Breaking the world DDR record 40 HOURS !!!!!!!

[Philipio]

I'm going to look for another article right now.

And, if I knew it was right out here I would have gone to see how they were doing
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DDRecall

[lithium3141]

That's awesome. Was a reporter there throughout the event? How many people stayed all 40 hours?

[Hellkite664]

[Dj Sway]

Congrats. But the article won't work for me! >.<
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[Osiris X]

Dancing for fun, fame and friend

'I'm kind of used to sleep deprivation'


08:07 PM CDT on Thursday, July 22, 2004


By SCOTT STAFFORD / The Dallas Morning News




Keith Floresca danced Tuesday night away. In fact, he danced the whole day, the night, and almost all of Wednesday, too.

Keith, a 17-year-old Creekview High School graduate, danced for 40 hours, breaking the 37 ½-hour world record for playing the Dance Dance Revolution video dance game.

"I think I should be able to do it," he said beforehand. "I've done a lot of preparation, and I have a lot of support from my family and friends. I do a lot of long distance running, and I'm kind of used to sleep deprivation because I took a lot of advanced classes in school."

DDR is an increasingly popular arcade game that plays music and tells the player which of four footpads to step on in time to the music.

Through the attempt, Keith and his friend Derek Dougherty were also trying to raise some money to help a friend, Erin Schroeder, who is on a long-term mission trip with her family in Russia. Keith and Derek wanted to raise $1,500 to fly her home for a visit this year.

Keith said he wanted to help Erin to show his appreciation for the times that she helped him. "At the beginning of the year I was kind of struggling with my faith and my reason for existence – I was kind of stressed out about school and college applications. She's a good friend and she helped me through some really hard times. I just wanted to show my gratitude."

Keith's father, Louie Floresca, expressed support for his son and confidence that he would achieve his goal. "I've seen him do some crazy things, so I know he's crazy enough to be able to do this," said Mr. Floresca.

His mother, Hermie Floresca, said he has the determination. "He wants to do it, so I'm there to support him all the way. He's really very persistent and motivated. If he sets his mind to it, he can do it."

Cynan Deleon, vice president of marketing for the Web site ddrfreak.com, said the DDR movement has followers around the world. The Web site has more than 42,000 members.

"Maybe once every year or so someone tries to break the record," said Mr. Deleon from his office in San Jose, Calif. "It doesn't happen too often – DDR is physical activity – everyone sweats when they play DDR."

Keith and Derek kept the machine on its lowest level to pace their energy and keep from making erroneous steps. According to the rules acquired from the Guinness Book of World Records, they had 30 seconds between each song and were allowed to take a 15-minute break after eight hours of playing.

They had a table adjacent to the DDR machine with Gatorade and high-energy snacks to help them keep going. But 40 hours is a long time to dance without sleeping. "It's going to be hard, but it's mainly going to be the mental stuff and the lack of sleep," said Derek.

Before beginning, Derek expressed concern that he was having leg cramps during practice sessions, and after a few hours, the cramps returned and he had to drop out.

Troy Maxwell, manager at Nickelmania in Carrollton, helped Keith organize the attempt and donated the use of the DDR machine.

"For a kid as young as he is to have everything in order, I knew this was for real," Mr. Maxwell said before the music started. "I hope he makes it. I can't even go two minutes on that machine, how he's going to go 40 hours, I'll never know."

By Wednesday at 10 a.m., after 28 hours, Keith was looking tired, and moving a bit more slowly, but he was still determined. Things got tough during the early morning hours on Wednesday, but when more of his friends came by later that morning, he became re-energized, said Mr. Maxwell.

At 10 p.m. Wednesday, Keith was looking forward to seeing his friend come home to visit. And he was also looking forward to a good night's sleep.

E-mail [email protected]

or call 972-418-9999, ext. 2004




Just incase you guys didnt want to sign up for that place.

[padrotte]

i wonder if he'd have done it for a male friend. hopefully he got some.

[BandGeekGirl]

Good luck... I played for 7 hours straight one time... but then I ran out of money...

[916 Roseville SUCKS]

congrats Keith...you da man. Thanks for doing what you did for your friend, and thanks for your courage and guts to do what most people cannot do. 40 hours, man, that is one hell of a time, that's one work week for people who work full time. You've got the guts and mind set man...don't lose it, if you keep the attitude that you had for the 40 hour DDR play then college and life shouldn't be hard at all for you, keep up the good work...
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Roseville sucks

[redviper]

this record is very dumb because playing begginner for 40 hours is just like standing in a 2x2 square for 40 hours how hard is that.

If I attempted the record I would play all heavy.
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Representin the spartanburg crew.
http://www.pumpcore.com

[OneCrazyMoFo]

hahahahaha! id like to see you dance on all heavy songs for 40 hours, even the most simple heavy songs would still tire you out after a while.
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With so many voices in my head competing to be heard, i can hardly hear you think!

[zerovampire311]

Dude, you cant even SAY that it would be too easy. I can barely play heavy for 3 hours, much less fourty! And the amount of TIME moving is what makes the biggest difference, you'll burn the almost same energy in light and heavy.

Anyways, CONGRATS!!! Hope my advice helped, and hope you raised enough for your friend to come![/quote]
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"Dance Dance Revolution? What do you do in that?"
"Ummm, Dance?"
"Oh...Yeah"

[Hellkite664]

Dude that is sooo awesome. 40 Hours, and all for a friend. Man, that dude's got talent.
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Pizza is better than nothing.
Nothing is better than true love.
Through the transitive property,
Pizza is better than true love.

[Footstep]

That rocks man!!!I couldnt have done it 40 hours on beginner.I tip my hat to you.Tell your friend every one in this thread said Hi and wlcome home.
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So what if we cant PA.Least were cute

[Vater5B]

[Ashura]

Hey Keith, congratulations!
and Kudos Derek for attempting.

Oh and by the way, you may not remember me but I am Alan Tullos and I used to go to Creekview and I knew you in Band and Dereks older brother Peter, who I would've thought would be interested in doing that.

Wow, and that is a great reason to do that for the sake of Erin.

I probably couldnt do that even if it was all Beginner, I hope to see your name in the next edition of Guiness World Records.

hah, maybe you should have tried doing 40 hours on the Solo 2000 machine (if they still have it?) at NickelMania

Nice Work!!

[Reloaded972]

(sorry, long post. I haven't posted in awhile)
Thanks for all the support and stuff you're giving out. The coolest thing is that we did reach our goal of $1500. I'm in the process of collecting the money from a bunch of generous people. The time difference sucks because I kept missing her for the past 2 weeks or so on AIM, but I finally got to talk with her last Thursday. Since her brother is coming back for college next year, she is most likely able to come with him and visit next summer, maybe even the entire Schroeder family. That would be uber-sweetness.


The next coolest thing is the event was like a huge party. At 40 hours Nickelmania was jam packed with people: friends from school, friends from church, family, people I didnt know, and people I got to know during the event. Unfortunately sleep deprivation was getting to me, so my memory of the last 10 hours wasn't very vivid, but I remember how much of a party it was. No one stayed there the entire time(except me, of course ). One of the hardest times was at about 2 in the morning Wednesday (around 24 hours into it). Then it was just me, the two witnesses, and the steward).

Also, it is very cool that I got some people hooked on DDR. During some of the witnesses shifts, they played on the other pad with me. Most of them we're beginner, so I was able to pace myself with them. I saw some major nOObs as they played with me, but after playing with me for 4 hours, they got pretty good. The Dallas Morning News article even referenced DDRfreak in it.

The world record thing is also cool. I still have to put a lot of work to get all the paperwork done. Even if they reject my claim because of some obscure guideline or because they sent me the wrong guidelines, it wont take away from the accomplishment I've done. To be honest, there were a lot of people help to make it happen, and I couldnt have gotten anywhere close without them. Also, I promised to not send my stuff in until late 2004 or early 2005 so that Drew can make it into the 2005 books. He deserves being in the books because he was the one who set the official record first.

Ok now for some responses and long awaited answers:

I'm sorry Alan, but I dont remember you. What graduating class were you in? Maybe you knew my bro or sis better. I'm sure Peter would've tried it but he's doing marching band with DCI all summer long. I dont think solo mix had enough songs for 4 hours of songs. Extreme is cool for its variety and 2 pads so someone was always playing with me.

For all those people who think it's easy, it's not. The test is about focus and fighting sleep deprivation more than actual DDR skills. But DDR skills do come in handy. I've played long enough to be able to pretty much subconsciously play. That way I can talk with people, do spins and keep myself busy over beginner for 40 hours.

My parents bought 3 or 4 newspapers that day. One of them is posted on my fridge, and I have 2 cut-outs in one of my binders in plastic holders. It will be a great reminder when I'm struggling in college. I dont have any excuse to slack anymore

Erin Schroeder is a female, and I'm a guy just if anyone had any questions. I did this simply out of friendship and gratitude for her and her family, so dont get any ideas

Thanks for posting the article Osiris.

Just some funny things:
One time I accidentally hit double mode, and there werent any people who were good enough to really pull of light. There's no beginner mode in double, so I did 5 light songs on both pads well into the event. I'm not sure when, maybe sometime wednesday morning or something.

My dad took 100 pictures with my 35mm camera, who knows how many with his digital, and an hour of video on the camcorder. Two other people had camcorders while they were there, and lots of other people brought cameras. I plan on compiling a slideshow/video of the event. I'm thinking it to be anywhere between 10-30 min. I dont have a website, so I might only be able to post picture and not the entire video.

My memory was seriously slipping at the end. I was forgetting things that were happening a few minutes before. It was like constantly waking up from a dream and everything slowly fades as time passes. I used that to my advantage though. I though, if I forget this stuff, I can forget the pain too. So I did, and I hit 40 hours.

My final song was "We are the champions" On beginner still, I needed to pass it. Then I wanted to go out with a bang, so I tried "Can't stop falling in love (speed mix)" An got about an 1/8 of the way through it before failing.

I dont know how long Drew didn't play before he regained interest in DDR, but it's been 10 days and I've been dying to get back on an DDREx arcade to play some of the heavys again. I havent played much extreme prior to, so there were a lot of songs I didn't know. I found a lot of songs interesting, so I want to go back an play them on heavys. I've played twice since the event. THe first time ant Main Event and I wasnt fully recovered, so I wasn't doing so well. The other time was at my house with MAX on PS2 and I was having a blast again.

I hope I was able to answer any questions that you guys have. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] if you have more questions, or post here. Thanks again for all your support.

-Keith

[Reloaded972]

This is what they send 2 weeks after the event...


Dear Mr Floresca,

Many thanks for your enquiry.

Unfortunately, you may then have to do the attempt without the machine. We dropped the specific record for dance machines because they vary too much and keep changing from year to year.

If you have any further queries please let us know.


Yours sincerely,

Sophie Whiting
Guinness World Records


So...uh...there isnt any world recrod, and there never will be. Drew and I got screwed on that part. Oh well, I raised good money.

Maybe we should keep our own world records on ddrfreak. We could make up our own categories and stuff. That way, people can do it their own way....

Longest non-stop: any difficulty
Longest non-stop: doubles
Longest non-stop: heavy
so on and so on

Just a suggestion.

[Hellkite664]

I go to the Guiness website all the time. If there IS no world record, set one. Hell, I wanna do it too. They say each machine vaires right? Set a record for a MAX2 machine or something.
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Pizza is better than nothing.
Nothing is better than true love.
Through the transitive property,
Pizza is better than true love.

[t3nacious]

Sorry to dig up an old topic, but I wanted to thank Reloaded for respecting my first record and going through with the attempt despite Guinness's joke of support. Getting the set of rules for a Dance Machine Marathon was nearly impossible, and every response seemed to come from a computer automated dummy. I can understand their difficulty, everyone wants an official record for every little thing. I have to thank DDR Freak for the recognition but unfortunitly we will never have an official record.

It's been almost 6 months since the last time I played DDR. Our local arcade shut down due to a Mall expansion and our DDR Machine (the one which the record took place on) was moved into a Regal Cinemas. Playing DDR there feels like puting on a freak-show, besides its not even all that fun to me anymore. My DDR days might be over, but I still feel some attachment to the community. If our records can't be recognized officially by Guinness, it'd be nice to see our record attempts become official throughout the community. I do realise that people disagree with the record, the rules, and the challenge. Maybe the community could come together and vote on a set of rules, more acceptable than Guinness's. It'd be nearly pointless to follow their rules for a Dance Machine Marathon since the record isn't even available through them. Why force further record attempts to obey these rules? These rules should become obsolete. Not completely removed, but heavly modified.

If anyone other than Reloaded has made record attempts, or are starting record attempts, please email me at [email protected] I'd like to see justice brought forth for our efforts.

-Drew

[toady007]

If anything, the absolute minimum difficultly should be Light mode.

There are no corner jumps on Beginner mode, so basically all of the quote "DDR skill" it requires is to stand on the brackets and shift your weight every couple of seconds. This literally equates to standing upright for 40 hours straight. Assuming I didn't fall asleep, I could eat, drink, watch TV, and get a blowjob while playing Beginner mode.

If this is going to be a DDR record, then make it hard enough that some movement has to be required? Unless you have a godly future technique most people would still have to jump on songs like Jam Jam Reggae or Make It Better heavy. I'm sure there is already a "stand up for ten days" record or something, and those people don't get breaks.
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