I see it as a competition really. Every event I go to has a criteria, if I go to a battle and you are throwing the event, I ask ” How do you want me to judge this battle.” Because you have to understand that, if I do it my way, lot of people will be like “get out!” But I ask first, because a competition is a competition. If I go to the Breaking championship in Korea, and I sit down and judge, and one guy does House and Breaking and one guy does Martial Arts and Breaking, and these are the two competitiors, I go and say you are both out? No! I have to watch them and determine who won. So I have to watch what they bring to the table. What if two Bboys don’t got any Top rocks and Foundation and they are battling, I have to take what they brought and I have to judge! Many times I see people that I don’t like and they look whack but I have to judge them. I have to say well he did it better than he did, they both don’t know what they are doing, but he did it better, he did something a little more. And there are competitors they know exactly what they are doing, they are both really exceptional and both really good, and what I’m looking for in that moment is the confidence and the domination of that moment, the consistency of that battle. If you come in with a certain pace, I want to see that consistent. If you come in fast and in the later 3rd of 4th battle your energy is going down, I’m looking for a consistent balance throughout the whole competition of who you are and who your team is. I’m looking for people that Dance, looking for people that got moves with their personality, looking for people that spins, Air moves, Footworks, Freezes, Balance moves, Top styles, Sliding moves, I’m looking for everything. I look for people that are slipping and tripping, I’m looking for that because that helps my job out. For example, yesterday I saw these two teams that I was like ” God Damn,” both dope. At that point, when the battle are really close, I’m looking at everything, and if I see a little slip, which I saw a lot yesterday, then I’m like “Thank goodness somebody messed up,” because it’s very hard to judge. I have one look as a judge, everybody goes to their homes and watch the videos but I have one look, I can’t rewind my mind. So I have to make a split second decision and it’s very difficult. Back some times when I go back and look at the tapes I’m like “Oh Shit..” I make mistakes as a judge. Sometimes you make mistakes. But you have a split second decisions and you can’t stop and you have to make a decision. I’m looking at everything. Sometimes the dances I see are really incredible, and I can’t be personal. I don’t care who you are, I know mostly everybody. Not here but, when I judge back in the states, I know mostly everybody. I like a lot of people but as a judge, I have to be fair. I don’t care who it is, can’t be personal. I can only do that good because I’m older and I’m not competitive. I’ve been on the table with the judges that are young, they were consciously hating on some of the Bboys and they don’t even realize it, and I’ve seen it. Favoring some of their friends and that’s why I don’t like to judge with the young Bboys because they don’t even realize that they are being biased. If you are competitive and you are judging and you see someone you might be battleing next month, there’s already something inside of you saying…. So you have to be fair. It’s a really difficult thing to do. Judging is a bitch because then you see people that wants to battle you after, I’ve battle 15~20 times after the battles. I’ve judged about 50 to 60 competitions and just the top of my head, 10 to 15 times I battle someone after just because they were pissed off. Some of them really came up to me crazily and I felt like we were going to fight and some of them were really aggressive and after 3 or 4 moves they were like “Oh! respect!” Respect what? Some of them just wanted to have the ability to say ” Oh I battled Ken Swift.” But now I don’t mind any of that, I understand why people get mad when they lose. But if they really look at it you know, if they feel like they are going to win then they don’t care what I say. Like, if you were in a battle and you know that you roasted someone and you really do, it doesn’t matter if you won or not because you know it in your heart. It’s like a fight, if you know somebody and you know that you won, you know you won, nobody has to tell you that you lost. You can look at them and you can see. So. if I tell you that you won and you knew that you lost, you are going to go home sad and say ” No, I didn’t win that.” You know when you don’t win. So if the judge votes for you, it doesn’t matter, the whole thing about it is like so what so what. Judge is only a human being, everybody make mistakes.
Ken Swift
BBoy Knowledge 