All she wants to do is dance

[owlmoose]

Once each quarter, we have a student worker meeting, and afterwards we usually try to do something fun. So today we went out to an arcade for a couple of hours. First was air hockey; I lost the one game I played pretty badly (although not as badly as I expected to), but the others were mostly evenly matched so it was really fun to watch them. Then we played a little skee ball and a few other things, and after that we made our way to the Dance Dance Revolution machine.

I had never played DDR before. I've long been curious about it, both because I hear it's fun and I've wondered if it might be a good way to get some exercise. But I never had a chance to play until today.

I loved it. I had a blast.

And, somewhat surprisingly, I'm actually sort of good at it. Not, like, amazing or anything (the one student who plays a lot could probably dance circles around me), but compared to the other two people who hadn't played before, I did really well. Definitely better than I would have expected for a game that's so physical.

So now I'm thinking much more seriously about picking it up for myself. I know there are some DDR players out there; any suggestions about which version is the best? (Of the PS2 games; we don't have an XBox. Although if anyone has tried the Wii version I'd be curious to hear that as well.) Also wondering whether the default dance pad is good enough, or whether it's worth shelling out for a higher-end one. Any and all thoughts on the subject are welcome.

Comments

[rustehroll.livejournal.com]

I prefer the hard dance pads for two reasons -- it's hard to wear shoes on the soft ones (and we put a piece of plywood down under ours) because your shoes kind of "pick up" the plastic, and going shoeless ends up with the balls of your feet developing bone spurs like my friend did. (she was using it as her primary form of exercise)

That said, she lost a TON of weight, and had the nicest butt ever. Shell out the extra for the better, hard dance pad, or retrofit yours with a piece of plexi on the top, and a piece of plywood on the bottom. Your feet will thank you.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's good to know. I probably won't invest in a hard pad right away -- I'd hate to sink a ton of money into one and never use it -- but if I find I really take to it, I expect I'll probably upgrade. Do you recommend any particular hard pad?