IT’S EASY TO forget that Thesis is only 17 years old.

That’s mostly because at an age where most teens battle acne, authority figures and self esteem issues, the kid is battling dudes like Toyz, Kareem and Free.

B-boy phenomenon or not, being 17 has its limitations. It means it hasn’t been that long since Thesis became old enough to legally drive, buy music with a “Parental Advisory” label or watch an R-rated movie alone.

It means he still can’t legally vote, gamble, own a credit card or go to a club—meaning, among other things, he’s effectively ruled out from going to most b-boy jam afterparties. And he still has a birthday to go before he can purchase worthwhile things like guns, porn, cigarettes, piercings or tattoos.

Even at IBE in the Netherlands, where b-boys and b-girls from all over come to gather around a cypher and under a massive cloud of weed smoke, the legal age to blaze up is 18.

So Thesis plays it cool. Dressed in all-dark colors with a fitted cap, jacket, tee, slim jeans and Pumas, he’d look like a poster child for streetwear if he weren’t blending into the night.

He’s deceptively calm.

Two mornings ago, while others tried to sleep on the bus from the airport, he was that kid excitedly standing in the aisle and chattering, acting, well, like a 17 year old. Earlier today, he and crewmate Dial Tone were sending the audience into a frenzy at the Circle Prinz IBE finals. Tomorrow, he’ll be wrecking shop at the IBE’s coveted All Battles All event.

But right now, the part-Mexican, part Native American teen seems content. He might even pass as a normal teenager relaxing in Heerlen, enjoying a cool night by the fountain while friends and acquaintances ravage a freshly acquired sack of weed.

Because even if there’s a lot Thesis can’t do at 17 (not legally, anyway), this Seattle battler has already gotten to do—and has had to do—a lot to get where he is now.

TRAVEL TO PLACES like Korea, Germany, France and Holland?

Check.

Get props from b-boy icons like Trac 2, Crazy Legs and Dyzee?

Check.

Gain an international following that leaves comments like, “Oh my god. He’s a fucking machine or? something man. Damn… “ and “woooooooouuu,? what the hell¿?¿¿??¿” and “GOT DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN?”?

Definitely check.

The list goes on and on.

Before becoming a legal adult, Thesis has managed to accomplish most of the goals that a lot of b-boys would struggle to complete in their entire lifetimes.

A lot of people don’t know who I am, but a lot of people will criticize me on the Internet. And I read it and I’m like, wow, do you really think I’m that person? Do you really think I’m that b-boy who doesn’t give a fuck?

He lives the life of a professional b-boy by throwing jams, teaching classes, doing street shows for the city, battling and judging.

At first glance, it looks like the only concerns he has in life are long layovers at airports and unnamed Asian girls in his city who tend to be “buggin’ out sometimes.”

For most 17-year-old boys, this is the sort of stuff that inflates egos and heads to the point where their foam caps rip in half. But Thesis seems as surprised by his own success as his YouTube fans who argue about his “real” age.

“It’s crazy how I’m one of the pros,” he says. “It’s crazy because it inspires me to do that much more. It doesn’t build up my head. It’s kinda like it leaves more spaces. It opens it up more. It feels good, man. I guess if you’re really passionate about something, man, it always just kinda falls into place.”

The problem is that sometimes that falling into place can be a little painful.

Thesis is the kind of guy who is perpetually joking, even to the point where it’s hard to tell when he’s being serious.

Exactly zero of the videos he’s uploaded to YouTube himself feature any kind of b-boying. Exactly 100 percent of them are videos of him goofing around. Even with that laidback of an attitude, Thesis says his Internet fame can be—well, frustrating.

“I’m used to it, but I’m not used to it,” he says. “I feel uncomfortable when people are like talking about me like they know me. A lot of people don’t know who I am, but a lot of people will criticize me on the Internet. And I read it and I’m like, wow, do you really think I’m that person? Do you really think I’m that b-boy who doesn’t give a fuck? Yo, I’m beyond that. If you just get to know the real person—and this is any b-boy—if you get to know them, everyone has a fucking background. We’re not born as b-boys. I just feel sometimes disrespected.”

Respect usually isn’t at the top priority of any 17-year-old’s list, but Thesis seems to take it pretty seriously.

In fact, it seems to be the byproduct of his striking sense of responsibility. Most of the money he scores at competitions goes towards investing in his events and helping to support his stepfather, mother and cousin.

“I’m sticking to what’s important to me right now,” Thesis says. “You gotta give to get. It’s a fucking cycle.”

REWIND A FEW weeks. Thesis is waiting out a layover at Salt Lake City so he can make his way to an event to a border town near San Antonio. (There, he’ll win a bunch of money, which, as usual, he’ll give to his mother, but he doesn’t know this yet.) Thesis is about to rewind it some more, back to when he was still little Thesis, still just an idea of a b-boy.

Like so many other hip-hoppers, Thesis’s childhood kind of mirrored the childhood of hip-hop itself.

Growing up without a lot—in his case, in Seattle and Tucson—Thesis learned to do a lot with what he did have. What he had was an absent father and a working mother. He had friends and cousins and aunts and uncles. He had a limited patience for all things school-related, especially math.

And he had the sacred glowing treasure, the Holy Grail that would change the course of his life: a collection of footage of his uncles breaking and popping in the ‘80s.

At 6 years old, Thesis was hooked.

“I just blanked out everything and kinda got stuck,” he says. “Oh man, I was raised on it. I just fell in love with it.”

He describes memories of spending entire afternoons in Tucson, “just a desert town,” dancing, watching those videos and never giving a second’s attention to his homework.

Back at school, a friend might do some windmills in the gym. Thesis would respond with some footwork and a freeze. He’d go home and practice all night, invigorated by the exchange.

Fortunately, Thesis was one of the few lucky ones who didn’t have to cycle through a million lame b-boy names he chose for himself. Early on, his mom managed to sum up his destiny simply by flipping his real name, Thias.

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant. When my mom explained it to me, I remembered every single word,” he says. “Thesis—if you look at the definition, it says it’s proving a point. And it’s pretty much what you did when you wrote a thesis in school—proving a point of what you did. I just thought, damn, yeah, if you think about it, a thesis is a perfect word because that’s what you do. You express yourself and prove the point of why you’re in there in the cypher and why you’re dancing.”

As Thesis grew older, those reasons for dancing changed and grew with him. Even when his attitude soured as he grew older, b-boying become important not just as an escape from boredom, but as an escape from struggle.

“Growing older, [my friends and I] were kinda on the angry side,” he explains. “We couldn’t really control our tempers—we’d get in fights in school. It wasn’t good. I guess maybe my dad’s situation—but dancing was my ventilation. Dancing, just stay quiet and keep moving. My own world.”

Thesis says he got “serious” with dancing around the ripe age of nine or 10, though it’s hard to imagine anyone that age being serious about anything other than flicking boogers.

By 11, he’d befriended an influence who’d help him polish his approach: Paranoid Android. The infamous so-called abstract-style b-boy would open Thesis’s eyes to different approaches to creativity, including his now-infamous threads. They’d rep together as members of Knuckleheads Cali, eventually making an infamous crew trailer that began with scenes of guys vomiting and doing nude powermoves.

“Those were the days,” Thesis waxes, sounding more like he’s 70 than 17.

“It’s good to start at a young age. But it doesn’t matter what age you start it,” he says. “I’ve seen people start at 25 and shit, and now they’re killing it at age 30. It just depends how you look at it. But yeah, I’m at a young age. Like El Nino and all these crazy cats. I’m just one of them, trying to do my thing too.”

If you have the form right and mess up and fall into something else, that’s a move. You just gotta add style to it.

CONSIDERING HOW MANY people use words like “machine” and “beast” to describe Thesis’s dancing, it’s a shame that both have already been claimed as b-boy names. Not that he needs them. He’s got plenty of notoriety with his own.

That’s because Thesis is the type of guy who makes everything look so effortless that onlookers begin to wonder why they even bothered started dancing in the first place. He’ll string together a bunch of powermoves—say, some airflares into handhops into swipes into babymills—then throw in some crazy abstract shit, a flip and an airchair on beat for good measure. No sweat.

For these reasons, watching others watch Thesis dance can be as entertaining as his dancing itself. Here at IBE, heads crane as soon as his named is uttered in a thick Dutch accent—“TEEEEE-SISSSSS!”

Eyes get really big, and though few ask it, everyone’s wondering it: how’d this kid get so good?

“[Videos of me] are online a lot, so I try to make something really new and noticeable at every event,” Thesis says. “It kinda just keeps me thinking outside the box. Originality—that’s the key.”

To keep his creativity peaked, Thesis keeps up with his house dancing and capoeira to set his styles apart. (“I just house, man! It’s what I do!” he yells.) He’s also dabbled in modern dance, rocking and hip-hop choreography for inspiration in movements and styles.

“Shit hella helps,” he says. “If you’re a b-boy, you have to learn other styles. If you look at Free, he’s doing hella shit. It’s just a style you get. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. If you look at it, b-boying is other styles combined to one thing—into your own style. You adapt from everything you’ve seen and learned, and that’s how you express yourself. If you learn other dances, you can incorporate them and express yourself even more—that much stronger.”

Three things about Thesis’s practice regiment, for those taking notes: first, he likes his practice sessions the way b-boys like their shoes—tight and exclusive.

“I’m not really the person that goes to practices with a lot of people,” he admits. “When I practice, I kinda stick with my group—my kinda people, Them Team in Seattle. I pretty much just practice on my friends’ carpet. I like to be in my own world in my own space.”

Second: Thesis doesn’t believe in mistakes, but he does pay attention to the details.

“If you have the form right and mess up and fall into something else, that’s a move. You just gotta add style to it,” he says. “When you wanna be a pro or become pro, you start to realize all the little details and moves you do. Every movement has a reason. Every movement has a world to it. There are different ways to battle, dance. A lot of people see a move and wanna learn it right away, but they forget about the details and form. If you do that and end up teaching later and don’t know the form, it’s gonna be hard for you to teach. You gotta keep tying that rope.”

It’s a theory that Thesis has proven through trial by fire, as is evident in his signature transitions.

His runs often feature series of moves that, while already impressive alone, become exponentially so when he strings them together. Sometimes, he seems to go through entire sets without his feet ever touching this ground. This could also potentially serve as a tip for keeping shoes clean.

Third, and last: when it comes to practicing, Thesis doesn’t do it all that much—not in the conventional sense, anyway. At 17, he’s taken a surprisingly zen approach to b-boying.

“I used to practice so much,” he admits. “Right now, I practice maybe once or twice a week and then battle on weekends. Every weekend, I battle. But right now, I’m working on a lot of battle strategies. I think you gotta keep going through that—just the person you are. I dunno how to explain that. Right now I’m kinda on the mental kind of thing.”

This means waking up every morning and immediately soaking in ‘80s and ‘90s b-boy footage like it’s orange juice. Thesis says he appreciates the era’s originality and style and uses it to brainstorm.

Though he depends on footage to get hyped (and largely to promote himself), Thesis is wary of becoming too reliant on Internet footage, especially that found on YouTube.

“I’m not gonna clown on anyone that watches online shit. I know I’m online. I do the battle, and the next day I’m already online,” he says. “I don’t really watch TV. When I’m online, I’m talking to people on Facebook and shit. But I stay away from YouTube. I feel like that is kinda killing the younger scene right now. That’s dope that they’re inspired, but I see too much biting nowadays. If you see someone wearing a foam cap a certain way, don’t do that. Just flip it.”

Instead of biting styles, he advises, get informed so that you can adapt to different movements. Instead of manufacturing a battle persona, use your personality and the specific emotions you are experiencing at that time. Instead of figuring out how others do moves, figure out your own personality and life.

“You can do the weirdest thing, but as long as you know what you’re doing, you’ll be perfectly fine,” he says. “Keep going with that. If each person cocks someone in the face at the end of every round, they’re not going to stand out. The way you’re gonna battle is you gotta just be yourself.

“If you don’t care what other people think or what other people do and just do you, that’s the real shit,” he says. “That’s where you find your roots and learn yourself and all that shit about life.”

HEARING A SEVENTEEN year old talk about the life and the future can feel like asking grandparents what they thought of a b-boy battle. The answer might be interesting, but it’s hard to tell how much to take at face value.

But for some reason, young and wide-eyed as he may be, when Thesis spouts his idealistic visions for b-boying and himself, it seems plausible. Maybe it’s because he’s such a good dancer. Or maybe it’s because he’s so earnest. Or maybe, as he puts it, it’s because he tries not to be a “dumbass.”

“I’m happy that I’m inspiring people,” he says. “I wanna show people to be humble and to inspire people. You can’t be cocky or bigheaded because it’ll just make you look like a dumbass and be played out in the future. You just have to be yourself for the people, no matter what your status or rank is.

“I don’t honestly believe in rank,” he continues. “I think each person is equal. If you’re a beginning b-boy and another has been doing it 10 years, you’re still the same person. You’re still dancers. More knowledge doesn’t mean you’re better than anyone else.”

Still though, the pursuit of knowledge seems worth the effort.

Though Thesis dropped out of high school, he got his GED after studying for two weeks. At the time of the interview, he’s just finished his first quarter at school and will be returning to study sociology and video production (“B-boying sometimes gets in the way and fucks my shit up,” he says.)

He wants to learn how to help people by adapting to them, the same way he battles people by adapting to their styles. He wants to make movies and documentaries about Rawbzilla and Free and Orb and underground b-boys and up-and-comers—“not some Step Up 3 shit, but some real shit,” as he puts it.

And hopefully, he says, if all goes according to plan, he can settle down by the time he’s 19.

Wait, what? That’s right. He’s still only 17.

“I’m not gonna lie—fucking 70 percent of my life, I never expected it to happen this way,” he says. “I would have never thought it, especially where I’m coming from. I’m just a kid. I’m just doing my thing. I chill out, and sometimes I go to malls and get girls’ numbers and party and shit and stupid shit. I’m just a regular fucking kid.”