Asian Games 2023: Hong Kong breakdancer B-Boy C Plus wants a world championship – and more resources for young athletes

When Hong Kong’s highest ranked breakdancer B-Boy C Plus steps onto the dance floor to compete, he always stares into the spotlight to absorb the energy from the spectators and dancers around him. On Friday he will be doing that on his biggest stage so far, as his sport makes its Asian Games debut in Hangzhou. “When I watch the spotlight, I can relax more and feel it, just be myself and the whole world is calm,” said C Plus, whose real name is Sze Ka-yam. Even after 16 years of breaking and competing, the 30-year-old said the nerves have not gone away, but the next big achievement keeps pushing him forward. Regardless of recent accolades, Sze is always looking ahead to the next target with two overarching goals guiding his breaking career. “One [goal] is to be a world champion,” Sze said. “But the other one is about the education in Hong Kong. Education is to let more people know about what breaking is.” Sze is out to end the stigma that breaking is an exclusive, highly selective art. Still, resources for Hong Kong break dancers are sparse, with C Plus half-jokingly pointing to the fact “I am my [own] coach”. But he finds motivation in every roadblock that emerges and the results are starting to speak for themselves for an athlete ranked 50th in the world. Before the competitions, the long hours of training and the stardom that came with competing on an international stage, everyone knew C Plus by his real name. Sze’s first introduction to breaking came from an unexpected source. As a 14-year-old he often played online games with his friends, one of which involved dancing. The game consisted of several styles, and after watching the animated movements, Sze became enthralled with the art. “I wondered how people could use only one hand to hold the pose,” he said. “First time [I watched] breaking, [I thought it was] very cool – then the first time I could do a freeze, I could do a power move [there was a lot of] energy. It’s very cool, the poses and everything.” Sze though needed a B-Boy name, and said his Chinese name sounded like C Plus in his native tongue. “But if I get more high achievements, maybe I will change my name from C Plus to B plus or A plus,” he said. Choosing a name was the easy part for the teenager, because his progression in the sport was far from linear. Lacking a proper dance teacher, C Plus and his friends learned breaking by mimicking the moves in videos online. Every Friday after classes, the dance novices would use their classroom to practise. “We just watched a video and just tried,” he said. “We would just watch each other dance, no need to have any skills, just dance and have fun together, no pressure or anything even if you aren’t good.” After a few months, a teacher spotted the children practising and “thought it was dangerous”, so brought in someone to help them explore their new passion in a safe, structured environment. Soon, Sze was spending every day after school learning his craft at dance studios and meeting other local athletes. At 15, he competed in his very first battle in Sai Wan Ho. While his first experience of competing against hundreds of other local breakers didn’t go well, it evoked a new motivation. “Everything [in my battle] was very bad,” he said. “But I liked it, because now I had a new target – I wanted to win the battle. I wanted to be a champion in Hong Kong.” In an era of flashy power-moves and jaw-dropping tricks, he found more success in a subtler approach to the sport. Rather than focus on power moves, he prefers to surprise the judges and audience by putting his own spin, sometimes literally, on original steps and classic moves for a completely new look. “Everyone knows the same breaking moves, but for me, sometimes the angle is different, the feeling is different – I will create more step variations,” the genre-bending C Plus said, adding originality was his strongest element. After winning his first championship, Red Hot the Prince 2012, the ever-reaching Sze quickly moved his sights to the next goal. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BBOY C Plus 施嘉鑫 (@szeka_ef) “[After the competition win], I had a new target – I wanted to be a bigger champion and push more,” he said And in 2018 – Sze did just that. After winning a qualifier in Hong Kong for Freestyle Session – sealing him a ticket to one of the biggest global B-Boy events – he travelled to the US where he and his crew, Boogie Renaissance, competed against the best teams of the year. For C Plus, it was a chance to put Hong Kong dancers on the map. “After [competing at Freestyle Session], it changed my life,” he said. “I [realised] I could be an athlete and represent Hong Kong and be very proud of myself.” Sixteen years after he first stumbled across sport, he has travelled across Asia, Europe and the US for competitions, but as always, the Hongkonger is looking ahead to the next challenge, the Asian Games. The sport is making its debut in Hangzhou, and Sze has trained rigorously, even quitting his full-time job as a product designer to focus. Right now, he dedicates himself to honing his craft five or six times a week for up to six hours a day, on top of going to the gym. “B-Boy is my life,” he said, adding that his goal in Hangzhou was “to make history” and finish in the top eight. The breaking events at the Asian Games begin on October 6 and end the following day, taking place at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park Gymnasium. With a chance to seal a ticket to the Paris Olympics or claim a spot in the Olympic Qualifier Series, there is a lot on the line. Hong Kong breaking athletes will need ‘minds of steel’ for Asian Games But the always confident C Plus is coming off a year of accomplishments, where he reached the top 32 at the World Series event in Montpellier and again for the Asian Championship in Hangzhou this summer. “It was very surprising because people say ‘oh – the top 32 has Hongkongers?!’ – I am happy that they know I’m from Hong Kong,” he said. “That is very powerful for me that I can do something for Hong Kong.” Asked what advice he would give his 14-year-old self, Sze said it was the same as what he would say to an aspiring young breaker: “If you like it, just try … Enjoy yourself, don’t be afraid. So if you like it, just do what you want.”