Faculty

Rico Martinez

Studio Director

Rico is originally from Mexico City and he began dancing at the age of 5, learning first by breaking in the streets on sheets of cardboard. He began performing in local television programs and street dance shows. At the age of 15 he formed a group called Black Tendency with 4 other dancers and they won a televised talent contest called El Club. He was then hired to dance in commercials for Disney and did a Super Bowl Commercial for the Patriots in 2003. Rico then took his formal training to the next level and began riding the subway for 2 hours everyday to dance at Danza Tres studio on the south side of Mexico City.

He did this for 6 months before he was scouted out by the Latin Pop Star Belinda. Rico then spent the next 3 years traveling internationally all over the world performing as a dancer for Belinda's world tours. He has performed in USA, Spain, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama and all over Mexico. He danced in televised performances such as Nickelodeon Argentina, Fox Sports Miami and The MTV Latin Music Awards. He is forever a student and continues his training at every opportunity- including annual trips to New York City. Now as the owner of Pound It Hip Hop Studio in Red Deer Alberta, Rico prides himself by bringing the pioneers of street dance styles to his studio to give the best opportunities for his students-to not only learn about the dance but also the Hip Hop culture. When Rico isn't dancing he's often DJing for events in and around Central Alberta.

Funk E

Ed Campbell YYC

Breaking & Hip Hop

Funk E was  born and raised in Panama. He has a soul, disco, latino and reggae musical background. Funk E has been a breaking student from the 2000 to present and currently owns his own graphic designing company based out of Calgary - Edward Campbell Studio.

Funk E was a member of the crew "One Of Them" in the early 2000s and in  2003 he became the founding member of the crew "Fullstyle Crew" which is currently one of the oldsest breaking crews still active and representing Hip Hop culture in Panama.  Fullstyle crew started with 7 members - all bboys and throughout the years they have been blessed to have new members that are MCs, Graffiti writers and a DJ. All of whick have brought more Hip Hop knowledge to the group which is now known ans "Fullstyle Family". 

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As a group they use Hip Hop as a positive tool to share knowledge, awareness and self-confidence to the youth. 

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As a dancer Funk E makes a point of sharing all the values that go along with breaking and hip hop. A dance that can connect people of all ages, religions and ethnicities. These styles when taught with positive values have the power to develop a healthy and balanced physical/mental state all through a fun activity. 

"Through my teaching I have reached both high risk and non- risk youth. Teaching respect, how to share, teamwork and to push themselves out of their comfort zone. All of these values and discipline are very helpful when buliding common life skills."

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Full Bio Here

Sho- Tyme

La familia & Gravity

From Queens, NYC, Sho-Tyme has brought himself from street way of living to stepping on countless stages, videos, tours with many of the top Artist in the industry with allowing God and dance to change his life completely.

Sho-Tyme’s versatility as a dancer/ choreographer along with his creativity and extensive knowledge of Hip Hop, and other Street Dance styles have enabled him to choreograph for many top artists as well as judging major battles and events in the industry and street dance world.

Aaliyah, Jay Z, Mary J Blige, P Diddy, Shakira, Busta Ryhmes, JLo , Sean Desmond, Mya, TLC, Christina Milian , Kelly Rowland, Katy Perry, Gnarles Barkley to name a few.

Sho-Tyme is also the genius behind the Choreography for Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku Girls.

Battles judged: Battle Grounds in Australia, Juste Debout Tour, UDS Fest in Ukraine, Hip Hop International Russia and Vegas, KOD/Showdown LA to name a few.

TV Shows: Dancing With The Stars, Dirty Dancing, So You Think You Can Dance Canada’ seasons 1-4 as the Hip Hop and House Choreographer. Movies include You Got Served, Stomp The Yard, Dance Flick as well as the Choreographer and Co-Star of the film ‘You Got Served/Beat The World’.

His love for dance doesn’t stop there, he also formed together an all female crew called Stylz Play.

6 girls from different parts of world Japan, Spain, Italy and USA. The intense hard training, teaching and love for dance has brought them to grow more as dancers who love the dance!

They have won battles such as KOD/Showdown La, KOD finals in China, Juste Debout NY, VersaStyle’s Let the Music Move You in La to name a few.

With all these things he still maintain one of the biggest classes at the famous Millennium Dance Complex in LA. Teaching Hip Hop Grooves and House 3 days a week.

Sho-Tyme’s passion is to continue teaching an educating around the world to the now and new generation of dancers, that dance is from the heart and should be first done with love and passion not for an industry goal.

He promises that anyone who dance from the heart will see the fun, joy and true essence in it.

Through this you can learn how to GROW inside the dance, become ONE with the dance and find that CONNECTION with the MUSIC which allows us to become CREATIVE with the dance.

Don’t just do it, LIVE it!!

Sho-Tyme

Liberty Schultz

Technical Program Director

Liberty Schultz returned from 2 years of dance at New York City's American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). She is a performer, choreographer and educator. She has performed in numerous shows such as Sweet Charity, She Loves Me, and the Nutcracker Ballet. She has choreographed for American Music Dramatic Academy, Pink and White Creative and Brown Cow Collective. 

Liberty will be our technical program director and we will be releasing our fall schedule of classes in Ballet/Point, Tap, Contemporary/Lyrical, and Jazz 

Sabatoge

Sebastian Reinhart

DJ and Dancer

Hip Hop, House, Litefeet & Breaking

Sebastian Reinhart AKA Sabatoge has been grooving to the beats since he was small. Creating his own moves in his room, he entered his first talent show at his school in grade 1 and then again performed in grade 2. In grade 2, he saw an advertisement for Pound It Hip Hop studio. He entered into a summer camp and was hooked.

In the summer of 2015, Sebastian performed weekly at the Sylvan Lake farmers market to earn enough money to pay his way to a street dance camp.

He raised over $1000 to participate in a week long street dance camp in Calgary where he trained with the original hip hop instructors from all over the world.
 

Instructors included Poppin Pete, Loose Joint, Lilou, Ken Swift, Marquest, Brooklyn Terry and Mikey Disco. This was Sebastian’s first experience battling. He battled in Popping, Hip Hop and Breaking against mostly adults. The battling changed him as a dancer and his new passion was to battle. In the summer of 2016 ,2018, and 2019 he travelled to New York to participate in Street Style Lab with
instructors, David Collas, Buddha Stretch, Link and Yoshi. While in New York, he entered into the Step Ya Game up battle where he was the only Canadian to make it to the Semi Finals in the kids battle.

 In the summer of 2017, he participated in Street Style Lab Red Deer. He was trained once again with Popin' Pete and Buddha Stretch, along with Caleaf and Storm.Here he competed in Face2Face in Popping, Breaking and House.  

At the 2017 Pound It Christmas Battle he won first in both the 1vs1 Hip Hop and 2vs2 All Styles Category judged by Chry Baby Cozie.

Sebastian embraces all dance forms of the hip hop culture, battling in all categories he can, but his true passion is for Breaking. Other instructors that have travelled to the Pound It Studio to train him include: Cebo, Chrybaby, Megaman, Shotyme, Ynot, Suga Pop, Link and Mr. Wiggles. Just recently Storm, from Germany travelled back to Red Deer a second time and Sebastian was able to take private lessons with the legend.

With some coaching from Rico at Pound It studio Sebastian started his first business as a DJ at 9 years old. His entrepreneurial drive has given him opportunities to dj with Rappers Madd Child and Merkules. In the spring of 2018 he had the opportunity to DJ at an event with the Oola Guys. He also plays several school dances throughout central Alberta, charity events, and local events such as Jazz at the Lake and the Battle at the Beach Hockey tournament. Again this year the young business man has earned enough cash with his DJ business to pay for his second trip to New York City this upcoming July to train and dance with the biggest names in Hip Hop.

He is young, he is fresh, he is ready. Sabatoge is a true testament that hard work does pay off. Along with teaching Sabatoge will also be available to DJ Birthday Parties hosted in our studio. 

Kit Dohalyo

Breaking, Locking, Hip Hop

Kit is fascinated by the various forms of hip hop, like popping, locking & animation and many other forms of dance like ballet, tap, contemporary jazz, street jazz, broadway, modern, bboy and bgirl dance. Kit brings his passion for the various styles of dance he studies to his classes which focus on Hip Hop, including locking, popping, breaking, and L.A. style choreography.

He taught and competed for many years in the Philippines, Malaysia and Hong Kong, before moving to Canada and brings a unique dancers insight with a strong sense of musicality, and funky rhythm into his teaching and sharing his love of dance, which you can

feel the minute his class. Kit started performing Hip Hop dance in 2004 and has been teaching since 2011.

He has earned many awards and dance titles from Edmonton and Vancouver all the way to Malaysia and the Philippines… well around the world and he is sought out as a guest judge for competitions worldwide.

Smallz

Stryder Hamilton

Hip Hop & Breaking

Smallz attended a summer camp with us in 2016 and that fall he enrolled in a rec breaking, rec hip hop and a competitve crew. From there his dedication and passion grew. In year 2 he tried out and made it to La Familia, from there he has taken every workshop and camp he could- including Street Style Lab in New York. Smallz is in Batteram this year where he is the senior dancer and a great leader to his crew mates. In Stryder's first year of teaching he has our 4 year old Funk class and our Candela Adult crew.

Stryder is skilled in many styles ,from hip hop to breaking, popping, waacking, house, locking and litefeet. He along with Sabatoge recently won our $1000 Christamas All Stylse Battle here in Red Deer.

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Sryder has also taken up graffiti art and has opened his business Smallz Graffiti were he is designing signature hats and artwork. 

Hannah Isbister

Technical Instructor

Tap and Contemporary

Born in Red Deer, Alberta, Hannah is a Calgary based dancer that has recently obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Dance with distinction from the University of Calgary. During her degree, Hannah has had the privilege of working with Melissa Monteros and Wojciech Mochniej (W&M Physical Theatre), Melanie Kloetzel (Kloetzel & Co.) and Marie France Forcier (Forcier Stage Works), as well as being featured in interdisciplinary shows Rhinoceros and The Fairy Queen within the School of Creative and Performing Arts. Outside of the University, she has worked closely with

Maddox Dance Company performing and choreographing for the last 3 years, along with teaching private lessons and workshops throughout Central Alberta. As a teacher, Hannah is passionate about discovering individual artistic expression within her students and experimenting with the relationship between dance and music. 

Mackenzie Smart

Hip Hop,  Jazz, Ballet, Lyrical, Contemporary

Born and raised in Red Deer, Mackenzie has been dancing nearly all her life!  She dances in numerous styles including hip hop, litefeet, jazz, tap, ballet, contemporary, lyrical, musical theatre, acro and even Ukrainian! Mackenzie spent this previous year training in Vancouver, BC, under Joanne Pesusich’s professional training program with Source Dance Company. As well as joining A3 Districts competitive hip hop team E.P. Ryderz. Mackenzie is striving towards working professionally in the commercial/film industry and hopes to travel around the world teaching. She is committed to continuously expanding her knowledge as a dancer and teacher and is excited to be able to share her love for dancing with others.

Kimberley Reinhart

Fitness and Admistration

Kim is our front office life saver! She is the friendly face that will great you before class and answer any questions you may have. She owns and runs Optimal Fitness based out of Sylvan Lake and we are so lucky to have her run our fitness classes for our accelerated crews! She doesn't stop there, she also dances in AK42's and never backs down when called out to battle! 

Jayden Haase

Youth Hip Hop

Jayden has been dancing at Pound It for five years, this will be her third year as a member of La Familia. She has been trained by a number of Hip Hop legends including Sho Tyme, Buddha Stretch, Tyrone Proctor, Chry Baby, King Charles and Mr Youtube. Her favourite styles are waacking,voguing and dancehall.  Growing up Jayden always helped out at her mother's day home and it shows. She is truly gifted with young children and leads with confidence. After mentoring a year and learning the ropes Jayden is now teaching her own Hip Hop class Lil Cuz.  "I loved working with kids and helping them do their best with all the moves and choreography. I am so excited to watch them grow as dancers and have fun."- Jayden Haase

Naomi Geartner

Bambinos

Funk/Tap/Ballet

Naomi grew up in Saskatchewan on her parents farm with her 4 sisters. From an early age Naomi loved to entertain others through dancing, acting and singing. Naomi loves to teach dance, perform, make others laugh and entertain others through story telling. Naomi has a Bachelor of Education with specialities in Early Years, Art, Music and French. Naomi also holds a Bachelor of Arts Majors in Drama and Dance and Minors in Psychology and Sociology. Naomi is a mother of 2 young boys and currently teaches the Bambino and 4 year old programs in the studio.

Naomi has danced in Street Style Lab in NYC and in Red Deer and has learned from many of the originators of Hip Hop. She has trained, danced and taught with many dance studios/companies across AB/BC/SK.  Naomi is also a certified Zumba and Zumbini instructor.