I think the title says it all.
How did you get started?
Does your username have anything to do with your performances?
Are you a monkey?
Why, oh why?
I’m bored. suggest something for me to do that does NOT involve dancing computer games.
And dancing.
Have you ever been mellow?
My sisters and I have some of the games and a couple dance pads. They’re really good at the game, and I’d say I’m decent. We mostly just play at home though.
So my question…Are you the type to bring a gym bag, complete with towels, spare shirts, and bottled water, to the arcade so you can play for hours on end and waste tons of money?
If so, why???
How do you play with double data ra… err wrong DDR… :smack:
Are you ever embarassed by the knowledge of how utterly ridiculous you look to… well… everyone else in the whole world who doesn’t play the game?
Are you one of the people who stands behind the machine while other people are playing, dancing along and trying to memorize the steps so you can do “cool” stuff like spin around in the middle of a song?
How much do you spend a week?
And finally, I echo Soup_du_jour’s why, oh why?
do you have fans that follow your every move behind you?
Is this a joke thread? Or are you open for a SERIOUS questions?
I’ve taken a few shots at DDR. I’m not a teenager or Peter Pan case, but a 40 year old physician who happens to enjoy dancing (whether or not I’m particularly good at it). I enjoy body movement: tennis is good, and martial arts are better but my attempts to integrate them with music have been merely pleasant. Dancing not only meshes fully with the music, but has that extra element of sex. (No, I don’t want DDR to get me laid. Blech! I was just conditioned in the disco 70’s to assocate dancing with certain emotions.)
After dealing with the death of the Love Of My Life [1], I thought dancing would be a good way to get back in the swing of things, but I learned (not for the first time in my life) that the type of intellectual chick [2] I tend to favor often likes the idea of going out dancing more than actually doing it (They complain guys won’t take them dancing, but chicken out at the door or at the table). I mean okay, I enjoy some slow dancing with dinner, but 40 isn’t that old and I’m in no hurry to be that old. If I got to a bar I’d rather dance fast than drink myself into a sloppy sentimental haze and call it romance.
This does not always match the life stage expectations of women my age, so a DDR machine or pad actually seems like it might be a fun workout device (and a chance to get good at dancing, which I’ve always wanted to do, but classes don’t fit my schedule very well)
Uh oh… TMI. Sorry. I realize that geriatric 40-year olds are probably a bit out of your expertise, and I don’t want to traumatize you with a fear of what the future holds. I just want to provide the essential background.
My question: Do your experience and observations of DDR dancers, suggest that DDR practice translates efficiently to increased proficiency in real dancing for guys? (And I do mean specifically for guys. It’s a whole different ballgame for women. They can look good shaking a rock out of their shoe)
Or would it be more efficient/effective to sign up for a real dance course, even with the new batch of interns arriving July 1? (Interns need supervision. My schedule will be erratic all summer, I ga-ron-tee)
If there are any dancing medicos around, I’d welcome your opinions too.
[1] I feel weird posting that publicly. It seems off-kilter. So here’s the disclaimer. As the stock brochures say:"“This is not an offer. Read the Prospectus” I’ve had two “Loves of my life” die on me - the first when I was a teenager. I seem to have signed into some sort of weird Satanic deal where my patients don’t die, but… well, darn it, I can’t say I didn’t know I should have read that Microsoft license more carefully before clicking that red “I Agree” button.
[2] Yeah "chick. Some Boston women take offense at that term, but my definition of “chick” includes not minding being called a chick (or ‘gal’ or ‘babe’ or “Her Serene Hotness, Envy of All She Surveys”). Ergo, if you don’t like it, I ain’t a-talking 'bout you. So chill.
I’m not the OP, but I do play DDR (and Pump It Up, it’s Korean cousin). I personally don’t give two shits what anyone else thinks about how I look when I’m playing. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the first things you have to overcome to actually be any good at any of the dancing games. If you’re constantly concerned with how you look, you’ll suck at it.
I don’t stand behind the machine dancing; that really annoys some people. I do watch other people playing, though. Sometimes, you can gain insight by watching someone do a song that you’re having trouble with.
DDR is available for both Playstation and PS2. I spend somewhere around nothing per week. It’s not exactly zero because I occasionally play in arcades.
And, finally, I play because it’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s great exercise, and it’s something I can do with friends. I also don’t constrain myself to other people’s definitions of “cool”. Someone wants to look down their nose as me for playing DDR in public, fuck 'em.
I used to be one of those people that thought DDR players looked stupid.
Then I played it. It’s strangley fun and addicting. I still think most DDR players look stupid, and I know I’m probably the stupidest looking of them all, but I don’t really care. It’s fun to do.
I’ve found that playing DDR doesn’t directly translate to dancing better, since most dancing doesn’t involve moving your feet one of four directions. It has done two things to improve my dancing, however. It’s a good workout, and that gives me more stamina to dance longer without looking like I’ve been drenched in buckets of sweat. It’s also helped me a lot with keeping up with more complex beat patterns. Now I don’t get thrown completely off the beat when dancing to things that have something other than 4/4 time.
Sorry about the wait…
Wolfian:
How did you get started?
Sorry about the wait…
Wolfian:
How did you get started?
-I saw it in the arcade… thought: whoa. That looks cool.
Does my username have anything to do with DDR?
-Absolutely nothing. Chaotic was a random adjective to put in front of “donkey”
buckgully
Are you a monkey?
-No, I can assure you I’m not.
Soup of the day (giggle)
Why, oh why?
-Could you be more specific?
lilbtanga
Are you the type to bring a gym bag, complete with towels, spare shirts, and bottled water, to the arcade so you can play for hours on end and waste tons of money?
If so, why???
-No, no, no, no, and no, respectively. I've brought a towel upon occasion, though, and I drink water from various locales (where I play is right next to the food court.) I usually now just go for 5-6 games, max, but in the past I have played for around 5 hours.
Johnny
Are you ever embarassed by the knowledge of how utterly ridiculous you look to… well… everyone else in the whole world who doesn’t play the game?
-No. I don't care what they think. If they get too rowdy about it, and ignoring them doesn't work for me, I can always challenge them.
Are you one of the people who stands behind the machine while other people are playing, dancing along and trying to memorize the steps so you can do “cool” stuff like spin around in the middle of a song?
-Memorize steps? Aah that would be time-consuming, not to mention difficult. Not to mention very few people here play on my difficulty level :p. However, certain combinations are easier to hit (especially when hit quickly) by turning the body. For instance, the sequence R-D-L-D-R-D... etc. would be much easier if you turned your body 90 degrees (pi/2 radians) to either direction and kept one foot on down, hit left and right with the other one, and just alternated feet... for instance right arrow - right foot, down - left foot, left - right foot, etc. As for the cool stuff... I think it looks stupid when isolated. If you spin around 4 times in a song, it isn't going to make it look any cooler.
How much do you spend a week?
-It varies on how big my paycheck is. Sometimes around 50 dollars. Sometimes I'm abstinent. :eek:
shijinn:
Do you ever have fans behind you that follow your every move?
-umm. no. The few people at our arcade at my skill level usually don't shadow other players. We seemed to have gotten over that after about our first month playing.
KP
Is this a joke thread?, etc?
-No.
My question: Do your experience and observations of DDR dancers, suggest that DDR practice translates efficiently to increased proficiency in real dancing for guys? (And I do mean specifically for guys. It’s a whole different ballgame for women. They can look good shaking a rock out of their shoe)
-lol, freestyle is so 3rd mix! (*falls out of seat laughing*). I really don't know, as I just hit the arrows on the game, and don't really dance any other time, either. I would suppose that using the machine to dance on would increase proficiency as much as real dancing.
Or would it be more efficient/effective to sign up for a real dance course, even with the new batch of interns arriving July 1? (Interns need supervision. My schedule will be erratic all summer, I ga-ron-tee)
-The classes should benefit you more, seeing as you'll not get any sort of training on DDR.At about what level are you playing? Your comments seem to suggest that you play on Maniac. On the 1-9 foot rating, what’s the difficulty rating of the songs you usually play? Do you play them with random, stealth, or any of the other special settings?
What’s the hardest song (in your opinion) that you can pass with a decent grade?
What’s your favorite song to play?
Do you ever play easier songs/modes and try to freestyle? Any handslaps, knee-drops, etc?
What do you think of Pump It Up?
What’s your opinion of the freestylers they show on DDRfreak? Smooth or show-offs?
What mix do you usually play? Do you play competitively?
Have you played Max300? Is it as insane as it looks?
As for spinning around in circles, check out Beethoven Virus on Pump It Up if you have access and haven’t already seen it. You have to spin around if you want to pass it.
Not the OP, but I’ll answer those who asked about dancing and DDR, and the correlation. I am a dancer and I dabble in DDR (I’m around level 7 on singles. In the past I was better, but I’ve let my game fall off). There’s very little that carries over from one to another. Basically, the only part that comes into play in DDR and dancing is being able to keep count with the beat. Furthermore, the harder the songs get, the less freedom you have to really move around and do cool stuff.
How good are you? What, in your opinion, is the hardest song you can pass, and the easiest one you cant.
Do you play doubles, or just singles.
When did you start? What mix?
What is your favorite song for just playing around on?
Does it piss you off when songs (mostly newer ones) have those long pauses in them where the arrows stop moving so that there’s no way you could ever hit them unless you had the song already memorized, instead of actually having new or challenging features, in what is clearly a blatant grab for more money?
For those who think people who play DDR look silly, believe me, there are Bamani games out there that make people look even sillier (one in particular comes to mind - those who play these things will know which immediately).
At any rate, as for my question, do you play the non-dancing Bamani games, specifically the ones that require you to play pseudo-musical instruments (keyboard, drums, guitar)? Does your DDR experience, or any music-playing experience, translate to those games at all?
And is or is not Classic Party some of the damn coolest music ever?
(Those who don’t play these games, look into the non-dance ones. There are some neat ones out there…)
I should have clarified.
What got you into it? Also, is there some kind of subculture that goes along with this sort of thing?
What do you think of Pump it Up? I know a lot of DDR freaks who absolutely abhor the game, but frankly I think its jealousy because the console is overall superior (better sound, bigger speakers) and the arrow movements are much more natural feeling (diagonals with a center button).
Do you hold the bar when dancing? Do you consider it a ‘sissy’ thing? Personally I try on work on balancing myself to the point that I don’t need to hold on to anything. This applies to both games.