SPOTLIGHT ON SOUTH KOREA: THE 2013 R16
The 2013 R16 World Championships successfully completed their seventh global tournament on July 12, 13 and 14 in Seoul, South Korea. With 25 national and regional eliminations around the world, and more than 450 Poppers, 250 Lockers, 650 Solo B-Boys and 400 B-Boy crews participating globally, R16 is definitely one of the biggest and most prestigious battle tournaments worldwide.
Besides the high production level and unique, concert-like atmosphere, what separates the R16 World Championships from all other events in the world is the scoring system and standards in which the B-Boy battle results are based upon. While all other events gather their results from the subjective opinions through a random variety of judges who each have their own mysterious methods, the R16 judging system (better known as O.U.R. System) ensures a fair and equal shot for every type of style and approach to breaking, while providing a whole new level of transparency and education, bridging the longtime missing gap between the judges, the B-Boys and the audience.
Although the audience explanation of the O.U.R. System and scoreboard could be improved for the first-timers, the R16 Judging system has come a long way in the past three years since its first implementation. There are many enthusiast and spectators who aren’t dancers, but actually know how to read the scoreboard and understand the five categories upon which the B-Boy battles are judged. Not only is the audience more educated on the dance, but they also know who is winning or losing throughout the battle, and by how big of a margin.
This year at the R16 World Finals, the R16 Korea National Champions, Morning of Owl crew completely annihilated all competition. They defeated all their opponents, with a clean sweep of 5-0 categories in each of their battles. R16 is Morning of Owl’s first world championship title, and they really have come a long way in the past year.
Team leader Sejun said, “Before the O.U.R. System, I didn’t care about foundation. When it began being used at R16, I became interested and began to wonder, what does foundation mean?”
One year ago, Morning of Owl was scoring only one or two points in foundation. This year, they scored an average of four points, and on a few occasions, they scored the maximum of five points in some of their rounds. Other than Morning of Owl, the R16 World Championships creates new superstars in the B-Boy community. For example, in 2012, Japan’s 15-year-old B-Boy Issei was relatively unknown throughout the worldwide community. Starting from the open eliminations prior to the championship, he earned his spot in the final eight and defeated world superstar Hong 10 in the first round, Korean power move legend Blue in the second and Red Bull BC One World Champion Roxrite in the finals. Without the unique R16 system, Issei could not have gotten that far due to his name being relatively unknown.
Many B-Boys know that the popularity and status of a B-Boy plays a heavy factor in affecting a judge’s decision. However, this was not the case at the R16 World Finals, as many fans were disappointed by the performances of the B-Boy legends that were defeated by Issei. Immediately after, Issei became one of the quickest rising superstars throughout the B-Boy community, being invited to be a guest star at numerous B-Boy events around the world. This year at R16 World Finals, Issei returned to once again win the R16 World Finals Solo B-Boy battle, becoming a two- time R16 Solo B-Boy Champion.
Every year, the R16 World Championships global tournament grows bigger and better, and the stakes get higher. In 2012, Issei only had eight people to defeat in the Solo B-Boy battle. This year, there were 16 B-Boys. Four of them are the current world champions of the four major B-Boy events. Four of them were special invites, six of them are R16 regional champions and two of them came from the open eliminations. Also, this year, the total prize money was raised from $35,000 to $44,000.
Another example of the overall growth of the competition is the gradual increase of R16 eliminations that are popping up all over the world. In 2011, there were ten eliminations. In 2012, there were seventeen. This year there were 25 eliminations, while next year they are aiming for more than thirty. Each of these eliminations go by the same standards, using the O.U.R. System to ensure fairness, quality and consistency, as other global tournaments depend on the luck of the panel and the taste of the judges hired for the day.
With the growing success, production and professionalism of the R16 World Championships one can only wonder what else they have in store for next year. R16 is continually dedicated to taking the culture to the next level while preserving the culture’s true essence. It’s the reason and is the why R16 is not only considered to be one of the biggest and most prestigious battle tournaments worldwide, but also a huge movement to take the culture to its deserved destiny.












