lenny len

Here's some throwback information and a visual to go with it. In 1977, my cousin Leonard Nunez aka Lenny Len moved with with his mom to 2335 Crotona Avenue in The Bronx. When he started to hang out in that area, he came back to Garfield Street and told me that I had to "come to the park jam". He then explained to me what a jam was. It got my interest going as he explained to me about these things that he learned about. He told me about writing aka graff, dj's that were spinning break beats, mc's and bboys and bgirls. So one day he brought me to Crotona Ave where there was a Jam at JHS 57. To say the least, I was blown away at what I was experiencing and all of a sudden I had a sense of new interest and excitement. So I started to practice with him, because he had already learned some moves from a crew called Rockwell Association. He taught me about foundation and I took to it like it was second nature. We would practice in his hallway on a day to day basis. We barely had any moves, but we were excellent biters and knew that biting was the gateway to creativity when learning how to become a bboy. One day, we were practicing in his hallway on 2335 Crotona Ave. I was working on mastering my "chair freeze" when I accidentally over rotated and went on to my back with a lot of speed and momentum. Because the hallway was small, I was worried about my feet hitting the wall. So i immediately pulled my legs closer to my body and cause myself to spin faster then what was already being done when doing the original backspin. Lenny Len was pretty much blown away, because there wasn't a backspin that was done with speed unless it was from an "ass spin". He proceeded to yell out "oh shit, do that again!". I then replied, do what? At that moment I was only concerned with protecting myself from the walls. So I had no idea that I had done something which was considered the evolution of the backspin. To make a long story short. I named it "The Whip Backspin", because of how one leg needed to cause a whipping motion in order to generate some speed. Then eventually led to me stumbling upon the "Continuous Backspin", which was wrongly call the "Windmill". The photo that you see now is the hallway where both moves were developed.
I hope you enjoyed this bit of information.
Peace!

- Crazy Legs

—in Bronx, New York.