American breaker (not “breakdancing!”) Sunny Choi joins Danielle and Simone in the studio to talk about her preparation ahead of the Paris Games. In just a few weeks, she will represent the United States in the first-ever Olympics to feature breaking. Sunny opens up about finding the courage to turn her entire life upside in her early thirties and pursue a second shot at the Olympics.
Hey besties, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, Olympian Sunny Joy is hanging out with us. Meet the woman making history as the first American woman to qualify for the US Olympic Breaking Team. Go Team USA. It's Tuesday, July ninth.
I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Siman Boyce, and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, Danielle. We are officially counting down to the start of the Olympics later this MONTHO. I am starting to feel the excitement. The tears are already welling up in my eyes.
No, it makes you emotional, it does.
The Olympics makes me cry, thug tears. I just love it so much. We've been tracking so many inspiring athletes, though, and they're all going to be competing on the world's biggest stage this summer.
Can you imagine what they're feeling at this very moment.
I can't.
There is so much hype and so much pressure to shine in this global arena. But any athlete that I've spoken to lives for this exact moment. They like the pressure and it's why I'm really excited to talk to our guests today. Sonny Choi is the first American woman to qualify for the US Olympic breaking team. Now we sort of know this sport as break dancing, but the experts call it breaking, so that's what we're going to refer to it as for the rest of this chat. And her path to get to this moment has been nothing short of remarkable. Just last year she was working as a director of creative operations at Este Lauder and now she's an Olympian. This dream has been twenty years in the making for her.
Not only a Sonny Choi making her debut at the Olympics this year, but breaking is also making its debut as an Olympic sport, so a lot of first all around. But this has been a long time coming for Sonny because she's always been an athlete, even from a young age. At three years old, she was already a gymnast. She told her mom that she wanted to win a gold medal even back then, and then she used to draw pictures of herself with Olympic rings, so she's always had Olympic gold in her sites. Sonny was a rising star in the gymnastics world for many years, but then she suffered a knee injury when she was a teenager that forced her to retire the sport, and it put her Olympic dreams on ice.
It hurts me even thinking about this. For an athlete to get injured is just a horrible feeling. Now, it was that injury that changed the course of her life because she decided to follow a more traditional career path. She majored in marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, but it was at Penn that she discovered Breaking her freshman year in college. At first, it was just a creative outlet for her. Even while she was the director of Global creative Operations for Este Lauder, she was still breaking on the side.
I love the imagery of that Soup by Day track, Soup by Night. It's so good.
I wonder if you know, like those break suits that you rip off. Yes, I just imagine her like ripping it off and having like a suit or a skirt suit underneath.
It would be the best ad for Breaking or some sort of brand. Ever, so dope, Okay. Cut to twenty twenty, when it was announced that Breaking would be added to the Summer Olympics. Sonny now has a very big decision to make because she has been climbing the corporate ladder. She's got this very stable career, but is she gonna abandon that, quit that and go after her true lifelong dream. Yes she is, folks. The rest is history. And now she's getting ready for the Paris Games.
Yes she is. And Simone, I'm fixated on what she's going to be wearing.
Same. I cannot wait to see those Nike breaking outfits. So for those not familiar with breaking, we totally get it because it has been an underground sport for a long time. This is the first time that it's going to be at the Olympics. But it's a style of dance and movement that is rooted in hip hop culture. So it originated at house and block parties in the Bronx in the seventies. And then the term breakdancing comes from the part of the record where only the percussion can be heard, so no vocals, guitars or keyboards, aka the break in the song. That's where breaking comes from. So during those breaks, people would show off their moves splits, handstand spins, jumping, skipping, stepping to the beat of the drums.
Only break dancing was born and it's popularity soared and it was a movement that spread across the country and eventually the world. So joining us today the first American woman to compete in the first ever breaking competition at the Olympics, Sunny CHOI, welcome to the bright Side.
Hello, thank you, thank you for having me.
So we're just a few weeks away from the start of the Paris Olympics. Simone and I are both so excited. We love the Olympics, big fans, and we have the United States of America's number one be girl here with us. So before we jump in and ask you a million questions about the Olympics, how are you feeling?
So I'm just now realizing I've been looking at my calendar and I've had to flip forward months to get to when the Olympics were and and now I'm finally looking at it on just one month, and I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe it's only a few weeks away. I feel like it still doesn't it hasn't hit me, like I don't think it will until I'm packing my bag and going to the airport.
You are about to be battling on the biggest stage in the world. How are you mentally preparing yourself for the competition.
When I'm battling, I actually kind of like zone in I'm super present. Everything goes quiet, So it's like, you know how every day you have all this chatter in your brain and you just have these to do lists and like, oh my god, did I forget to turn the oven off? And that kind of thing. None of that is present and it's just me and I'm there in the moment and I'm there to do whatever I'm there to do, Like I'm just ready. So that's kind of the headspace that I get into when I'm battling, And to be honest, it's hard to replicate that outside of the battle. But I'm just working on like me as a person and kind of my personal development so that I can show up like in the best way on the day the games, you know, because breaking is so much about like creative expression and self expression. It's really about figuring out who that person is so that I can be that person on that day. So I feel like the work never really stops in terms of kind of the mental in preparation for the games.
It sounds like it's a meditative experience for you to use some therapy language. How does it feel in your body when you're breaking.
Everything is just connected, like it all makes sense. It's like my mind, body, soul is all one and when it's all together, it all just flows. The DJ turns on the track, you walk out there, you have like a couple of seconds tost you know, depending on whether you go first or your oponent goes first, but you may have a couple of seconds maybe he like thirty to forty five seconds, and you just go out there and you do your thing. And so it's almost like my body doesn't exist on its own. It's like my mind and my body is one unit. It all just goes out there and does its thing. And sometimes I get so kind of in the zone that I completely forget what I did when I walk off, and then I have to ask someone to watch the footage because I'm like, I can't repeat for later rounds. But yeah, it's an interesting experience and it's definitely like really unique for me because even as a gymnast, I would get into a similar space, but it was different because I was always doing the same movements over and over. And this is really about not trying to control the moment, but letting go of control, which is like a very different dynamic for me.
I want to talk about the language that's being used to describe this sport, because you've said that if you call it break dancing, you're not a breaker. What is the significance of this language for you, Like, what's the difference?
So breaking is the term that like we all referred to what we do as right, So back in the seventies, kind of in these house parties that are happening in the Bronx, DJ started playing the break of a track on two vinyls back to back, so they basic extended that break. So the people that danced for longer because they were dancing to the break. The people who were dancing to the break were called breakers or be girls and bee boys. When mainstream media picked it up, they started calling it break dancing. And so that's kind of the distinction is we've always called it breaking, and then outsiders came in profited off of it and called it breakdancing. So we're kind of taking that back and now that like we're kind of owning this narrative to the Olympics, we're calling it breaking.
I think a lot of people that know about breaking know about it from its origins in New York and sort of its underground nature. And you actually live in Queens right now, so I'm curious as to what it's like for you to see a sport that originated in your backyard recognized around the world like this.
So the history is like really really rich kind of in the culture here in New York. So it makes it feel different. You know, when you go to other places, you still have this energy that you would feel in kind of like a breaking cipher like you went in New York, but something about it is just different. So it's really cool to be a part of it here and to be able to be alongside some of the people who originated the dance and like really made you know, big steps changes, some of the pioneers that kind of thing, So that's really special. And also to get the support of those people and I'm not going to say everyone is supportive, but many people are, and so to have kind of this important encouragement of that generation here in New York and repping this city on such a base stage, it's really an honor and it's something that's like super special to me.
We're going to take a break but we'll be right back with Olympic breaker Sunny CHOI, and.
We're back, Sunny. You all always wanted to compete in the Olympics, but breaking wasn't even on your radar. How did you first discover it as a sport?
Well, I guess it started in Tennessee. When I was three. I studied gymnastics, and I watched the Olympics, and I told my mom I wanted to win gold. So gone to gymnastics, like you know, was at a pretty high level, pretty young.
You know.
When I was seven, we moved to Kentucky, you know, continued dynastics there. Obviously, it wasn't until high school where I blew up my knee, had a couple complications and ended up quitting. You know. At that point, I transitioned it to college, and I was lost because I had spent my entire life either in school or at the gym. So I was out late one night, you know, doing a freshman duo, and I stumbled into some people who were breaking in the middle of campus and they were basically like advertising for the school club, the school Breaking Club, And I was like, oh, well, that looks cool, and so I went and tried a class, and then I just got hooked because I missed being upside down. I meant, like the physicality of movement that like most of the sports don't require. But then there was also kind of that like creative piece. It was like taking gymnastics and turning it all on its head.
You know.
It wasn't about like flipping this way and flipping and testing this way. It was like turning on every which access that you possibly can and making your own and making and about being unique. So that kind of hooked me and kept me going.
Did you feel like you were good at it from the start? Did it? Was it a natural fit or was there a pretty big learning curve? No?
But I think I'm terrible in everything, so I wasn't terrible at it. There were some things I was good at and some things that were definitely challenging. One of which was I was really, really shy. So in the beginning I used to sit in the corner and watch everyone else dance and not participate like ever. And it would be people who like would drag me out and like try to show me something or ask me to do something, even like you know, we called it cipher when you have like a circle of people dancing, people would like physically kind of like push me, nudge me into the cipher because I just never wanted to join my first battle, like other people told me to sign up, and I actually took my name off the list and then got convinced to put it back on the list. So that was like I don't know how many years of me just like not being comfortable putting myself out there.
You know.
Innately, I had some talent because of the dynastics background, so I had good body awareness and like good work ethic and I knew how to kind of like work through problems like physically, but I definitely struggled in kind of this like self expression and like creative expression peace.
So you just mentioned that you had had Olympic aspirations and gold medal goals since you were three, but there were a couple of detours along the way. What does it mean to have this second chance, this shot at gold.
I honestly just feel so grateful for this chance. I never could have seen it coming. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I was going to get a chance at breaking. I mean Breaking wasn't even Olympic sport. Before this, you know, like this was never in my decision set. So for life to come back around and like hand this to me again, hand this opportunity, I'm just like, how could I not take it? I mean, to be honest, I actually almost did it. It took me a really long time to come to terms with the sacrifices that it would take for me to pursue this pathway. I was working corporate, and I was working really really long hours in that job, and not only that, but like I'm not particularly young, and I was like, well, I kind of wanted to buy a home and get settled and have a family that kind of thing in the near future. I would have to give all of that up to really focus and pursue the Olympics in the way that I wanted. So it actually took me quite a long time to wrap my head around that and then decide, you know what, like who gets a second chance like this, I mean, this is more than twenty years later at this point that I'm getting a second chance because I think, you know, we decided not to pursue the Olympics when I was like maybe eleven or twelve, pretty young, So to get that chance more than twenty years later in a completely different sport. How can I not do this? So yeah, I'm.
Here like a movie. What an arc.
The job that you mentioned is that you were the director of Global Creative Operations at Este Lauder. What a jump. Now you're competing in the Olympics. What was the exact moment that you decided to quit your job and dedicate yourself to breaking full time.
It was literally months of just like mulling this over in my head. I don't remember the exact date, but I remember there was a day I was outside of practice. This is in Brooklyn, in my car, and I just like I couldn't stop crying because I realized, for some reason, that day dawned on me that the reason I had never allowed myself to pursue my passion, the reason I never allowed myself to follow my dreams to do what made me happy, was because I was scared to fail. And it was so much easier to take this kind of more traditional pathway. And it wasn't an easy route, but an easier route than risking it all on a chance at the Olympics. You know, when I'd realized that it was just me staying in my own way. And it was this fear of failure that had stopped me over and over and over again in my life. And I had reached many junctures I think in my life where I had wanted to pursue different pathways. You know, at one point I wanted to get an MFA. I wanted to be in education, maybe psychology. Even in high school, I actually took a fashion class and I was like, really good at sewing, So I was like, maybe this is what I want to do. So there's all these signs and all these moments where I had other chances to do something different and I never took them. Realizing that I had denied myself over and over again of like these opportunities. I was kind of heartbroken, actually, because not allowing yourself to dream is is sad. So I realized that I was gonna take a leap of faith allow myself to chase this childhood dream as silly as it is at the age of you know, thirty four, that time thirty five now, and just see what happens.
If not chasing your dreams is sad, what is chasing your dreams feel like?
Honestly, most days I'm just a nervous wreck, but.
You know, relable, relatable.
To be honest, I have so much more mental space, not just for myself but for the people around me. I mean, like I don't have a lot of time right now as I'm training, but mentally I'm able to, like, you know, I'm able to cook. I'm able to like go on walks and put my phone aside. Like I'm not a zombie every single day showing up for this corporate job that didn't make me happy and then going to dance afterward as some sort of like outlet. But even then I was just a robo. I was a zombie at that point after work that I just I couldn't even go and dance really, so I was just like going through the motions of life but not really living life. I feel like, for the first time, I'm actually really living and I'm like living for myself, which it just feels so.
Good, you know. We talked to Michelle Kwan, who is one of our favorite Olympians, and she was just telling us about the sacrifices that it took for her parents to you know, put her into figure skating, and they were buying secondhand skates and doing whatever they could to make this dream possible for her. What does this dream mean to your parents? You are the daughter of immigrant parents. I mean to be representing the USA and the Olympics, they must be so proud. Yeah.
First, I just want to say Michelle Kwan was definitely an idol. Growing up. There weren't a ton of Asian American faces in the Olympics, so Michelle Kwan was one of the big ones for me. And it's not just like the faces, but also the stories being told. You know, her story was kind of out there, so I connected with that and so that's really cool. But anyways, parents, boy.
They.
Initially when I told them I was doing this, they were like, oh, you know, the thought of like their daughter quitting this like really great corporate job and giving it all up for breaking of all things. I think it was hard for them to wrap their heads around, but you know, I qualified and now they're so supportive. I was actually on another podcast they did a zoom with my parents and my mom tells me she's proud of me, and that's actually that's actually pretty new. But my dad actually said he was proud of me. And I don't think he's ever said that to me to my face, but he said it on the zoom, so you know what it counts. And I was just like, wow, that feels really nice because you know, my whole life, I never felt like I was good enough, and I was always trying to do more, which is you know, kind of what put me on that pathway to like ivyally corporate, get into a big company, you know, climb the corporate ladder, that kind of thing. I never thought I was good enough, and so I was always trying to get the approval. And I think it wasn't just their approval, it was really my approval. It was my standard that I couldn't live up to. But regardless, like they didn't often say that they're a part of me, you know, cultural thing, and so it's really nice to finally hear that, not just for my parents, my brothers, everyone around me is just like so supportive of this. It just it feels amazing. What I'm realizing is that like this journey isn't a journey to be done alone. And I've always felt like I needed to do everything alone because I had to be able to do everything myself and allowing other people to support me and allowing other people in everything is just so much more fulfilling. So yeah, it's really been amazing and having their support has meant the world to me.
That's a really big deal hearing that from your dad.
Isn't it funny though, how parents are so much more willing to say it to other people than they are to you. He never thinks anything I'm doing is cool, but then I hear him talk to his friends, and all of a sudden, he's proud of me.
My dad guys bummy all the time to everyone else. You know, when I'm at home, Like if I miss one training day, he's like, why an't you going to the gym today? Huh? He needs train seven days a week. But then he goes and like brags to all his friends about whatever doing.
That's cute. I love that. Okay, Sonny, we have to take a short break, but when we come back, we want to talk about what to expect at the big competition in Paris this summer. Stay with us.
And we're back with breakers, Sunny Choy. We're so excited to watch you compete at the Paris Games, Sonny. But for somebody who is new to this sport, aka all of us, what should we be looking out for? Give us the lowdown, you know.
I don't even want to like color few opinions about breaking. I want people to just like watch it and have fun, because there really is like a party and we're having fun. There's a DJ, they're picking the songs. We don't know what's happening, so it's like very impromptu and spontaneous. There's an EMPC there to like hype up the crowd.
Wait, so you don't plan your routines?
No, no, no, no, it's still like quite a bit of what we do is freestyle. So I'll plan like a little bit like a combo here and there, but everything else is freestyle on between because you don't know what they're going to play. So yeah, it's really different from a lot of the other sports in that way.
Wow.
I mean all of the figure skaters, the gymnasts, they come in with routines and you're just winging it exactly.
But I mean that's what adds to like the energy of breaking. We don't even know what we're gonna do, so how could you possibly know? And so what I am encouraging people to do is just like watch with an open mind, have fun, connect to the people that you connect with, cheer for your favorite person in and like just be present and be in the moment and enjoy it. Breaking is really about that like shared experience. It's about community, it's about having fun together. So even just like through your screen, you're still going to get some of that energy. So it's kind of just like just take it in and do with it what you will. But I just hope people have fun watching. So how is the sport evaluated, Sonny? How do you know if you're doing well? What are the judges looking for? So there's five criteria and there are like faders that they move the fader based off of you and your opponent. So there's no like standard for perfection like in gymnastics, you can do something perfect and then you get points deducted. It's more like you all start neutral and then depending on how you do on these criteria, they're going to move it, you know, incrementally different ways, depending on how much you kind of eke out your opponent. And so the faders are musicality, execution, vocabulary.
Vocabulary, what do you mean by that?
So it's like the breadth of movement that we do, so, like how many different types of movement? How much like texture you have in your rounds, like in terms of like pacing and like up and down and like you know, we have foundational movements, so it's like what do you do with those? And then how do you also like change those? And how much of those do you really make your own? How many signature moves you have? So that kind of thing the thing what breaking is because it's all about creativity. There is obviously some subjectivity, but I think having these different criteria so that you can excel in different ones and still win, gives us the freedom so that we can still do what we do the way we want to do it.
How do you incorporate your own style? Like do you guys get to choose uniforms? Do you all, like do you shop Patzara for this? Like where do you go to buy a big girl fit?
Well, I mean, I'm Nike sponsors, so you know, but all right, at the games, at least for us, Nike gives us a whole wardrobe of clothing that we get to pick from. And so every country has a different wardrobe or I don't know, some may have uniforms we have like a whole pack, so it's like a couple pairs of pants, a couple of different top options. We even have a bomber jacket, which is super super cool. Nobody's gonna be wearing that in the middle of summer, but I'm definitely gonna be wrecking u later this year. We have different like headgear options, and then like the shoes we pick, so at the games, we're all going to have like a little bit more of like kind of a honed in wardrobe, but it's still it's kind of cool streetwear. Like there's some like kind of blue Chino pants in there. I usually wear like an oversized shirt and a bandana, so you know, that's what I'll usually wear. But to be honest, like breaking fashions all over the place, it's actually really fun. There's there's so many elements of breaking that I feel like people can kind of latch onto. It's you know, the fashion, the sneakers, the music, the sweat, because it's not just about like what you're wearing, but it's about like how you do the movements that you do. That's like actually one of the big things that we talk about in breaking. It's not what you do it's how you do it. And so you can have two different people do the same move and one of them is going to be like super dope and the other.
Ones just like the flair and the vibe.
Yeah, exactly, it's what breaking is all about. And so you know, the clothes is just one piece, but it's really about making sure like your style is out there when you're dancing. We also talk about like if someone was to put just show a silhouette of you, like they should be able to tell who you are without seeing your face or your body. So that's kind of like that style piece for us.
You're speaking my language, oversized clothing, streetwear' you're gonna be the best dressed at the Olympics. I mean we already know.
I mean I do think the breaking Ward Drobes are probably some of the coolest. Yeah by far, I say Skate I think is like kind of similar in but yeah, the breaking Ward Jones are nice.
So I grew up watching Breakers like on TV on YouTube, and I saw a lot of bee boys. I did not see a lot of bee girls. And you're making history at the Olympics this year. What is mean to be a big girl? Is there a difference.
I mean, obviously I'm a woman, so there's a lot that comes with that, I think, especially when it comes to this space as a breaker. My experience has been very different from many of the men in this space. You know, when I started dancing, I would walk into rooms and be like one hundred guys and me that would enter a battle, you know, maybe two or three other girls. I mean, there really weren't that many big girls when I was starting to kind of break up here. There's more now, but even so there's still not that many. I mean, there's definitely more women in other scenes. So I remember I went to an event in Europe back in I think like twenty fifteen, and over one hundred big girls entered a competition, and I'd never seen more than like eight to ten people in the States enter a woman only kind of division. So that was like really cool to see. But you know, numbers aside, it's also like physically very different for a woman to be dancing, especially because a lot of the movements were made by men, and so it's about like adapting and making everything your own. And I feel like women because of these obstacles, like we just we look different, We dance different. I mean, we're pretty tough, so it's totally different. But we're still all doing the same thing at the end of the day, and we're still sharing the same space and it's the same energy and the same music. That's actually a good question because I've never really even asked that question quite like that.
So we heard that after the Olympics you're hoping to open a break center in New York. What do you hope this center will provide for other breakers or new breakers in the community.
I've really wanted to feel a little bit more like a community center. The thing about breaking is like, even I still practice the community centers, and so there's this community aspect and you have people of all different levels all participating together, and that's kind of what makes breaking so beautiful for me. So I want a space that's very community oriented. I want to have new breakers in there with elite breakers that have like a fitness center, a kind of built into one space. I want to have community programming. I would like to have like other services like mental health, massage, like things.
That I love.
Love to have some like recovery space in there. So, like you know, obviously I wouldn't be starting at that scale, or maybe I will be, But I just want to have a place where people can go and find what they need for what they want to get done in breaking. We just don't have a space like that, and we don't have any spaces actually, like dedicated to hip hop like that here in New York, which is kind of wild because this is where it all started, right.
It is wild. Yeah. Yeah, So you know, there are.
Like breaking schools and kind of hip hop centers, and I've seen them around the world, but we just don't really have any big ones here. So I kind of want to have something like that. But I think the biggest focus really is around the community and about getting people together to share.
Well, Nike, this is your moment. Step up, Yes, come through Nike. Sonny, thank you so much for sharing your lights and your sunshine on the bright side today. We cannot wait to watch you compete this summer.
Thank you.
We are going to be cheering you out so loudly from our TV.
I hope I can hear it from Paris.
Thank you so much, Sonny.
Thank you.
Sunny Choi is a professional American breaker who will be competing in the first ever Olympic breaking competition at the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics.
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow it is Wellness Wednesday. Board certified dermatologist doctor Sharen Idris is here to talk about the best products to use this summer and skincare trends, what's worth the splurge, and what can we x out from our routines. Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Simone Voice. You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O b A.
Y See you tomorrow. Keep looking on the bright side, y'all.