RDF Battle Rules: v2025-2026
Table of Contents
General Rules
The rules outlined on this site are designed with the growth, safety, and long-term development of the breaking community in mind. As breaking continues to evolve as both an art form and competitive sport, these rules serve as a foundation to promote fairness, consistency, and respect across all levels of participation.
Our primary goals are:
- To Grow the Sport: By creating a clear and accessible framework, we aim to welcome new dancers, organizers, and communities while preserving the essence and culture of breaking.
- To Ensure Safety: Breaking involves dynamic, high-impact movement. These rules include safety guidelines that protect dancers, judges, and spectators, ensuring everyone can engage in breaking with confidence.
- To Support Progression: Whether someone is new to the cypher or preparing for high-level battles, the rules are structured to support skill development through age-appropriate expectations, progression-based divisions, and pathways that encourage personal and competitive growth.
Breaking is for everyone. These rules are a tool—not a limitation—to help dancers push boundaries while maintaining respect for the culture, the competition, and each other.
Documents
Below are links to the RDF documents to help prepare and run a battle.
- Cypher Prelim Judges Form PDF - Use this sheet to judge all dancers within the cypher prelims. Judges may go by whole numbers 1-10, half numbers 1-10 (6.5, 7.5, etc..), or one decimal place (9.4, 8.2, etc).
- Top 8 Bracket PDF - Bracket sheets are built to be in segments of 8.
- Battle Plan PDF - A Battle Plan is to help dancers learn to organize their skills to use for all battles. It is not meant to be a hard script, but more a dynamic template as dancers progress and learn how to use their moves as the times that make the most impact.
Safety
The safety of every dancer is a top priority. While breaking is an expressive and physically demanding art form, it must be approached with discipline and awareness to prevent injury.
Dancers are strongly encouraged to perform and compete only with moves and skills that are within their current level of training and proficiency. Attempting advanced skills too early—before proper strength, control, and technique are developed—can lead to serious injury or even death. For this reason, skills performed outside a dancer’s declared level will not be recognized during competition.
Proper attire is also essential to safety. Because every dancer’s style and movement vary, there is no one-size-fits-all dress code. However, dancers must avoid wearing items that present a hazard, including:
- Clothing with hard elements that may obstruct movement
- Jewelry that can catch or snag during dynamic motion
- Loose or oversized accessories that can impair vision or control
Each dancer is responsible for ensuring that their attire supports freedom of movement while minimizing the risk of entanglement or injury.
For younger dancers, coaches and guardians play a critical role in helping ensure safety. They are expected to guide skill selection, monitor progression, and ensure appropriate supervision and attire are in place. Encouraging safe practices not only protects the dancer—it sets the foundation for a long, sustainable journey in breaking.
Breaking is about pushing limits—but it must be done with care, respect for the body, and commitment to long-term progression.
Skill Recognition
Each skill level is defined by specific criteria and only skills within the designated level are recognized. Performing a skill above the assigned level does not result in a penalty; however, judges are instructed to disregard the move as if it had not occurred.
Example: If a competitor registers for the Beginner level and performs Air Flares, the judges will not acknowledge the move. While the audience may react positively, and even the judges may appreciate the difficulty of the skill, it will hold no value in determining who wins. For judging purposes, the competitor’s performance during the execution of the Air Flares is equivalent to standing still. As a result, a competitor who demonstrates skills aligned with the Beginner level will have a competitive advantage and be more likely to win the battle.
Divisions
Dancers will be divided up into their respoective skill level and age level. Ages can always compete up, but never down. Gender splits may occur at the Battle Hosts preference if there are at least 4 dancers to support each split.
- Lil Breakers: Age 5-7
- Youth: Age 7-13
- Teen: Age 13-18
- Adult: Age 18+
Number Of Dancers
The minimum amount of dancers within a level and division to run a Cypher prelims and Top 8 Bracket is 4. If you have less than 4 dancers, you may use alternative methods to determine your placements in battle.
- 3 Dancers Suggestion - Use a Round Robin approach (each dancer battles the other two) to determine placements.
- 2 Dancers Suggestion - Use a multi battle strategy where they can compete for best of 3 battles.
Cypher
Every Cypher must provide a smooth safe surface for each dancer to safely perform any breaking move. The area must be clear of all obstructions and have a defined and easily understood outer barrier where the dancers know they can perform and the audience knows to stay out. The Cypher must have an area at least 12’ by 12’.
Prelims
All dancers within a level will perform, one by one and organized by a list managed by the Cypher MC, in front of the judges. The judges will assign a value of 1-10 (using halfs or decimals depending on how many dancers are competing) to each dancer as they perform. These values are added up, and the dancers are organized from highest to smallest total. Where the dancer falls within that list determines their ranking for brackets. The dancer with the highest prelim score will be the #1 seed. The second highest score would be the #2 seed. If there were 20 dancers that are competing the lowest scored dancer would be the #20 seed.
Brackets
All dancers within a level and age group will be divided into their own Top 8 Bracket. The bracket positions will be decided based on the dancers seeding from prelims. When looking at the bracket you will see the top see (#1 seed) will first battle the lowest seed (#8). The second seed (#2 seed) will battle the second lowest seed (#7). This rewards each seed by placing the highest performing dancer and giving them the statistically ‘easiest path’ to the finals, and sets up the final battle to be the most competitive.
Byes
If there are not enough division to fill a bracket, you will use ‘byes’ to fill in the lowest seeded spots.
Example
There are 6 dancers within a division. Seed #7 and seed #8 will be filled in as ‘byes’ on the Top 8 Bracket form. This means seed #1 and seed #2 get a bye on Round 1, and immediately make it to the Semi Finals.
Multiple Brackets For Same Level And Division
If there is more than 8 dancers within a level and division you will be creating multiple Top 8 Brackets for dancers to compete in. How the brackets are divded is listed below:
- 9 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 5 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 4 dancers
- 10 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 5 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 5 dancers
- 11 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 6 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 5 dancers
- 12 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 6 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 6 dancers
- 13 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 7 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 6 dancers
- 14 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 7 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 7 dancers
- 15 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 8 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 7 dancers
- 16 dancers - The ‘A’ Bracket will get 8 dancers and the ‘B’ Bracket will get 8 dancers
- 17 dancers - At this point there is always enough to fill the ‘A’ Bracket. You will fill the ‘A’ Bracket with the Top 8 seeds, and then divide the rest of the dancers between a ‘B’ and ‘C’ bracket. If there were enough dancers to always fill the ‘B’ Bracket as well (24+ dancers), you would always fill the ‘A’ and ‘B’ Brackets, and divide the dancers between a ‘C’ and ‘D’ bracket. This pattern continues on as the amount of dancers grow.
Crew Battles
Crew battles are one of the most exciting parts of breaking—where teamwork, creativity, and performance come together on the floor. It’s not just about individual skills—it’s about chemistry, timing, and the story your crew tells through movement.
For the 2025–2026 season, each crew may have up to five dancers on the floor during their routine. Crews will have up to 2½ minutes to perform a choreographed set to routine music provided by the crew. Judges will watch the full performance and score it based on execution, originality, synchronization, use of breaking elements, and overall impact.
After all crews have performed and the scores are tabulated, the top-scoring teams will move into battle rounds to determine the winner. At minimum, the top 2 crews will advance. If participation allows, we will expand to top 4 or top 8 for bracket-style battles.
Crew routines should be a showcase of unity, style, and stage presence—this is your moment to shine together. For this first season there is no level separation between crews.
Levels
To support fair competition and healthy progression, dancers may choose to compete in any level that reflects their current ability—except for the Intro level, which is reserved exclusively for dancers in their first year of breaking. This level exists to provide a welcoming space for true beginners to grow alongside others at a similar stage.
Each level is defined by a set of recognized skills. If a dancer performs skills above the level they’ve registered for, judges are instructed to ignore those moves entirely. This allows dancers to focus on mastery and style within their chosen level, rather than being rewarded for prematurely attempting advanced tricks.
The Pro level is unique in that it recognizes the professional level of Breaking. It is the only level to allow monetary prizes.
Intro
The Intro level has all the same skill recognitions as beginner, but is only open to athletes that are within their first year of breaking.
Battle Rounds Up To 20 Seconds
- Top Rocks: All Top Rocks must have the hips and shoulders facing the same direction during the movement. Recognition is limited to variations of steps and entrances.
- Transitions: All transitions must remain in contact with the ground.
- Footwork: Can be performed flat handed.
- Power Move: Should maintain contact with the ground
- May rotate continuously on parts of the torso
- May alternate between 4 points of contact with the ground
- Freeze: If inverted must have 3 points of contact with the ground, max 2 stacks
- Acro: Must retain physical contact with the surface at all times with no spring motion allowed
Cypher Compulsory Round
The Intro and Beginner levels have a compulsory routine for when they do their cypher pre-lims. This routine will be completed within the cypher pre-lims, and following the completion the dancer may choose to do any other moves they choose.
Intro / Beginner Compulsory Routine DEMO VIDEO
- Top Rocks - 1 eight each of 2 different types of toprocks.
- Transition - Corkscrew
- Footwork - Four shootouts
- Power Move - Booty Spin
- Freeze - Scorpion Freeze
Beginner
Battle Rounds Up To 20 Seconds
- Top Rocks: All Top Rocks must have the hips and shoulders facing the same direction during the movement. Recognition is limited to variations of steps and entrances.
- Transitions: All transitions must remain in contact with the ground.
- Footwork: Can be performed flat handed.
- Power Move: Should maintain contact with the ground
- May rotate continuously on parts of the torso
- May alternate between 4 points of contact with the ground
- Freeze: If inverted must have 3 points of contact with the ground, max 2 stacks
- Acro: Must retain physical contact with the surface at all times with no spring motion allowed
Cypher Compulsory Round
The Intro and Beginner levels have a compulsory routine for when they do their cypher pre-lims. This routine will be completed within the cypher pre-lims, and following the completion the dancer may choose to do any other moves they choose.
Intro / Beginner Compulsory Routine DEMO VIDEO
- Top Rocks - 1 eight each of 2 different types of toprocks.
- Transition - Corkscrew
- Footwork - Four shootouts
- Power Move - Booty Spin
- Freeze - Scorpion Freeze
Intermediate
Battle Rounds Up To 30 Seconds
- Top Rocks: Hips and shoulders can face different directions. Higher level variations of steps and entrances are recognized.
- Transitions: Transitions can leave the ground.
- Footwork: Looking to be performed up on the knuckles.
- Power Move: All power moves recognized up to one and a quarter revolution. Pauses in between spins will allow more recognition.
- Freeze: When inverted can have two points of contact with the ground.
- Acro: Can alternate between hands and feet.
Advanced
Battle Rounds Up To 45 Seconds
- Top Rocks: Hips and shoulders can face different directions. Higher level variations of steps and entrances are recognized.
- Transitions: Transitions can leave the ground.
- Footwork: Looking to be performed up on the knuckles.
- Power Move: No limitations
- Freeze: Can have one point of contact
- Acro: Acro up to one flip with no twists
Pro
The Pro Level is for athletes who have competed at a high level in events and are competing at events to win money. This is the only 1v1 division at an RDF battle that has monetary prizes.
Battle Rounds Up To One Minute
- Top Rocks: Hips and shoulders can face different directions. Higher level variations of steps and entrances are recognized.
- Transitions: Transitions can leave the ground.
- Footwork: Looking to be performed up on the knuckles.
- Power Move: No limitations
- Freeze: Can have one point of contact
- Acro: Acro up to one flip and two twists, in any combination