Jay picked a Chris Brown song called ‘I Can Transform Ya’. It had all these robotic tones and a pounding electro beat. Jay called it ‘robo-crunk’. We weren’t doing robot moves or anything like that, though. Jay’s choreography was based around the idea of being a ninja, and he teamed it with lots of isolations and footwork right into the ground. As we learnt the choreography, I forgot that I was the ‘new girl’ at Silver Shoes, or that I’d never done hip hop before. I forgot that there was a hole in my tights and that my technique in other classes always held me back from getting put in the front row. Technique may have been important, but Jay had this thing about ‘hitting it’. ‘When you slide and pop into this position, hit it,’ he’d say. Or, ‘When you drop to the floor, I want you to hit it.’ Or when we had to pause and then look to the front, he’d go, ‘This move is all about being on top of the beat, letting the music pull your head forward and then bam, you hit it – you land that beat and throw it away to the audience.’ When he watched us perform the choreography he’d just taught us, he would point at someone who did really well and yell out, ‘Yeah!
