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B-girl jAws: A mother, a judge and a mentor
By Lee Jia Ying
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Jocelyn Lua, 38, has been breaking for close to a decade and being a mother has not stopped her. Her moniker jAws is a nod to her love for the ocean and its marine creatures, where capital A represents the fins of a shark. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
At 24 weeks pregnant, Jocelyn Lua was still busting out moves with other breakers at the Esplanade underpass.
Even with the extra weight, she was determined to stay active — by adapting her footwork to accommodate her baby bump and avoiding her usual freezes and power moves. She only stopped breaking at seven months pregnant.
Less than a year after childbirth, she was back on the dance floor.
Jocelyn, who is known as jAws in the community, has been breaking for 19 years. Being a mother did not stop her; the 38-year-old has been a constant figure in the scene — teaching, competing and judging at jams. She is seen by many b-girls as a role model.
A REPRESENTATIVE FOR B-GIRLS
With motherhood came new responsibilities. Round the clock, Jocelyn was pumping milk, changing diapers and letting her body rest. She was back in action a year later, but this time with a different routine.
By the time she finished her work, tucked her four-year-old daughter Arie Lim into bed and hurried down to her usual practice spot at the Esplanade underpass, it would already be 8.30 pm — everyone else had already started. Her husband, who used to break, supported Jocelyn by taking care of Arie.
Before she became a mother in 2018, Jocelyn participated in countless jams both in Singapore and New York.
Female judges are common overseas, but not so in Singapore, she said. She hopes that female judges in Singapore would eventually be the norm. Her way of being the change she wants to see is to take up any chance to represent the female community — she has since been a judge in four local jams.
The presence of b-girls also adds diversity to a judging panel, Jocelyn said. One of her judging criteria is musicality — a trait she developed after taking hip-hop classes — and she defines it differently from b-boys.
“Some breakers know how to hit the beat,” she said. “But a song is not just made out of beats. For someone who is really good at musicality, you don’t just hit the rhythm, you also hit the melody, the bass and the guitar.”
Even as she settles into her new role and routine, her motivations to represent the female community remain constant. That’s why she jumped at the chance to judge at the Elevate the Streets jam a year after giving birth, alongside two local b-boys.
Jocelyn Lua displaying her moves during a judges’ showcase at a jam organised by local subcultural group Elevate The Streets in 2019 (Photo: Shawn Byron Danker)
“That was the first time I’ve ever seen a local b-girl as a judge,” said participant Sohini Dhar, who has been breaking for six years. She looks up to Jocelyn as a mentor.
“The problem of being in a male-dominated dancesport is that you only get the stories from one side,” she said. “B-girl figures with more experience can tell you that it’s okay to be a mother and pursue different hobbies. That it’s okay not to rush and try to do everything like what the b-boys are doing.”
In April this year, Jocelyn will be part of an all-female judging panel at a b-girl battle, Ladies Exchange: Breaking Edition.
INSPIRED BY B-GIRLS
Interested in dance even when she was a teenager, Jocelyn spent hours watching MTV music videos but did not think much about learning it. But that changed when she saw women breaking for the first time.
It was 2003 and It’s Like That by RUN DMC and Jason Nevins was playing. In a battle against a group of b-boys, b-girls were bursting into dynamic moves and spinning on their heads. At 19-year-old, she was drawn by how cool and strong they were — a contrast to other dance genres where women are portrayed as sexy and appealing to men.
“Breaking is not something that you can pretend to look decent at,” she said. “You’re moving your body in very different ways from how we are used to moving. Your body has to be strong to be able to support all those movements, and I really liked that perspective.”
One of the women in the video was Nancy Yu, who goes by the moniker Asia-One. Jocelyn admires her and AB Girl, who are both from the United States. “They have this fearless attitude like ‘I don’t care if you are b-boy or b-girl. It’s a battle and I’m going to beat you’,” she said.
HER TURN TO INSPIRE
Fast forward 19 years, the scene is growing: new training spots, new faces and Jocelyn is no longer the rare b-girl in the sea of b-boys. Now, she is a mother spending her me-time at night in the same space as other breakers who are about half her age — an age when she first fell in love with the dance.
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Jocelyn practising at *SCAPE while younger breakers dance in cyphers around her. She used to be the only b-girl, but she has since found a community of younger b-girls whom she breaks with. (Photo: Lee Jia Ying)
Visibly fatigued after her two-hour practice at *SCAPE, she said: “I am much older than most breakers, so I have past injuries and obviously I cannot match their energy level.” Her lower back injury sustained during a reggae dance class limits her training time.
She also finds it hard to keep up with the dance as she trains at most once a week now.
Jocelyn’s perseverance encourages Fiona Ting, 22. One’s stamina drops after stopping for a while, said Fiona, who started breaking with Jocelyn mid-last year. “But in cyphers, she still pushes and puts herself out there to throw each round and do her best as she can.”
Jocelyn thinks this new generation is more ambitious than ever before — practising almost every day for hours and acquiring moves fast — and is confident they have the potential to represent Singapore on the international stage.
She leaves this new generation with a word of advice. “The most important thing about being a b-boy or b-girl is to really have your own identity shine through,” she said. “If you can do that, people can see it and identify with it.”