Music has always been a large part of 21-year-old Aaron Buehrer’s life, so keeping a beat and dancing came naturally for him.

However, learning break dance moves took some time.

When Buehrer was 16, he met Tony Schierer. One night Buehrer was goofing around and tried to do a handstand. Schierer did a front flip, which impressed Buehrer. He learned that Schierer and his friends could break dance and sometimes practiced outdoors along the riverfront.

“I was very impressed. It got me interested in the style. It was really cool and I liked doing cool things,” Buehrer said.

“Peoria isn’t the area where you usually see people doing that stuff,” Buehrer added.
Buehrer did not take a baby-step approach to break dancing. Instead, he dove right in.

“Some people start with basic moves. I’m a musician, so it was easy for me to hold the beat,” he said, admitting that getting the break dance style down did take some time.

Now Buehrer is on a break dance crew called Dope Stylez. The crew has competed at break dance “battles” about 15 times, but to date have not won first place. Buehrer, who is known as A-roc on the crew, said some people have been break dancing since they were 5 years old and are really good at it.

“A lot of people think break dancing died, but it’s every where,” he said.

When he is not break dancing, Buehrer attends Illinois Central College where he is a music major. He plans to pursue a career in music therapy. He plays various instruments, such as the guitar, piano, and trumpet, and he also sings. Although he is not in a band, he plays guitar at Faith Christian Church in Washington where he is also a leader in Vacation Bible Study.
Buehrer said his interest in music came at an early age.

“One of my earliest memories when I was 5 or 6, I had toy drums and I was fascinated by Ringo Starr, so I would take No. 2 pencils and bang on them,” he said.

Over the years, Buehrer’s musical abilities improved as well as his break dance moves. Initially, to prepare for break dancing, Buehrer lifted weights, but now he said break dancing, in itself, is the workout.

Break dancing, which became popular in the 80s, goes hand in hand with hip-hop music. Buehrer said, in his opinion, rap and hip-hop are different. There are four elements associated with hip-hop: break dancing, scratching, emceeing and and graffiti.

“That’s all stuff you have to learn that involves skill,” Buehrer said. “The more time I’ve spent around rap, it’s all about money, whether it be about the electronics they use to record their music with, shoes, clothes, women or drugs.”

In the hip-hop world, there is a lingo that only break dancers would understand. Each of the hundreds of dance moves has its own name — words such as footrock, toprock, pike, drops, spins, mills and flares are familiar in the break dancing world.

Buehrer explained that footrock, or downrock, are dance moves on the ground. Toprock, or uprock, are dance moves standing on the feet. The biggest challenge for Buehrer is to learn a dance moved called the airflare.

“Once you have it, you’ll have it forever,” Buehrer said he was told.

Doing tricky dance moves such as spinning on the head or supporting a body up in the air on one hand have not come without a price. Buehrer broke his wrist, tore cartilage in his left knee, and rotated his hip.

Yet, his parents do not discourage him from break dancing.

“I think they have the same mind set like a soccer mom. Injuries don’t happen that often,” he said.
In fact, he added that his friends and family love to watch him dance. However, Buehrer stressed that break dancing is simply a hobby for him and less important than his music.

And Buehrer does not lead a hip-hop lifestyle. He said break dancers are stereotyped in a negative way — as a culture of drugs and violence.

“I try to not identify myself with the hip-hop culture. It’s not too hard being white and all,” he said.

But, the hip-hop culture Buehrer has experienced has not been a negative one. When Buehrer competes in Chicago with his crew, he said the environment is similar to being in church.

“It’s the same deal as when you go to church. It feels good to be in that sort of environment. It’s really positive. There are not people drinking or doing drugs during the battles,” he said.

In fact, opposing team members, who are competing to win the money pot, encourage the competition to do better.

Buehrer also tries to encourage break dancers in a different way. He lets them know he dances for God by doing subtle gestures such as pointing to the sky just as Cardinals player Albert Pujols does.

“It’s really fun to do but I know the most important thing I have in my life is what I have with Jesus Christ. Anything I do in break dancing, I give him glory for it. I know when I’m 80 I won’t be able to do this anymore, but I’ll think about all the the people I can influence when they see me dance. They’ll know who I’m doing it for.”