Anyone doing DDR for exercise?
 

I'm trying. I hate exercise but DDR is like biofeedfback... :carrot:

of course i can't do half the moves and i feel uncoordinated.:dizzy:

my husband's boss's son did it a few years ago and lost 35 pounds just doing DDR... of course he was 12 at the time....:(

so any DDR folks out there with hints or advice?

I love DDR. My best advice is to just stick with it and do the tutorials and easy levels until you "get" it. You'll start to pick it up and can slowly advance from there. Like anything else, if you try to "jump right in" it'll get frustrating and it won't be enjoyable.

Something that really helped me was to resist the tendancy to go back to center in between moves.

really i thought you needed to return to center....

oy sometimes i just get frustrated and run around the mat and then i still get good scores... LOL

Don't worry, you will get the hang of it!! Last summer I was completely horrible. Now, I'm not as bad... but I still won't do it in front of people. ;)
But yea, don't go back to center. Try playing with your feet spread apart on the left and right arrows. Once you get used to doing that its soo much easier.

What is this DDR? I'm mystified :)

do you guys use the left foot always for front or always for back and the right foot for the opposite?


DDR is Dance Dance Revolution. i'm doing the home version of the arcade game on the playstaion 2....

I love DDR! DH got it for us around the time I got pregnant last year and I played it until I felt it was unsafe for me. But I still suck at it and can only really do it on light to medium mode, but it's still fun and boy do my legs ache afterwards.

I'm still in LESSON/TRAINING MODE i think i burn more calories laughing than dancing.

I thinnnnkkk:?: I use left for back and right for front most of the time, depending on where I'm standing on the mat.
I'd have to play right now to tell ya hehe

http://www.8ttb.com/_images/pics/pic...R%20junkie.JPG

THAT is DDR,... I don't know who those people are.... I googled it.:D

I played DDR a LOT last year. At first, I was horrible and I had to be very careful because I'd fall down a lot! I kept practicing and eventually I made it to light mode... then to standard mode. Just keep working at it! It takes some practice and some getting used to. It can be a lot of fun.

I always noticed my heart rate dropped when I would be choosing songs or waiting for a new round to begin. I'd give the nonstop mode or something similar a chance (there's hardly a break between songs, so be careful!). It kept my heart rate up more. I'd put a few slow songs between the fast and hard ones to recover a bit :)

THANKS everyone!

I love DDR! It's my main source of exercise, after which I do a little stretching and some "weight training" with my own body as the weights. :lol: It does take some getting used to, though.
True story. Once I was able to do Basic with no problem and most Challenge songs with "Workout Step" on (so there aren't TOO many super-fast steps), I started sharing it with my family and friends... Some of them really liked it, but a lot of them got really frustrated when the steps didn't always register, and they had a hard time with timing. I was really frustrated the first day, too, because I just paid like $100 for the game and mat and it wasn't as simple as I expected, but sticking with it another day or two made me love it.

Be careful with your foot placement! I have unlady-like size 9 (or so) feet and got used to lifting my toes up if I was standing in the center so as not to hit the front arrow with the toes or the back with my heel. It's also extremely easy to hit the side arrows unintentionally while in the middle - another great reason for this advice:
Probably the best tip anyone could give for DDR. :) Took me a lil' to realize it, as well.

If you haven't already, I also recommend you turn on "Workout Step" in your personal settings (if you're using Workout Mode) - it makes things vastly easier, and lets you do a variety of what WOULD have been harder songs without breaking an ankle.

I started out with Workout Step on and Jump off to ease into the flow of things, and now Jump has to be on to get me sweatin'. After a few more weeks of practice (and hopefully some weight-loss) I'm going to turn Jump back off and switch off Workout Step and try all of the songs with the fast, off-beat notes in there. I've tried it for fun a few times and it's even more of a workout than jumping all over the mat! It's HARD to move that fast, and a real challenge to follow the music/arrows when they're hitting off-beats.

For reference, right now I do mostly "random" songs, all of which are at Challenge (3rd difficulty level out of 5) with Workout Step on and Jump on, and I go for around an hour, usually a tad more. Even with my weight set lower than it really is (to fool the game) it still says I burn 500 - 600 calories per session.

Also, if you're more gifted with coordination than I am, you can throw in some dance arm moves to burn some extra calories. I can on slow songs, but they're usually flopping dead-weights at my sides during hard songs, haha. :dizzy: Or, just hold them out to the side so they get a little exercise, too. It doesn't take much of that for mine to start burning.

Bonus: I think I'm going to have chiseled calves after awhile on this game, because I live in a 2nd floor apartment and I'm constantly stepping lightly on the balls of my feet so as not to anger the downstairs neighbors! :sumo:

:dance: Keep on dancin'! :dance:

I don't even know now to do personal settings or workout step but i'll keep checking.

I also have big feet and no coordination.

I feel ya! I still get twisted up, too.

Do you play in Workout Mode? (If you have DDR:Supernova like me it should be the 3rd option from the top on the main menu.) If you do, there should be an option to create your own workout profile, so it will keep track of your time/calories over the weeks and months and you can review your records whenever you want. It's great!

Once you make your own profile, you can input your weight. This is for the purpose of calculating how many calories you're burning with each step, so to be safe I would put in a LOWER weight than the truth - otherwise, I figure the game will flatter me and say I burned a lot more than I really did!

On the same screen as your weight there should be some other options, like if you want to set a time or calorie "timer" for your workout, and the options "Workout Step" and "Jump."

Workout Step makes it a little easier because it makes sure you won't have to take any steps faster than a quarter note (if you've ever played/sung any music you know what I mean... Since I was raised on music, I was shocked to learn that my BF didn't know!). Basically, slows the steps down on SOME songs. Not all songs have really fast steps to begin with, just FYI.

Jump is pretty self-explanatory. In my opinion, jumps take a little bit to learn, so you'll be doing yourself a big favor to turn these off at the beginning. Once you're used to the mat and arrows and the game in general you can turn it on for a LOT more calories burned. :carrot:

I don't know if I explained very well, but I encourage you to check it out! If you can turn Workout Step on and Jump off I think it will be even easier to get used to than in Tutorial Mode, but that is me. :) We're all different!