Roxanne Milliner is known as bgirl Roxy. She always has a smile of pure joy and enjoyment on her face when she breaks, sometimes posing like a happy and confi dent peacock before displaying her range of flexible upside down freezes, which she holds with ease. Although when Roxy started breaking in 2006, her life was in a bit of a crazy place. “I was raised the right way but, when I was 15 years old, my boyfriend was in a gang and I got reeled a little into that toxic culture. When he went to prison, I was devastated,” Roxy tells LK. She was also a competitive world champion trampolinist at the time but broke a bone in her back during training. She recalls: “I had a mind blank in mid-air and landed badly, and the bone kind of bent in half.”
With all this going on, Roxy was at her brother’s dance class when she met a group of breakers practicing in the corridor. She asked them to teach her the handstand freeze they were doing and nailed the move on her fi rst try, getting a cheer of excitement from the breakers. “That reaction I got became my number one motivation to get good at breaking because it was obvious I had the talent,” Roxy says.
Breaking undoubtedly changed Roxy’s life. She soon stopped trampolining and was travelling and competing within a year. By 2009 she’d joined one of the best crews in the UK, Soul Mavericks, and battled with them at the UK Bboy Championships. In 2011, a video clip of her breaking went viral from a crazy round she did at a competition in Florida, and suddenly Roxy was known internationally as a high-level bgirl.
Fame and expectations
When Roxy started breaking, she recalls “there were like fi ve to 10 high-level bgirls in the world,” and says “the lack of female representation motivated me to be an example and prove that girls can be good at breaking,” which she was proving but there were lessons she had to learn along the way.
I feel like the progression to getting ‘breaking famous’ was more fun than achieving it,” Roxy says about blowing up through her viral clip. “I suddenly felt so much expectation and judgement from people, especially online.” Roxy just wanted to enjoy breaking, but faced with this new overwhelming attention, she realised “not every round I do is going to be one people will love. We’re free styling and you may also be on your period, ill, injured or not feeling the song… there’s so many factors. And if your breaking isn’t looking or feeling slightly differenteach time then I don’t think you’re doing it right.”
Crew wise, Soul Mavericks and Roxy ended up parting ways. She loved the crew’s drive and competitiveness, but says: “I was the only female member at the time and it was difficult. I was young and seen to be a bit lazy and ditsy but still talented, and I think that challenged the egos of members, especially when I was chosen to compete over other crew members who had been there longer.”
I still feel like I never peaked in breaking… all I really want is to still break
Finding her place
Roxy is now a member of the all-female, international Heart Breakerz crew and says: “Joining Heart Breakerz has been one of my defining moments in breaking. We’re 100 per cent a family, and being in a crew with women who are there to support each other is something really unique, special and creates a bond.”
When it comes to competing, in 2021 Roxy came back from giving birth to her son to win the UK National Trials, ranking her as the number one bgirl in the country, but being a single mum has meant she’s had to reduce her training regime, prioritising raising her son.
Although, with the worldwide bgirl scene having immensely grown, with ten times more world class bgirls now existing than when Roxy started, she is still raring to go and highly motivated, saying: “I still feel like I never peaked in breaking. I want to get back in shape, as all I really want is to still break. I was never really motivated by winning this or that competition, it’s always been about how I feel about my breaking, and I just always wanted to be the best in my field and be remembered.”
