Caleaf: Remember to Bring the Love to the Cypher

A Power Cord From a Brooklyn WindowCaleaf Ramier Sellers does not begin his story in a studio. He begins at a window.He grew up in Brooklyn, on the border of Canarsie and East New York. Outside his home was a basketball court. People would knock on the window and ask if they could plug their sound system into his house. His mother would ask, “How long are they going to be out there?” He would say, “Until midnight.” Then a long extension cord would run from his home to the park, and music would fill the block.There were baby showers, birthdays, weddings, cookouts, and homecomings. Someone had returned from jail, and the neighborhood would celebrate. Before Caleaf knew the word “Hip Hop,” he knew the feeling: people gathering, music playing, bodies moving.His first teacher was his mother. She was not a professional dancer. She simply loved to dance. Music was always playing in the house. If she was cooking, cleaning, or moving through the day, she was dancing. She would grab him as a child, and he remembers looking up at her. Later, as he grew taller, he remembers looking down at her.Dance entered him not as a career, but as a way of being alive.“Hip Is to Know. Hop Is to Do.”For Caleaf, Hip Hop is not an abstract idea. It is something lived.He speaks of “peace, love, unity, and having fun” not as a slogan, but as an atmosphere he remembers. It did not mean the neighborhood was perfect. There were conflicts. There were nights when people knew it was time to leave. But most of the time, the jam was a space where people came together.There were no classes then. You learned by watching.Your eyes were the camera. Your brain stored the footage. You saw someone move their shoulders a certain way, catch the music a certain way, or step into a rhythm that touched you. Then you went home and replayed it in your head until your body could understand it.But copying was not the goal. Biting was a serious thing. You could be inspired by someone, but you had to make it your own. You had to turn influence into identity.That is why Caleaf’s generation carries something so unique. They were not manufactured by a system. They grew out of parties, parks, clubs, kitchens, and sidewalks.The Tunnel, Rosie Perez, and the Moment Dance Became a CareerCaleaf did not plan to become a professional dancer.He was in college when his student loan situation changed, and he began thinking he might have to come home. Henry Link told him he needed to come to The Tunnel on a Wednesday night. It was there that Rosie Perez saw them. She was scouting dancers for a Diana Ross music video.Caleaf, Link, and their friends auditioned. They got the job. Afterward, Rosie took them out to eat and asked if this was something they wanted to do as a career.She did not ask for a percentage. She did not try to manage them. In Caleaf’s words, she simply “put them on.” She placed them in the light where other people could see them.From there came work with artists such as Heavy D, Doug E. Fresh, Mariah Carey, and Michael Jackson. But when Caleaf is asked when he first felt he was truly “in the room,” he didn’t name the biggest star. He says it was when people came to see him.In 1993, he and Peter Paul were invited to Japan Dance Delight as guest judges and performers. There was no artist in front of them. They were the reason people were watching.For a dancer who had spent years behind artists, that changed everything.36 Chambers: Start From the First LevelYears later, Caleaf and Buddha Stretch created 36 Chambaz of Stylez.The idea came from a simple realization. They had traveled all over the world teaching and sharing the culture, yet New York itself did not have a true home base for this kind of training. People kept asking why there was no major camp in New York. Caleaf began to feel that something needed to be brought home.The name was inspired by the kung fu film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. In the film, the main character wants to begin at the highest level, only to realize he must start from the first chamber.For Caleaf, that is the lesson. Many dancers want the most difficult material before they can do the most basic things. But the basics are not something to skip. They are where depth begins.At 36 Chambaz, a class may move through multiple teachers, multiple “chambers,” and multiple layers of training: footwork, foundation, technique, partner dance, floor work, freestyle, review, and history. The goal is not to hand students choreography and send them home. The goal is to give them something they can grow with.No Mirrors, No Recording, Just the RoomAnyone who has taken 36 Chambaz remembers the setup. No mirrors. No filming. Two circles. People facing each other, not just facing a teacher.Caleaf says he wanted to bring the atmosphere of the club or the party into the classroom. A stage would have been easier. A teacher in front and students behind would have been more familiar. But that would not create the same connection.In the circle, people have to pay attention. They have to feel the energy around them. They have to remember with their minds and bodies, not just with their phones.In an age of endless scrolling, Caleaf is asking students to stay present. Do not rush to document the moment. Be in it first.A Cypher Is Not a Place to Prove Yourself AloneAgain and again, Caleaf returns to the word love.He describes walking into parties today and seeing cyphers where people stand around waiting for their turn. Someone dances in the middle, and the circle watches silently. Each person seems to be preparing their own statement rather than feeding the person inside.But to him, a cypher is about building on top of each other. The person in the middle needs energy. The people around them have a responsibility. If you give energy, they give more back. Then the next person enters with more power. Everyone rises.The circle is not a courtroom. It is a structure of support.Caleaf says the circle is life. It begins at zero and returns to zero. In that shape, we look out for one another, witness one another, and push one another higher.From Battle to Contest: Did We Lose the Party?Caleaf makes a distinction between a battle and a contest.A battle, in his understanding, is continuous. Whenever you see the person, it is “on”, until one person concedes. A contest is structured. It has rounds, judges, brackets, and time limits.Many young dancers today encounter street dance through contests first. They learn to dance AT each other before they learn to dance WITH each other.That is why 36 Chambaz includes partner dance. It is not only about learning hustle, stepping, or other partner forms. It is about learning how to see another person. In house, Caleaf remembers “stalking,” a way of shadowing and responding to someone all night. You follow me. I follow you. We build something together.Dance began as a social act. Without connection, it becomes only movement.Freedom Begins When You Stop Judging YourselfYoung dancers often ask Caleaf how to freestyle.His answer begins with a song.“Find a song you love. Not a song you like. A song you love so much that when it comes on, your body starts moving before your mind can interfere.”Adults, he says, judge themselves too quickly. Before they move, they have already decided they are wrong, awkward, or not cool enough. Children do not do that. Children see something, like it, and try it.So perhaps freestyle begins by returning to the inner child. Start with one basic step. Change it. Change the level, the shape, the timing, the direction. Make variations until the step fits your body like a shoe you can walk in.Individuality is not magic. It is the result of transforming the basics until they become undeniably yours.Leaving Dance Made Him Realize He Had to ReturnThe hardest time in Caleaf’s career was not a dance job. It was the period when he left dance.He stepped away for about two years to raise his family and worked a regular job for five dollars an hour. Later, he worked at a hospital with benefits, insurance, a pension, and the possibility of going back to school.He left anyway.He came back to dance in 1997 with purpose. He and Shan S stopped waiting to be invited to Japan and decided to fly themselves there. They collected studio cards, built their own network, and created a route through Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Nagasaki.He remembers something Skeeter Rabbit said: 60 percent of the time, people will call you. The other 40 percent, you have to create opportunities for yourself.Caleaf’s life is a testament to that 40 percent.Maybe Dancers Should Have a Seat at the UNNear the end of the conversation, Caleaf says something that sounds like a joke until it does not: dancers should have a seat at the United Nations.Dancers know how to sit in a room with people from different countries, languages, and histories. They know how to disagree, compete, exchange, shake hands, and go home with respect.Music and dance keep people in the same room for four hours, six hours, sometimes ten. In a world that keeps teaching us separation, dance insists on connection.That may be the deepest message of this episode. Street dance is not only movement. It is memory, responsibility, transmission, and relationship.What you receive from the culture, you pass on. Whoever lit something in you, you honor by lighting something in someone else.And after all the steps, stories, techniques, tours, injuries, and rooms around the world, Caleaf leaves us with the simplest word: Love.Do it for the love.Follow 🔗Caleaf: ins@caleafsellers 36ChambazofStylz: ins@36chambazofstylz36ChambazofStylz Summer Camp: registrationHost: ins@ruijingshu rednote @theTryGirlPodcast: apple podcast 小宇宙 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thetrygirl.substack.com