can attest to that but before we get into that, which we will, I do want to ask you about how you even got started to create stance and what your journey to making your own platform began, how did you, how did that happen for you? Stance started in 2014, it was a group of friends, a lot of us worked as part of Stryfe TV prior to that and we left Stryfe TV to create a channel, a production company of our own and that's what we created with Stance. We took a lot of the lessons and tips that we learned through our experience with Stryfe and we're like, let's change some things around and that's how our brand started. Right, so how about for you? I'm curious, sorry I'm going to turn the light on because I totally forgot to, boom, if you're not watching the visual, check it out on YouTube but if not, the audio is going to be fine. I'm curious about you Dan, because the way you, from what I know, your story starting stance is there's quite a few layers to it, there's steps, you didn't immediately just start a company, you worked your way from another company and you even had to get into breaking somehow and I actually don't really know the full story behind that and you have a lot of interesting history even before that. So I am curious, maybe let's start from when you first discovered breaking and how that kind of led you on the journey to start Stance, let's hear about that. I, okay, so I first started breaking in 2000. Oh, I was a freshman in college and I had a summer internship in Washington DC and I saw, they had an arts festival and they had an advertisement for a workshop by Lion's Zion, so I went to that, I had no idea what was going on, you know, I'm originally from South Dakota, we didn't have breaking, so I was like, I was curious, so I went, I didn't have many friends in DC so I thought it was interesting, I was taking the workshop in Doc Martens, I was not planning on going to a dance workshop, but it was happening that afternoon and I was there, I'm already there and so that was fun, you know, I still know some of the people that did the workshop, I'm friends with them, I tell them all the time, you know, and then a year later, my university started its very first breaking club, oh, at University of Wisconsin. Okay, so these were other breakers that, these were other breakers, beginner breakers, we didn't know much, but we wanted to learn and we started our first ever breaking club in 2002, oh, dang, and I just hung out with them, we learned and then one of the breakers, his name was B-Boy Man of God, who definitely had much more experience than us, he's from Chicago and he's one of my best friends, you know, we've been together for so long, he lives and currently lives out in Hong Kong right now, oh wow, and you know, just one thing led to another, we just got, you know, it just increased our curiosity, first major dance event ever been to, it was called City vs. City 3 in Chicago, did you battle? Did I battle? No, it was Invite, it was like, it was like New York, the best of New York versus the best of Boston versus the best of Chicago, got you, like we were first-year students from Wisconsin, or like now. But that was like your first exposure to an event? To a big event, and it was my first exposure to video because after like a couple months later, we saw the highlight trailer and I was like, whoa, this is pretty, I was there too, this is pretty badass, whoever made this highlight trailer, his name is Kony Rock, I was like, well, okay, this is pretty cool, and that caught my interest too, it was like, I want to film like that. Is that video online? What's it called? City vs. City 3 trailer. Okay, so that was kind of like the video that started off. It is online, it's pretty good, and you'll notice immediately it's different than most B-Boy trailers, because it did one of my favorite things was capture audience reactions. Yeah, okay, that is different. It'll show a cool move, but then it'll show like a face just, their face is just totally like in awe, and I like that. Yes, that's awesome. Okay, so continue, so after you went to events, then how was the rest of your college experience at least related to breaking? Our college experience, you know, we got more into breaking, we started organizing small events at my university, you know, my friend Jarius, he started organizing big events, we had a big one called Breaking the Law, which lasted many, many years, he got like big crews to come, and then, you know, I graduated early, I graduated, and you know, I traveled the world, you know, my major was in international relations, so I joined the Peace Corps, I lived in Africa, I was a park ranger in Alaska, but I mean, if you want to fast forward and fast forward all that stuff, I still love breaking. Yeah, I don't think so, I think that's so super interesting, let's touch on that. How did you even, what was the decision, like how did you make that, was it very obvious to you that you wanted to join the Peace Corps out of school? Yeah, wow. Easy. Why? Okay, so I studied international relations, for me, my dream job would be to work in an embassy, US embassy, U of S consulate, something like that, that you know, you can, Foreign Service was great, and the path for Foreign Service would be either, in my opinion, back then was you either be a Peace Corps volunteer, or you join the military, having 9-1-1, you know, Bush invading Afghanistan, Iraq since then, I was like, I'll do the Peace Corps part, and so I lived in Africa. Wow, that's crazy, man. Oh, that's true, you were in school when that happened, huh? Yeah. Wow. That happened in their university, yeah. Geez, okay, that's crazy. So then that compelled you to do that, how did you end up becoming a park ranger? So I lived in Africa for three years, and my first job after the Peace Corps was, I was looking for like, where can I work that involves outdoors and speaking French, because I learned French in Africa. French, okay. And then I saw a job posting for like, a park ranger in US Park Service in Alaska, it was like, French-speaking park ranger, so I said, all right, I'm applying. Wow. I applied, and so it's so, yes, I spoke French, there's a lot of French-speaking people from France and Canadians that go to, you know, national parks, so they needed a French-speaking park ranger, and I was there. That's crazy. How long were you there for? In Alaska? Yeah. Two years. Two years, wow. Yeah. My gosh. Okay, so you majored in international relations, and so I've been wondering for the longest time, just as someone who sees like, where are you at now, you know, like running stands and everything, when you told me that, I was just like, wait, how is that related to any of this? You know, I was like thinking about it, and then when you mentioned, you know, you wanted to work in embassy, you know, you wanted to be a foreign consulate, and like, and bring, you know, people together. I feel like that's definitely a huge strength of yours, which we'll get into more, which is like talking to people and like inviting people to new things, and going to new places and introducing new ideas, right? You're essentially doing that on like a widespread scale in the dance and movement world. That's amazing. I want to go back to that, but I want to allow you to continue your story. So after you do both the Peace Corps and the park ranger work, then we'll have the next. So after Peace Corps in Africa, after park ranger in Alaska, you know, I was like, you know, Alaska just got kind of lonely. There's nothing else going on. Dark winters. I was like, I was like, I miss dancing, you know, there are some times that I was like, I'll be on like a bear viewing platform in Alaska just for like three hours, nothing else, no bears, because it'll be, it'll be like March. And I'll be just like practicing top rock or something just, just because I was just so bored. And so I applied for a, I just taught, I applied for a job teaching English in South Korea. And you know, South Korea at that time, the late 2000s is like the place to be, right? Like R 16. And it was like gamblers had their own studio rivers had their own studio. I was like, I want to go there. And so I just left it, went to Korea and like first week, I went to like gambler studio practice, second week, I went to this place to practice. And then that's how I got back into breaking again. Okay. And my friends out in the USA, they created who created strive TV, like a month prior to me moving to Korea, they're like, Oh, they're by the way, my friends who created strive TV are also from a university. They're also from University of Wisconsin, like from the same breaking club. Same like, so you guys were in school at the same time. Yeah. Oh, wow. And they were film majors. I wasn't. Wow. Who would have thought so they were like, Dan, do you have a camera? I'm like, nobody can get one. Why? Do you want to film for our channel called strife? I'm like, Sure, I'm in Korea. All right. So, so there it was just filming like local Korean events. It's crazy. Who would have, who would have thought that I guess like the backbone of breaking and dance media, it originated from the University of Wisconsin of all places. Virginia from Wisconsin. Yes. So, yeah, I mean, it just goes to show you guys like, I guess it doesn't truly matter where you are. Cause I mean, you even, you don't have to be in Los Angeles to make things happen. You know, so that's, that's pretty incredible story. So you get to South Korea, you start filming battles and how is that starting out? Because, you know, this is your first time you held a camera. So what's the journey like? Was it pretty easy to start just filming events or did, did you kind of have to, was there a learning curve? I had no filming background or video editing background. I didn't know what I was doing. I just pressed record. I didn't know about focusing. My first camera was like a flip camera. It's like a 720p flip camera. But I was there, you know, so I just did it and it was fun. You know, nowadays people know me, but back then no one knew me. I mean, I was on stage for this event called JoJu and our mutual friend, John Jay Chone, was also on stage and he looked at me and he was like, Joe, who the fuck are you? He literally said that. Oh my God. That's really funny because I can't picture John Jay saying that right now. That was like, hi, I'm Dan. That's fucking hilarious. I'm filming this for a striped team. Did he know what Strype was? He knew. Okay. Okay. But he was like, he didn't know who the hell I was and he just looked at me. Oh my God. Okay. John Jay, geez. It was easy for me to film because I was, I was in Korea too. I taught English during the weekdays and on the weekends, you know, I went to, my friends and I, we went to, there were other foreigners there. We went to dance classes and training sessions and like, yeah, I would battle, you know, at some of the local Korean events and they're so freaking good. I would lose first round and after I lose first round, I'm like, all right, I'm here already. Nice. We'll get out the camera. Nice. And that's just how I just started filming everything. Dang. Okay. So then was it mostly just volunteer work for the most part? Oh, it's totally volunteer work. Okay. So did it, what was the next step in this strife transition journey? So like, was there another big turning point where you became a bigger contribution to strife? Cause I heard, I've heard in the past is like, at some point, you know, you were doing like a majority of the work strife, of the strife work. So how did that end up becoming a thing? I mean, it's, it's natural during stages of people's lives that they just become busy with other things and they just lose interest in certain hobbies. And for me, you know, breaking was everything around me in Korea. So it was hard to get away from that. But my friends in the USA were like, slowly transitioning out of it. So it eventually just ended up me being myself, just providing the bulk of the strife TV video work. Okay, I see. And, and then, you know, I would recruit, I would, I, in Korea, I recruited people like Miss Lee, I recruited other people to, you know, to help me there. We're just, because we're just friends along the way. And then afterwards, you know, we're like, well, we don't actually own strife. Let's just create something of our own. So that's how we made stance. Okay. So this is all happening in Korea, like, no, eventually move back to USA. Right. And then we created stance in the USA. Oh, so that was in 2014, you moved back or what year? I moved back to the USA in 2010, 2011. 2010. Okay, I see, I see. Yeah. After spending two years in Korea. And then, you know, my, I lived in Washington, D.C. I lived in Minnesota. Okay. I just filmed things in my area. You know, I made good friends. I, I filmed a lot for like cross one. I filmed a lot for mechs one from bboy spot. You know, we decided to do, I eventually, you know, through the, through the process of trial and error, my viewography eventually got better and better and better, especially for not having gone to school. Yeah, dude. So I will start to do things like instead of just filming battles, I would do things like short documentaries or interviews or just learning things along the way. I see. So what, did you, did you do, did you have any type of teacher or instruction on this journey of you learning video? No. Wow. Seriously. YouTube. YouTube. YouTube free clutch. But yeah, that's still very impressive though, that you were able to get to where you are now, you know, with no mentoring or anything. I'm glad people still watched back then because now I look back and like, why did I do that? Or why did I color it this way? Or wow, that was pretty, I thought that was pretty bad, but somehow people watched it. So was there anybody else around the time who are filming and posting battles on YouTube, like I guess competitors, if you want to call it that? 2009, 2010 was also when Yak films appeared to the film. They were so, you know, you had them, you had other videographers like Antoine Scheier, Tony Scheier, he's like from a style tooth from France. Okay. That was still pretty not, you know, they had other people like Mason Rose back then. Everyone had their own style and, you know, Strife had its own style too. So. Got it. Wow. Okay. So there's something I noticed about stands because like you said, there are people who entered this space with maybe more of a background with video. You can see it in Yak's videos, you know, like right off the go, you can understand like, oh, they understand how they're shooting, they got composition, all this. You started with like barely any experience, but still somehow you are at the current moment, like stands is, it's almost unanimous that if you're breaking events, you want stands to cover you. And that's like they have their own maybe private thing, but if people, if a breaker or an organization or a dance event wants their battles to be shown worldwide, it's dance to come to. And so there's really like a, not honestly monopoly, you know what I'm saying, but it's so obvious, you know, for people to choose that. And from what I observe, you know, from stands, it seems like a lot of that is not just strictly on the quality of video, even though our quality is good, but there is so much more happening behind the scenes as someone, as running stands, you know. And so I wanted to maybe ask you a little bit more about what you think besides quality of video has allowed you to take this position as maybe, you know, stands being at the caliber it is, the reason why people think it's so big. What do you think makes stands different than everybody else? Two things, quality and just being persistent in getting and just filming and working at it and getting things online. Like I said, I started stands, we started stands, obviously 2014 with zero follower, we just started a brand new page. Strife TV was still there. And there was like a couple of people still left in strife and they had like, I left them with like 40,000 people on 40,000 followers on Facebook. And the Strife TV had like 200,000 already on YouTube. Like they had a huge head start. But, you know, you need people to constantly film and just keep up with the work. And it's very easy to just not do it. You know, and whether it's paid or not paid, you just have to have like the will to do it. You know, it's like going to practice or be on a good diet or going to a gym or anything. You just have to just just regularly do it. Right. And it's not the easiest thing. It's not the easiest thing. And so I think for stands, just, you know, myself, others that are in stance, we enjoy doing it. Like I said, whether it's paid or not paid, we enjoy just showcasing our scene to the rest of the world. And so that's just how we regularly just get views and stuff along with good quality. Okay. I think you kind of already addressed this question, but where does that will come from for you? Because, I mean, you also, you don't just do stands, you also from weddings and industrially weddings is a huge industry, you know, like, lucatively, you know, if you just did weddings, probably make more money than b-boy events, right? So you have answered this, but I do want to hear like a more in-depth answer from you, like what allows you to be so persistent at this because, um, yeah, it's, it's really, is there other things besides maybe you said, because we like it? I mean, maybe you can elaborate more on that and other reasons too. It's because, you know, my friends ever since college days are in the breaking scene, you know, really like the people that the friendships I've made in the early 2000s, mid-2000s are still with me to this day. They're all my good friends and I always want to contribute one way or the other, you know, some contribute by battling, by competing, some people who contribute by organizing events, you know, my best skill was to contribute by, you know, filming or it started off contributing as filming and now has molded into like running social media channels and pages. Like that's a totally separate work by itself if you think about it. It is. Filming and doing social media management. It is. It's so, and those are skills I picked up along the way too. So it's just really just friendship. Like we, us, if you look at our stance group chats, like the people internally, we're just good friends. We talk about fun stuff all the time, even whether it's not even related to breaking, you know, and it's just, for me, it's like a good world outside of, outside of, you know, like corporate America, outside of, you know, things like that. Not saying that it doesn't help taking a break too because it's like, you know, I would film like a wedding or I would film, I would film like a travel video for like Marriott and then they're like, oh, I have this dance page and they have no idea, you know, it's a nice balance in life. Got you. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Hey guys. So they often say that you are the average of the five people you hang around the most with. So if you're looking for a community of people who will push you, who will help you grow, keep you accountable and give you advice on career advancement, dance, professionalism, media creation, video production, any of that, I would highly recommend you check out our movement media makers discord group. The link will be in the show notes of whatever video you're watching or if you're listening on podcast, it'll be in the show notes description. Take a look and I hope to see you in there. Now back to the show. Okay. So I do want to ask you about, you mentioned and you kind of talked about how video and social media management are almost two separate things. So do you enjoy social media management or like, like running your pages? Like how is your, how do you feel towards those activities? Do I enjoy social media management? It has its moments where I enjoy it. Okay. It's, it is challenging every year. There's new challenges, both socially and both technically that you need to adapt to. You need to modify things too because truthfully, I mean, 10 years ago, this field never existed. So nobody has a degree. There's like no one you can really look up to me like for advice, you just have to do it through trial and error. But there are moments, for example, recently, like the scene from Pakistan, which I've never been to, they're having a 10-year anniversary of their first breaking program. And they're like reaching out to me and they're like, can you give us a shout out? We would love if, you know, if we get recognition and just something small like that. And then I was like, okay, not coming. I'll give you a shout out, you know, I'll post some stands, but let me hit up Karim. Let me hit up Kujo. Let me hit up my other friends and have them give you a better shout out. Okay. I like doing small things like that, you know, whether as much as I can. And just to make, and they freaking love it. They're like, oh, Pakistan's on the board now, you know, just small things like that I like, because it brings the world together, which I never, you know, dreamed about when I first started, you know, things I don't like. Man, Facebook comes up with some technical stuff that I do not understand every year. They'll take down pages. They'll take down music. It is very stressful. And it's, and every year you just have to, you know, maneuver around a bunch of new regulations and things. And just how can I keep this up? How can I keep, you know, how they keep working? You're doing most of this on your own, you know, like now, now you, we have a team, thankfully, like it's not just you. So you can send people out like me to go help film events and edit battles. But for the most part, you know, you're heading to charge, you're doing client relations. You are figuring deals out with people. And then on top of that, then you're scheduling, and then you're posting on social media, right? You're one of the main people running the stance page, right? Which posts pretty much daily, multiple times, almost a day, if not like at least once a day, right? So how does, I'm so curious how you keep your days organized and get all this done from day to day. Like, I have no idea. It's weird because I've, I've worked with Red Bull before and Red Bull has an entire team in like schedules and like somehow some people view us on the same level as Red Bull and I don't know how that works. Yeah, dude. It's like I hide it pretty well or something because on our social media, most of the time it's just me thinking, maybe I'll do this. I think that's a good idea. Oh my God. So like, do you do anything to, like at least because you're on your own, but do you do anything like take notes or make a calendar, like list your ideas down a certain place and like do you have some sort of system for, for keeping all your thoughts in order? Lots of mental notes. So everything's in your head. Lots of mental notes. Oh my God. But on special projects, like such as things that involve event weekends, things like that, online activations, things like that, we do work in groups and we do have like a more, more calendar, but like, like weeks like today where they're in like, you know, in June where there's nothing going on. It's just stuff in my head. I had no idea what I was going to post last night until like maybe a couple hours ago. Oh my gosh. And then how do you usually find those posts? Do you usually just scroll to Instagram until something pops up or do you have, do you have different types of places or techniques or methods that you like to like find what you're going to post today or or tomorrow? Sometimes I read the room. I read the room of what's going on, you know, like recent, for example, recently Pakistan reached out to me. So I was like, all right, let's see, let me see if I have any footage from that area of the world, you know, Pakistan, India, you know, Middle East, Persia, you know, West Asia, that area, you know, things like that just comes up in my head. Okay. So or yeah. What's like the average amount of time it takes for you to like from from finding, from figuring out what you're going to post to posting it, like at this point, how much time do you think you spend on average? Now 30 minutes. Really? Yeah. And sometimes, but my mind goes, my mind is always working. So like even like at 11pm at night, right before I go to bed, I think I would think of something and I would like, all right, can't sleep now. Let me do this. Prep it up for tomorrow. Done. Like you make a draft of it on Instagram or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Have you ever tried scheduling posts? Like using? I have software like that. I don't like third party software for Instagram and Facebook just because I don't trust how it appears when it appears. There've been mistakes before. So I prefer just to mainly do it just to make sure there's no errors. Okay. Well, 30 minutes is pretty good, especially like, I don't know, I feel like for me, it takes forever just to come up with a caption and let alone find something. So I guess it is true that repetition definitely leads to productivity and increase in improvement for sure. Let's see. So we've covered, we basically covered your story and how you've gotten to where you are for the most part. And needless to say there, you have a very, very unique background that I'd love to hear more about down the line. It's just, it's just so different. But at this point, I guess since this is kind of like our space, right, and you, you really enjoy posting good content, right? Bottom line. When someone makes something good, and it's like really, it's really attractive, or it rings well, it passes read the room test, as you say, like, I guess, for example, nasty rays like heels video we just saw recently, right? So stuff like that. We it's good for us, right? When people are able to make good content. So that's kind of the intention for this show is to kind of help other dancers or artists who are trying to make better content, be able to record better, post better, you know, like, have better ideas. So I guess something I want to ask you is, what is a common flaw, I guess you see in most your average dancers videos, like, is there something that you see, do you have any type of like pet peeves you see, like when you're like, oh, damn, like, that would have been so good, but you just didn't capture it well, or anything like that? Not really. I don't like criticizing people or seeing what's going wrong. I think I think people just making content is like, pretty damn good already. Because like, that's the first step, like, that's the first step why there's not many channels like stance, there, or yak or stuff like that is because it takes a lot of effort just to make the content in the first place. So I applaud them for that. That's true. Okay. That's a very good point. Yeah. The fact that, yeah, you're creating period. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely if there was anything that I would say it would just be to just educate more self on the formats, like Instagram, obviously, you have to know that it's better four by five or reels, just have the general knowledge that reels get more views than a post does. And so like, if I see like a wide post, I'm like, I could have gotten more views. It was like, made for cell phone. But I mean, that's just like nitpicky. Gotcha. So yeah. Do you have a favorite medium, like a format like documentary or creating even if it's like, just short little bits, like, I know you even you even made like, you just recaps, you know, there's all types of different things. Do you have a favorite one that you like to make a favorite style or a favorite like type of video? My favorite type of video is a video that I have not done for a really long time. Well, I do. I like making documentaries. I like making long form documentaries. And I like making into the year of recaps. Yeah. And I used to do those not anymore. So good. The portfolios, those portfolios are fun. I wish I had the time to do more. It just, it just like, it just like, I would start on them like the day after Christmas and then it'll last like, oh my God. And then I realized nowadays, like as I get older, I kind of want to take those days off and see friends or family and be with family. I can't do this anymore. But maybe there'd be another day I do it. Yeah. Those are good because those are super, they make me happy. They make, I know they make other people happy. They like to see like the good like in things in the things that everyone does and I like those and I like and I love documentaries, especially on stories that empower people. So like I did one on Somar, I did one on Ayumi, you know, we have more coming. Awesome. Yeah. I can't wait for the day that we bring more of those back. You're definitely, that's another reason like, that's another unfortunate thing, right? Like just because you're so busy and those projects do require a good amount of time or for you to basically kill yourself for four days between right after Christmas. Happy New Year. But I mean, hopefully the time will come where we can, you know, delegate the responsibilities a little bit more. And it's just because those videos are so effective. You know, they're so good. Even like even when we're talking about the Somar and Ayumi ones like bringing out like real stories and they're well made, you know, like they communicate the idea effectively. And because you understand how human attention works, like that's your social media success, you're able to make videos that people will watch and continue to finish. And not only that, they have a good theme to them, including the portfolios. It's such a great wrap up of the entire year. It's like the reason why people love like annual anthologies for their favorite music. Like, oh man, it's a whole year in like 10 minutes. So, but needs to say it's a whole year of content. You have to put into one video and that requires a lot of editing collection. So I understand. But I think it would be awesome to bring it back. So we'll put it out there. We'll think about it some more. Would you edit the next one? You know, I'd be down to try something at some point for sure. I would just need to take tutelage under you on how to best not kill myself while I do that. Yeah. So for sure. We'll leave that open. What is like a dream project for you in this current maybe in these next two years? Well, Olympics are coming. I would love to that. And that's a brand new audience. You know, I feel like I feel like through the years, I've done a pretty good job balancing content for a dance centric audience. And then a non dance audience, you know, I'm super happy like like celebrities and Joe Rogan people notice us. I'm like, it's working. I want you guys to be excited about this just as much as breakers do. So the Olympics brings a whole new audience of just non dancers. And I want them to be just as excited as we are. And so creating content for that, creating, you know, good content, getting people to recognize why people dance, why people are in this. What is hip hop? You know, what, you know, the culture, the history of it, you know, that's something that I really, really want to do. That's perfect. There is needless to say, there are a lot of stories that need to be told, right? So are there any people that you're currently that like other dream people right now that you'd want to make, you know, maybe like a documentary out of at the current moment they got off top of your head. There's a bunch. There's a lot, right? I'm not giving the ideas away, but other people can needless needless to say there are a lot, right? Almost to the point where there's always a lot of stories to be told in the breaking scene. And I think there's not a whole lot. There's not a whole lot of people who are doing it, right? So it takes work. It does take a lot of work. Yeah. And it takes a skill, right? So hopefully that's something that people can learn more. I've learned so much from actually having the experience from you. I'm actually curious. I want to ask you a story from your past, which is was there ever a project that was extremely challenging, but was extremely rewarding for you? Can you think of any off top of your head for you? Extremely challenging, but extremely rewarding from, you know, from my videography days, right? Yeah, just from any videos you've made or projects that you've run. Yeah. Wow. I mean, every new year we do extremely challenging, but extremely rewarding projects. I would say recently, you know, I loved doing the 2019-2018 Rebel BC1 USA's, because we, Stance, was the live stream team, right? You know, like we were behind the cameras with like the headphone sets, just saying change to that angle, change to that angle. I mean, that's pretty badass because like 10 years ago, I was like mocking the camera operator for like some of these Red Bull stuff because we were like, yo, why is there a camera way up there? Like an eagle, you know? And we're like, let's, we want angles. Like I understand what people want. And we were like, man, if we were ever put in that position of running our own live stream, like let's not fuck up. Let's, let's, let's, let's make it like a good viewing experience. And so that was something that I was super proud of because that was really, really nicely viewed online. No complaints. Thank God. And Rebel trusted us in producing that, which I was super, super, super happy about. So for that event, were you operating a camera? I was operating a camera and then my team was not only operating a camera, but they were directing in the back room with the switchers and like they were, you know, they were telling like, which camera angle to select, you know, what to do with the audio, things like that. That's crazy, man. Yeah. We had, we had, you know, it was, it was a pretty nice team. We had like, we had Ryan Porter as our live stream, you know, director, who's also a B-boy. We, you know, we had people within the scene directing our own things, which is freaking dope. That is really dope. Yeah. Because I mean, for past Red Bulls, like the BC ones, like the older ones, the Ford finalists, those are Red Bulls. Those are production companies. Oh, production companies. So who may or may not have breaking experience. Geez. Okay. Yeah. So that's really the strength here is that not only are you a production company, but you, we all come from some sort of background in breaking. Yeah. And so we're really like truly in-house for the culture. And I think that gives us a very, it gives us, it gives us such an edge when we are creating, right? So when you know that. So is there anything, I also realized that you are not only, you're not only married to breaking, but you also do enjoy other movements like tricking and open styles, correct? So how did you kind of start getting interested in those or what were some of your first projects in those spaces? So how do we get started? Okay. So stance, our passion is called the art of movement. It involves breaking, but involves everything that breakers also have interest in. When we started stance through my, through our friendships, you know, through other dancers and other people, we've discovered, you know, there are breakers that are trickers too. There are breakers, there are skateboarders, there are breakers that are into gymnastics, there's breakers that are doing martial arts and like living here in LA for the last six years, I've discovered like, there's breakers that are into stunts. It's pretty cool. Yeah. You know, like there's more breaking than people what meets the eye. And so we wanted to show that aspect. We wanted to show that aspect. And so, you know, who knew that like the stunt double for Killmonger is a B-boy? You know, most recently, who knew this, you know, MMA fighter was also a B-boy, you know, and those are the things that we know. And so I wanted to showcase like, yeah, these people are just like you, you can take your breaking skills and bring it elsewhere. And so that's why I like to show other different disciplines. Got you. Okay. Are there any other disciplines that you would like to film in the future as now? Cause you've already spread the tricking, open styles and stunts. So anything else you got on your list that you're interested in? Yes. Okay. So I lived in Africa for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer. Three years. Wow. I didn't know anything about filming back then. I filmed, I edited in Microsoft Movie Maker and I had a point and shoot Sony's Cybercam. I want to go back to Africa and film all the cool dances that I saw with an actual DSLR camera, just a showcase. Did you see a lot of like, of the native dances in Africa? Yeah. Well, I lived in, so I lived in Mauritania and Senegal, which is the West, West Africa. Okay. And their dance style is super, super unique. And they would have, they would dance for weddings, they would dance for baptisms, they'll dance for every single thing, every single celebration in the world. Dang. And so, and it's cool. And it's not, it's not something that's very broadcasted to the world about, you know, like I feel nowadays when people see African dance, they just group it all together and call it dance hall or Afro dance. And it's like, yo, every, that continent is huge. It is different than this. And even within West Africa, every country dance is different. That's true. And so I would love to go back to Africa and just spend more time there. I still have lots of friends there. And just, just showcasing the stuff that they, they do. That would be super cool. So three years in Africa, that's crazy, man. So I guess I'll ask you a little bit more about that lifestyle. You know, like, I'm really curious about what you learned while you were there. You know, like, what were, what were some of like, the biggest, maybe like, paradigm shifts or like, mind shifts, you know, you saw that like, we don't do here at all. And you're like, whoa, that's really interesting. In the Peace Corps? And while you were living in Africa for three years? Just, just culture differences. Time goes different than there. You know, like if you get invited to a friend's house, you're like, Hey, come on over. Let's have dinner. Oh, you're there for six hours. Oh, that's like the average amount of time you're going to spend. Yeah. If you sometimes, you know, you, people can't make it to certain things because they have different other priorities. And so it's just, yeah, just people's version of time just goes different, you know, here in the USA, you know, we don't even have time to eat, you know, we have fast food, right? In Africa, it's like, you're spending the entire day there. And it might just be just sitting on the couch, just, just waiting for the tea to come an hour or two later. And people just, you just like the presence of the other person there. And that's where a lot of relationships, you know, trusted relationships are made. And so that's something I learned, you know, relationships take time in Africa. You know, sense of, you know, not, I lived, when I lived in Africa, I got paid $150 a month. That was a local salary. Wow. 150 bucks a month. Gosh. And so it gave me a good sense of like, you know, how to survive off of something like that, how to live like other people do, you know, how to save money, how to, you know, be, be thrifty in different parts of the world. It really tests, you know, your, it really tests a lot of different things for real. Yeah. So it actually ties into something I wanted to ask you about, I guess, stance now, which is you kind of have to start to learn more about how not only to film videos, social media, there's so many different aspects of running a company. Is that safe to call a sense of company? Yeah. Yeah. So another one is client relations and also how to make it a living, right? So how is that process been for you, especially coming from a background where, you know, you, you were living off a tenth of what minimum wage is here, you know, is, is that something that you've had to learn more about like, like finance in, in this company? I still am. I still am, you know, I, I, when I, especially when I moved here to California six years ago, I had no idea about taxes. I was like, whoa, that is so huge. You mean like, they take this much amount? I'm like, okay. Yeah, just, just, just, I guess, just adulting, I guess. Yeah. You know, client relations, learning how to talk with clients, managing those relations, accounting, things like that. Like everyone, all of us at Stance, we, we do Stance, we work, I would say, part time at the most on Stance. All of us have outside jobs, you know, like I film, I film for travel companies, I film from, for hotels, I do weddings. And then in my free time, you know, or 11pm at night, I, I, I do Stance, you know, we have other people at Stance that like, that, that like, that work on film sets. And then the, on their weekends, they film for Stance. The other people that like, are coders for websites. And on their free time, they'll do Stance, you know, we all contribute to this and this is kind of like our hobby, but with like a bigger responsibility, I guess. Right. That's true. So that makes sense. That, that, that's, that's really funny that you mentioned that because yeah, a lot of people, when they, when I tell them that Stance isn't like my full-time job, like it's nowhere, not really, I wish it's like barely part time, but yeah, like really surprised. Like what's like, they, they expect it to be something like this because of the way it appears externally. So not bad for a side hustle, you know, especially when people, when you've grown it to this level. So I guess with that being said, like you said, you wish, what are, what do you hope, what is your vision of Stance in the future? Like what, what do you wanted to, let's say five years from now, a year after the Olympics happens, like ideally, if you position yourself correctly in the right cards you play, then what would you like to see Stance as at that time? So Stance right now is a production company. We, we create things, whether it's live events, whether it's, you know, stories, things like that. We were a production company and we have, and, but we also have a lot of viewers on social media. So we're a production company with some very active social media pages because people like to watch our stuff. So it's, it's nice because there's a lot of production companies, we don't have a lot of viewers, they just, they just create, we have, we have both, which is, we're really, really fortunate about what I would love for Stance to be is to be a production company for content creation for the Olympics, whether it's through sponsors, whether it is for the Olympics, whether it's for events that revolve between now through the Olympics time, because I'm predicting that things are just going to get bigger and bigger, bigger through 2024, I'm hoping. And that'll be a success and I'll keep on carrying out. You know, I would love for Stance to get, you know, these, you know, I want the visa commercial, I want the Samsung commercials, you know, that because I trust us to film it more than like a production company in North Hollywood that has nothing to do with breaking, you know, because, you know, because we know the stories that we tell, that they're getting the proper people to, you know, to hit up. And so, yeah, these are my short-term and long-term goals. I would have thought, you know, I would have never thought we've gone to this level. I mean, you know, prior to this, and even nowadays, I'm still kind of on cruise control, like just taking it one event at a time or one month at a time. But because the Olympics are coming, it kind of gave me more of a long-term, like, I guess you can call it deadline, like 2024. Okay, I see that now. You know, if it was for that, I'll just, I'll just, you know, just done it and just done it, you know, like what I do every month and every year and just see what happens. Right. But now you have something to work towards. Now something, yeah, something to work towards. Which is really great, you know, because now this, this creates, this makes haste and now hopefully we'll grow faster than before. Yeah. Okay. We're closing up soon. I don't want to take too much of your time down. Yeah. But with building a bigger company or, or like creating bigger projects and just doing bigger things that typically requires you to grow as a company as well. Right. So I'm curious what your philosophy or thoughts and approaches to bringing new members on. I know for me it's been, it's almost been five-ish years maybe. And it was, I think each person has a unique entry in the stands. Like there are some people who joined later than me, but became official before me. And then for me, I was in school still, right? For most, for like three years and then only graduated like two years ago. And it's only more recently, like post-pandemic that now you're beginning to like, what's it called? Launch me into like multiple places in one month. So I'm like, okay, here we go. Like awesome. So in the event that this becomes bigger, like, you know, recovering more events, bigger budgets, you know, more stuff, how, how would you, what would you say to people who are listening, who may are interested, you know, in contributing somehow to stands in the future? What kind of stuff do you look for in trying to bring on new people? We're, stance is always like, I've always had my eye out for talent, for people that are willing to join, for people that willing to contribute. The biggest thing is something similar to what I like, what I do, which is I want to see motivation, self-motivation is the biggest because, you know, anyone can say, oh, I can do this, I can do that, or I can film an event. But then like, well, can you film five in a row without me telling you? Or like, even if it's a bad event, you know, like, self-motivation is the biggest thing because that's the reasons, you know, stance is this, is because we've been self-motivated ourselves the last six years to keep it going. You know, not every day is going to be like a Red Bull BC one final. There's going to be like days in February where you're like, okay, what can we do now? You know, downtime, man. So self-motivated, creative individuals, every year there's brand new things that we discover. Like, four years ago we had no, we had no idea how to do live stream. Live stream is a totally, like four years, our first live stream thing was like a Mevo camera on a tripod with a bunch of tape around it. We had no idea how that live stream worked, but it did. Nowadays we got switchers and things like that. Like, so every year just, you just have to like keep up with technology, learn what's new, even social media-wise, like what kind of content to create. It's not the easiest thing. So self-motivated, you know, just the eager to learn that and to work as a team and part of the group is something, you know, that we look for. And I would totally welcome like more companies like Stance. Like I said, it's been strife, us, yak, BNC. I mean, totally welcome more. It's just, you just have to do it, you know? That's good advice. Yeah. That's actually very good advice. So I mean, you heard it from Dan, you know, if you, if you want to get down, then you have to find your reason why internally and that will drive you and motivate you. So I mean, for me, yeah, I guess I have my own reasons. Dan has his own reasons. So let's say there's a college student who knows that they want to contribute more. I'm asking this question because I've been in a similar place or a high school college student who says they want to contribute more. They're interested in the media space. Are there any resources that you point them to? Like maybe what are some things that help motivate you or gave you kind of like the tools or thoughts to like really push you forward? I don't know if you read books or like watch movies or anything, but did you have any to recommend? Thoughts on how to start or to move forward or move forward creatively or something. To find there why? I don't know if that makes sense. If it's just me, just trial and error. Find something that you like, enjoy creatively, create something similar, you know, on your own. See if you like it. If you don't, well, move on to the next thing. Just trial and error. I didn't even realize I like travel videos until like six years ago. And then I was like, and I met friends that did travel videos and like, well, this is fun. And now I have like outside of stance, I have like travel video friends around the world that do similar things, you know, that I met and like I managed to hit up some popular ones on Vimeo. I'm like, you know, ask them questions like, how did you do that? How did you do that? And we met up and I showed them my world. They show me theirs. It's nice cross cultural stuff. Lots of, so lots of, lots of trial and error. And also know that people like me, other people similar to me are always available for any like questions. I love, I have, I have people hit me up all the time. You're like asking for like career advice or things like that. And I always answer back. So yeah, there's lots of trial and error. See what you like. And if you don't like it, just keep going to the next one. And also, if you like it, try a different style, try, there's so many, I mean, I didn't learn how to, I didn't go to school for video. I just learned it. And then I just trial and error on my video skills and, um, yeah, just do it. I think doing it is the first step. It's the biggest step is to keep doing it. Right. Yeah. And that's, I mean, even though it sounds simple, it's, it's a truth. And I guess to put it another way, it's really, if you, if you want to boil it down, then you can almost argue that the reason why trial and error is so helpful is because we almost have to get like, quote, unquote lucky to find something that really clicks with us. And sometimes that shows up earlier in people's lives and sometimes it shows up later, but the fastest way to guarantee you find that is by trying as many things as you can until you hit something that clicks with you. Right. So I mean, taking those opportunities are given to you, like when Dan was given the opportunity to film by his friends and it clicked. Right. And then when you continue to have the opportunity to start live streaming, you're interested. I mean, fuck it. All we know how to do is tape a camera to a stick for now, but maybe this could turn into something. And before you know it, you are taking over the broadcast for Red Bull BC one. And that wouldn't have happened if you didn't pursue it and try it. So I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Similar to you, like, like, uh, what you do FPV drones, right? Did you have a teacher? YouTube. There you go. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So you just got to get lucky and lucky quote unquote. Find a thing that clicks with you, really just keep trying those things. And that's a great piece of advice. And like you said, like, like Dan said, I mean, thank you for being open. So if you have a good question, or of course, be respectful of Dan's time because he is a very busy man. But still, if you do really want to reach out to me calling to you, then Dan has said it himself. So I'll plug a few of our and Dan's social media that you can follow and potentially message. So there's stats elements, right? On Instagram. There's, is it just stands on YouTube? Yeah. Dot stands for just dance. Yeah. Just look up stands, maybe B boy next to keyword. And then you'll find it stats elements on Facebook. And anything else then that you like to plug. Those are the top three. So yeah, guys, this has been a very special talk and very insightful. Thank you, Dan. This has been awesome. And I want to affirm you one more time for taking the time to do this, but also for being so willing. I know it's intrinsic to a point because your friends are a part of this scene. And you want to just be with your friends. But a lot of people in the breaking scene are here because of their friends, but not everyone contributes something. So giving, you know, so I understand you, I'm affirming you for all the work you put in. And it's amazing stuff. I hope you know that. And I hope it helps you continue pushing. I know you're very intrinsically motivated, which is great. But at the same time, just letting you know that if it weren't for your work, you did, then I definitely would not be doing half of the stuff I'm doing today, because you kind of gave me my first opportunity to really step into the real world. And so I appreciate you for that. And I hope this this type of thing helps others to take that step too. So yeah, thanks again. Definitely. Thanks, Kai. Yeah, of course, man. Cool. All right, guys, this has been Kai and Stance, a movement media mentor podcast. Thank you for listening. You're actually the very first guest. I totally forgot to mention that. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So thank you for being the first guest. Amazing first guest. All right, guys. All right. Till next time. Take care. Peace. Hello, my friend. It is Kai again. And thank you so much for watching another episode of the movement media mentor podcast. I genuinely hope that this episode brought you a lot of value you can implement into sharing your greatest movements. And if you liked it, or if you have any feedback, I would highly, highly appreciate it. If you take a look at whatever platform you're listening to on, whether it's YouTube or Spotify, Apple podcast, anchor, you name it, leave a feedback, leave comments, review it, rate it five stars, all of it helps. And if you are interested in pushing your movement media journey forward, whether that is creating a career as a dancer or making more films or finding your way into the industry or building your own platform, I would highly recommend you check out our movement media mentorship. And this is where you will get one on one guidance from myself and other students and teachers and professionals in the industry who will give you one on one pointers as well as a full course database on a bunch of topics that you can learn from, including pre-production, storyboarding, or even building a social media account. So if you are interested, then take a look at movementmediamentor.com. And I would love to see you in there. If not, thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one. Take care.