CFM (Canadian Floor Masters.)

Heres some quick insight into CFM ( Canadian Floor Masters).

CFM came together in 1982 and performed shows up until about 1992. Based out of Canada's Capital city of Ottawa, CFM prided themselves in being one of the top crews in Canada. Highlights of our career included:

1: A private performance for the Kirov Ballet from Russia (Blew them away)

2: A number of appearances for Canada's Music TVStation (MuchMusic)

3: Opening for James Brown and IceT concerts.

4: Opening for the world famous dance company, LaLaLa Human Steps .(National Arts Center Canada)

5: Performances in Detroit and New York.

6: Numerous TV appearances and probably a hundred club shows.

CFM core members included: TrickyT(Trevor Walker), Flipsky(Matt Sparks), Dexter(Chris Aubrey), Buddha(Steve Leafloor), KidQuick(Wayne Lacasse), BeatStreet(Rob Giroux).

CFM is best described as a power crew based on fast floor moves and acrobatics. We established an early friendship with some of the New York city Breakers, (Pexter, Wave, and Fliprock) and performed some shows with Wave in Canada. We hung out with FlipRock for a great Battle at the World in NewYork and all stayed at his apartment while in town. The highlight of our dancing was to be a joint CFM and New York city breakers tour of the Soviet Union but the Armenian earthquake happened and everything got canceled since the country was to busy picking up the pieces. We all still love to dance and still hit the floor when we get together for a night out clubbing , but the muscles and joints aren't the same as they used to be.

Myself (Buddha), I was the crew leader, being the oldest. I'm now 37 with 3 kids, but I still can throw backflips in the middle of uprock and pull some 1990's. I started dancing in 1975 to funk.

Being a tiny white kid I always had to prove that I was the best at whatever I did. I lived near Windsor Ontario which is highly influenced by the Detroit Music scene. In 1975 Roller-skating to hard funk was the thing and It was really all about dancing on roller-skates with spins , flips and splits. All the best rollerskaters used to come up from Detroit and do skate routines sometimes with poplockin in it. I used to blow away all the skaters because I was a tiny kid of 95 lbs on skates, who could do multiple backhandspings into splits and come up spinning to the music. Those roller-skating days were definitely my early training ground for dance.

In the middle of dancing with CFM in 1985 I spent a year in England where I shaved my head into a black and white stripped Mohawk and hung out in Brixton with some incredible Breakers from a crew called "Live to Break" (Billy-SpiderB, Scotty, Pete etc. I was one of the organizers of a large HipHop festival called Freestyle85 which represented all aspects of HipHop performed and organized entirely by the HipHop community. Generally it was weird at first for people over there to see a guy who looked like a punk doing mills and 1990's.

Soon after I went Backpacking around Europe, Africa and Turkey where I performed in the streets by myself, every chance I got. It turns out that dance really is an international language and just by sharing my dance with the locals I was often fed for free, put up for the night, or given gifts.

Many weird situations and stories happened during these traveling stints and I will write a few of them in case you want to consider them for printing.

CFM was one of the single biggest influences on my life and a solid Bass Beat will always bring out the battling spirit in me. It was all about attitude and a addiction to freestyle dancing . Battling and performing for crowds. Pulling them in and working the audience with humor, skill and a flurry of power moves when least expected. Today I have my own company in 3D imaging and I take out my stress by surfing big crazy whitewater waves in my kayak. It sounds different but the need to physically get things out is the same. I have an open invitation to share this adrenaline rush with any visiting Bboy's. to Ottawa.

Anyways, we have tons of old videofootage and photo's from our early days in HipHop. We are now considering training a new generation of CFM since the young talent has been after us to get involved again. Flipsky and Dexter danced this last year in Toronto to help beef up the floor skills of a crew called Intrikit in a Battle against "Bag of Tricks".

Flipsky is now one of the top gymnastic coaches in Canada and all his competitive gymnast incorporate Mills into their routines. A few of them are actually Bboys at heart and can freak us out with some of the new radical moves they can do. But as I always told our crew, its not just about the moves. You can get those if you work hard and want it enough.. Its about pulling the style from within to the surface. Do you believe in yourself and your hype to the music. Can you rock your own world!

Peace

Buddha