One important kinematic propertie of breaking waves is the wave celerity. Constant wave celerity has been used for the wave breaking criterion by many researchers. However, this approach does not consider the variation of wave celerity at different phases before breaking. Hence, this article examines the aspects of the wave breaking criterion and dynamics of wave celerity before wave breaking. Breaking waves were generated using the JONSWAP focused spectrum and a semi-empirical formula for the wave celerity estimation was established.