Tell your story about how you started playing DDR...

[wschmrdr]

Well, it all started when I first got to college. I went down to the local games room and saw a whole bunch of people playing. Then one person said to me, "Hey, wanna try this?" I liked it, played a few more times, someone asked me to join the college's DDR club, and the rest is history. My first machine was 4th mix.

[mei_iro]

One day while at a mall called Eastridge in San Jose, CA, I was just walking around and there was his new store that I just decided to check out. I saw to Dance Dance Revolution 3rd MIX machines in the store and I was like, "Woah. What's this? *blink blink?*" And then I just decided to try out the game and at first I thought, 'Omg, this is hard and really fun. So yeah. I've been playing DDR since... 2001. Yeah, four years. But I didn't play for about... a little less than a year for sometime back then and now I am back in the game and I'm also learning the music and style of other BEMANI games. Nowadays my friends hate it when I play DDR because I got too good at it. I AA songs if I set my mind to it... because most times I just wanna' play for the hell of it or just freestyle. Spins and stuff. ^^ So yeah. I have AA'd many time and I am still trying my best at playing Heavy and Doubles. It's sorta' hard; I just hate it when there are a bunch of arrows heading towards the center right/left arrows. Yup. I recently AA'd Synchronized Love and Kick The Can on Heavy/Doubles. It wasn't that hard. ^^

So yeah. Err... I'm not being offensive in any way to Asian people... but in San Jose, California, there's a lot of Asian people that at first see me step up to the DDR machine and since I look like a beginner(I don't know, but for some reason every person that knows how to play DDR and they see me going up to a DDR machine, they think I look like a beginner), they begin kinda' talking and mumbling behind me. No being mean, but there's seriously way too many Asian people and believe are better than me. I'm talking about the ones that walk around the malls in groups and stuff, lol. But yeah... I have Asian friends who still think they can beat me and they get pist off cause they can't, but I try to teach 'em what I can. I mean... I've taught 8 people how to go from Light to Heavy in less than about... ... ... 2 to 3 months. But now I kinda suck at teaching DDR now. Yup! ^^ I did teach DDR to people and they learned fast off of me.

I love the music that DDR provides and that is also why I play it. I mainly like the Beatmania IIDX music that DDR has because it's just awesome, and now I am trying to learn to play Beatmania IIDX on my computer because I just love Beatmania IIDX music! Yes, IIDX rocks!

Also, I love the Dancemania Speed music and I currently have the Dancemania Speed G, G2, G3, G4, and G5 albums and other Dancemania albums and they're great.

I mainly play because of the music, the steps, and the fun of being a freestyler in DDR. ^^ Sometimes it's fun to have competition against people and make it look like a fierce battle cause I like to do that. Well, I only do that when there are people who just really hate it when I play DDR and they're trying to claim that they are better than me. I show no effort in battles actually... I play DDR really good in battles, but I always have a smile on my face because I'm always ready to laugh when I battle. lol Seriously. Usually my battles are to make sure that I keep my title and people that think they're better than me don't beat me. I'm a nice person, but just don't underestimate me in DDR. If you want I can freestyle instead playing normal in a battle, but that's only on an occassion such as the person I'm battling has LOTS OF PEOPLE with him/her and the friends are just rooting for them while I'm all alone... then it turns out that I just told off the whole group of people, lol.

I have never been video recorded while playing DDR and I hope that I never do. The way I play is my own little style and I just don't want others to copy that off of me.

Also, I have never joined a DDR tournament and I think I won't even want to. Maybe later on. I'm really good right now, the Standard DDR players would call me somewhat a pro already but I don't think I am. So yeah...


Anyways. I started DDR in 2001, gotten a lot better since, and now people love it when I play.

P.S.
Someone mentioned that they saw a person playing Legend of Max on Heavy/Dark/Double/x8/Boost... well, I find that impossible. First of all, how can anyone possibly fully memorize the steps to a Heavy Double 10-footer like Legend of Max. And also... a fast 333bpm song like Legend of Max being AA'd on Double and you can barely see the arrows!?!... I don't believe it at all! Well... I would understand that if anyone had ever memorized the steps to a song on Heavy it would be better to play it on x8 than on Stealth because you would have people thinking, "Wow... he has really fast eye sight/reaction timing" or whatever instead of saying, "I don't see anything... what's this kid playing to?" Yeah... Anyways, I find that impossible.

That's me.
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Dark Hue
taka942

[fadingmemories47]

My brother and I started DDR somewhere near the beginning of when it came out (my mother had just come back from Taiwan and she brought it over with her).

When we first played the songs, it was horrible >.< Neither of us knew now it worked and had to figure things out as for a lot of the things were in japanese, though it wasn't the hardest to figure out.

I remember "can ya' dig it" and "sexy planet" being the hardest songs for us to beat (and that was on basic).

Soon my brother quit, I kept playing... After a year of playing, I stopped because no one played with me.
Up to then I had the first and second ddr with the second's explansion (i think that's their versions anyway), and as time went by, I heard about new ddr games that have come out, but no one I knew played- in fact, that all thought it was too stupid and ridiculous and called it an "asian thing".

My playstation was foreign.. so it couldn't play the american issues of ddr but soon one day my friend told me about a converter called "Golden Finger".
Suddenly a person I knew showed up at my door with his buddy, holding a burned copy of konomix saying "don't you play this game?" I said yes and we played then I realized how much further they were.... I was only at the peak of advance/trick mode.
Though not as good as them, they prized me saying that though I can't play the harder songs, I have this whole style rhythm to it (so i blushed ^^)

I then introduced the game to my friend and he nearly caught up to me in 2 months. We would play for hours on end. We then introduced it to a few friends of his and we played for about 5 hours that night. DDR MAX had just come out and so i tried max300 on standard, I couldn't believe that I beat it and then tried it on heavy and well.. it was distasterous.

The 2 friends of his that we introduced the game to did this:
One bought the game and 2 pads immediately.
The other bought a ps2, 2 pads, max, konomix, and extra mix the next day.

One of them now does max300/unlimited and such rather easily on heavy, my friend beats it and got a B or something, the other we stopped contacting.

It was until I saw Jing's video, dancing long runnin' train when I realized...

All this time I've been doing SSR- Step Step Revolution. DDR is about dancing... DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION for goodness sakes! From then on I been playing mostly on basic and advanced and trying to make up moves as much as possible, despite how funny it felt.

Thanks Jing! and Phrekwenci! Your videos inspired me to become an actual dancer to DDR! Someday I may become like you guys, and who knows.. maybe we'll DDR someday!

**Sorry for the long story, but when I think back of how everyone thought I was weird to play DDR, it's come a long way because now a lot of people talk to me about the game, some even ask me for advice, and there was the first actual ddr tourny in the mall just last saturday in my town so LETS GET DDR ON THE GO!!!!
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"we are but memories we hold and what others hold of us" - me

[fadingmemories47]

I just read your thread and thought of a few things, not sure if double posting like this is a taboo, but here I go.

First,
It seems that for asians:
American-born Asians either:
A) Are embarrassed about their parents
B) Learn their own culture and try to understand everybody
"A"s are the ones that usually sit there and judge people, they're the ones that try too hard to fit in a group and usually end up "gangsta"

Native Asians either:
A) Separate themselves and say "White people this, white people that" and rarely give another color a chance (which is what most minorties seem to do...).
B) Assimilate and try to understand cultures of both their own and others'.

Again, "A"s are the ones that seem to judge people most...

As an asian in a college town, I see so much of this it starts to bother me...

Now this doesn't mean just asians. I have friends of all colors (black, asian, latino, white). But most of the ones around here separate themselves from everyone else as the latinos try to be black... the blacks being "gangsta" (my black friend hates it when people say "brotha" because he believes that it's just laughing at what their ancestors have gone through for their freedom today), asian-cambodians often act "gangasta" too. Rest of the asians are either schooling for computer science, graphics design, doctors and such, and some own chinese food places (there are about 10 in this city alone), and the rest are doing businesses.

My white friends always get "Don't be hatin', you don't know me" ect... I feel bad for them because a lot of them I know really arnt racists (or else they wouldnt have a friend like me and hang out with the people we do).
Though now and then someone we're hangin' out with will bust out a racist comment which we've decided as a group that racism is just ridiculous.

It's 4:30 am, sorry if I don't make sense. When I'm sleepy it's like when I'm drunk... can't figure out what sounds right and what doesnt.
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"we are but memories we hold and what others hold of us" - me

[Angel_With_Healing_Vision]

Man. Where should I begin.

I roughly came across DDR roughly about the summer of 2002. I had come into st. john's for a holiday because my parents were helping my younger sister move out of her rented house. To me I had come into the city at a pretty good time because while I was in St. John's I got to see Star Wars: Episode II and Spiderman.

I seen DDR when the USA mix was in and I have to admit when I first say it I was definetely captivated. I never did attempt to play it at that time because I always knew I wasn't that great at dancer and I couldn't keep any kind of a grove if my life depended on it. The first songs I seen played was actually one of my favourite dance songs of all time which was Dub I Dub by Me & My.

If you haven't had a chance to see the video for that song, you should with two incredibly cute girls dressed as nurses. There was a part of me that wanted to play, but to my friends that know me well, I tend to be incredibly shy. The first did is I had to call my gf at that time to tell her about it at that time, because she loved to dance so I thought if she had a chance to play it she would enjoy it.

Fast Foward 1 year>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

After finishing my university degree, and that relationship not going well, I ended up in st. john's doing a semester of university which I incredibly hated, I established a good group of friends which I'm still with and continue to be with, I started learning of more people in my group that played DDR.

The first time I ever played was on Halloween roughly about two years ago at one of Uiru's house parties. The reason why its so memorable to me, is that night one of my friends slammed the back door of the vehicle as I was helping her out by accident and crushed one of my fingers. So I don't know if it was the painkillers I was on that night, but I finally got up and played it. I even remember the first three songs I played on the cobalt flux. I played Love Shine (Beginner), then someone suggested I play BAG on 3x speed (Passed), and then someone I totally forget who it was but then they suggested for me to play legend of max on beginner, but whoever set it up left the 3X speed mod so of course (Failed).

So I kept practicing on beginner at Uiru's parties for about two weeks then I moved on to light or make to my friend feel better (basic), lol. I was stuck on basic for the longest and I eventually moved up to standard, oh crap, I didn't mean that, I meant trick. When I first moved up to trick then I finally started playing at the arcade when the extreme machine was there. I only played on light, then eventually moved to standard. When I got on light my DDR group of friend were fully established. I always thought to myself, when I went to the excursions, even though I might not be the best one there, but I'll try to be the best dressed one there. My first DDR look was black shorts an orange t-shirt with a gold chain, and I wore a black ball cap backwards. My new ddr look is dressing up in all white, and being the true angel with healing vision.

Thats when I got to see all the good players play. At that time the people that really impressed me was Raul playing doubles, Omni showing awesome dance moves when it came to playing songs like spin the disc and heaven in a 57, Gergling rush doing max 300 and sakura on stealth. I finally got into heavy, damn wrong again, its maniac roughly about 7-8 months from when I first started playing. The first song I ever passed on maniac was butterfly.

Ever since then I've seen friends play and lose interest and new generation of ddr players rising up through the ranks. I might not be the best player, but I'm sure as hell going to try to be the oldest player that plays this game continously, lol.

I can definetely remember some good times we had roughly over a year ago. There was a time in which there was an all out war between our group of friends and a lot of the other people that played the game and use to steal dollars off the machine, and make fun of the better players who are our friends on the machine.

I would probably have to say my greatest accomplishment has been black flagging one 7 footer on maniac. I slowly trying to pass every nine footer on the extreme machine, before I move up to the 10's.
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The greatest respect comes from knowing that no one is no better or no worse than anybody else.

Healing Vision: Angelic Mix (Where Angels Dance Their Way Into The Heavens)

[paranoidmaxxmachine]

One of friends showed me this game one time when i went over. He was playing on this crappy $10.00 foam pad that slid everywhere... but anyway, i really got into through him. I started playing 2 years ago and now i play on heavy and kick @$$! I love DDR, i play it all the time and i am always trying to improve at the game. i never get board because i have 4 different DDR games and i am going to get my 5th, ITG, soon.
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My ITGfreak Sim Museum---_---_---_--- My DDRfreak Sim Museum

[Artimihcast]

first, my oldest cuz went to university. after awhile he came back, and he explained everything! he said him and his friends would play at the machines nonstop. so now i play standard/heavy and my younges cuz plays heavy. now im totally addicted, and just for no reason i have extreme, and extreme 2!!
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What did the grape say when the bottle crushed him? Nothing, he just let out a little wine.

[xDDR infatuation]

when i was little (like 6) my neighbor (who was 5) had DDR and a basic pad (come on we were kids, who cared about quality?) xD" so like. we'd fool around on it but i'd never actually played cause I was a shyy shyy kid at the time D: anywho. when I was... either 12 or 13 my mom won an xbox (like when it first came out). so she was all... "what games do you want for it" and I thought for a while and since I`m like the MMORPG game freak type, xbox was like. sporty and like. well not MMORPG. sooo i was like... "...let's get DDR" since like my bf (at the time) played... so she got me ultraremix . and a foam pad. and then i played it my first time for 6 hours straight and i was like "OMFG!! this game rocks!" so i practiced and tried to get better. and I kind of a did after like 6 hours a day. and then i got my friends into it! and then i bought ultraremix 2 when it came out and will buy ultraremix3 when that one comes out (this month if they keep their word). and then bought like ps2 ddr games too and then played like heck on arcades. and I made A LOT of new ddr freak friends irl just by being into ddr. I love it. OH. and me and my friends are now working on a routine... just for the fun of it (:

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[Toxic Candy]

I'm pretty sure I played my very first step game (It wasn't DDR... I don't recall the name of it. The arrows were kinda tilted a little bit instead of being straight, and there was something you had to hit in the middle. Anyone know what it's called?) in 2003. I had NO idea how the game worked, and the level of the song went by stars (I didn't notice at first, so I accidentally picked a pretty difficult song). I got so intimidated that I actually ran away from the machine. My mom started yelling at me about wasting tokens, but by the time I went back to the machine, I'd failed.

I actually started playing the REAL DDR in 2004. My friend and I were obsessed with it and tried to play every time we got a chance. It took me a little while to move up from Beginner to Basic/Light. Then for my 14th b-day (2005), my mother and sister put their money together and got me a Red Octane pad. It was all downhill from there. <_<
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Goals: Rhythm and Police (K.O.G G3 Mix) Heavy / Healing Vision (Angelic Mix) - Standard / 1/16 steps in general

[vegitto-kun]

Well, when I was in the UK with my girlfriend we went shopping in GAME and saw Dancing stage:mario mix, so I bought it for her, then I started liking it so I bought another one for myself, then a week later I want to the futuris game experience and played mario mix on a real DDR pad and loved it, was one of the best there .I am getting quite good at it but I probably suck badly on the real DDR arcade games.

[AA Bob]

[Toxic Candy]

[GARYYY]

it was pump it up i think


my story : Jun 3 2005
I skipped school and showed up at the arcade around 2
my friend got there about 3, and since he had one tournaments
i figured it was best i had him teach me
i progressed passed beginner in 1 song
took about 2 weeks to get from light to standard
about 2 weeks to get from standard to heavy
about 3 months after that i passed ps
now i can AA some songs and pass max 300 yea
not much of a story, but hey, more typing makes it look interesting
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"You are now officially elite" - theblackwindsrising , sweetest words i've ever heard

Hearing those words and still barely failing psmo, maybe i shouldn't have played 11's on itg right before trying though. hmmmm???

[DancinN00b]

About six months ago I was visiting my cousins. They live in the country and there isn't much to do so we went in to town to play Putt Putt. We got bored with that and waiting for my uncle to pick us up so we decided to play some games. I saw the DDR but didn't pay attention at first then I started to watch and when it was free I decided to try it.

I couldn't do it all at first but got pretty good at it pretty quickly. I hate to think how much I spent but I was addicted. Since then I have been going every weekend to a place about 45 min away to do it but I have just found a place much closer that has DDR. I can't wait to be able to do it more and hope to get really good and maybe enter a contest one day.

TTFN

DancinN00b

[WildAce81]

I only got involved with DDR about a year ago. My ex-gf's brother kinda dragged us into the local arcade hall without us knowing what he was up to. When we got there he showed us the DDR machine. I thought: what the f*** is this?? It looked fun though so I gave it a shot. I sucked badly.

It was only two weeks ago that I bought my own DDR version (Dancing stage Mario Mix for GCN). I was eager to try it at home without any spectators. I know that this version is a lot easier than regular DDR games but it was a good point for me to get feeling for the game. I get all perfects on easy, normal and hard (hard aint that hard).

Last Sunday I went with my ex to the same arcade hall and after one year I tried it again. I had to get used to the metal pad feeling and I normally dont play with shoes on. I played DDR on Light Mode. The arrows were quite basic but somehow I didnt perform as well as I do at home. I once managed to get a 100+ combo which I was quite satisfied about =) I already know I am addicted now =S

I certainly will visit the arcade version again, luckily I have still loads of money to play =))) It's a pity I didnt discover it sooner.

[Xair]

i started playing ddr wen i was 7 years old!!! HYPER HYPER!!!! my bestest friends bought their own and it was the first one of ddr. I got SOO addicted to it that i couldn't stop playing it!!! then when i became 9 years old i got my own ddr mat and game!!!! i started playing standard wen i was 10 yrs old. couple of months later i started to play heavy mode!!!! lvl 7!! each day passed i started playing a bit harder songs at the arcade!! the home version of the game doesn't have much songs.... the place i went to play ddr is.... pacific mall!!!!! the condition there is PERFECT!!!!! i go there almost.... everyweek!!!! on saturdays!!! wen i saw a boy about age 13.... he was playing a song called drop out!!!! the 7th version was out that time.... he was REALLY good!!! i was jus commenting..... wen i became 11 yrs old.... i learned how to play max 300 in heavy mode.... but i only knew how to get half way through the song so.... i didn't REALLY learn how to get through it... year later i was at saskatchewan to see my couzins!!! i went to an arcade called ruckers.... pretty small that place..... my couzin called that place f*ckers LOL!!!!! it was during the summer.... i played max 300 on heavy.. AND I PASSED!!! with a 'D'!!!!!!!!!!! =( but i passed it..... 2 weeks after i left saskatchewan to go home at Ontario!! wen my dad drove me home..... i discovered that i was going to my new home!!!!!!! =O WOOOW!!!! they moved without me!!!!!! o wellz.... couple of months later... i went to pacific mall and i was playing max 300... I PASSED THE SONG WITH A 'B'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!! i started playing that song once in a while at my last stage. i got bored of that song and started playing max unlimited... MAN it was hard!!! but i managed with a 'C'... not that bad.... =( still sad....... later on.... couple of weeks after... i was still 13!!!!! i started to play legend of max at playdium in mississauga!!! i lost cuz that was my first time playing that song.... so.. i watched my friend play that song so i can study it......... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA lol jus kidding... so that i kno wat would happen next in the legend of max!! so then i started ot get the hang of it... one day i was at pacific mall... i was playing the song legend of max... i passed it!!!!! YYYEEEAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got a 'B'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

am i a mutated child???

and..... that was during the summer tho..... i got a 'B'.........
i dunno if u guys'll believe me!!!!!!! =(
cuz ppl don't believe kids like me.....

my info

fastest song: legend of max
song "AA'd": some jap song in the m section... i'm cantonese so i can't read it!!
age: 13
lvl: 10
i live in ontario!!!!

best place for ddr is... pacific mall!!! u want to kno where it is?? (this is for ppl who live in ontario) go to google.ca and type: pacific mall.... the arcade is on second floor... enter the arcade... it'll be on the rite side wen u enter. NOT BESIDE U WEN U ENTER!!

so that ends my story!!!!!!!

[WildAce81]

[am i a mutated child???]

I suggest you visit a doctor soon.

[Xair]

[quote="WildAce81"][am i a mutated child???]

I suggest you visit a doctor soon.[/quote]

lol..... REALLY???? =O

[ViZioN]

Here's my story:

My brother got a DDR pad like 3 years ago, and hardly ever played it. I played it a few times but not too much. Then about a year went by and my neighbor started to play it a lot. I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. About 3 weeks ago I was bored so I got it out. I started to play and sucked really bad. Then I started progressing really fast. I skipped light and went with standard. I was on standard for about 1 week and now I can A every song 7 or below on heavy in only a month of playing. (On Ultramix that is, I don't have Ultramix 2 because I just started playing, but I plan on getting Ultrtamix 2 and Ultramix 3 soon.
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I suck at this game.

[SPAZZDOOD]

I got ddr xtreme with a softpad for my 12th birthday im still 12 ive been playin ever since im addicted to it its fun my parents or som1 got it 4 me because i saw the home system at like a EB games or somtin and said it looked kool my birthday is in june and its november now so i been playin for uhh like 6 months now i like it alot i try 2 play for at least a hour a day

DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION 4 EVER