Name: Becoming the World's Best DDR Player
Uploaded: 2018-10-04T16:34:41.000Z
Duration: 11 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

CHRIS: It was so much adrenaline going through my head.

There was the crowd of like, I don't even know how many people. Like, hundreds.

But I was just in the spotlight, and it was just so crazy to have all that happen to me, all at once.

JEFF: I've always liked the idea of being good at one thing.

Now, it's kinda cool I get to, you know, tell my friends

or my co-workers or new people I meet, like

'Hey. I'm one of the best Dance Dance Revolution players in the world."

CHRIS: I've been playing DDR since I was thirteen.

My neighbor had it and I was over at her house and we played it one time.

I got the game and then I pretty much was playing every day after that.

There's something about the rhythm, keeping exactly in the rhythm.

It kinda gets me going. Like, I don't know.

And then the other thing is the, just the competitive aspect.

I noticed that I was getting better at such a fast rate, that I was like, Oh my god.

Like, I feel like I'm actually really good and I could actually go somewhere with this.

JEFF: I've been playing DDR since November 3rd, 2003.

I know the exact date because I found my Gamestop receipt of me buying DDRMAX2 for the PlayStation 2.

I saw some people play at the arcade at some point. It was like, that's kind of like, that's neat.

It's totally different than anything I'd ever seen before.

I always think back to playing in my basement.

I couldn't, like, if I was having a bad day or something

I'd play DDR and a smile would just come on my face.

Like it was just, I could not be sad playing this amazing game.

So it's just, it's totally life changing for me.

I knew that the DDR community in America was kickstarted immediately.

It was such, like, such an improvement onto the previous DDR mixes.

JEFF: We had gotten so many releases of DDR that were not so great.

HUDSON:They were bootleg hacked mixes or, you know, it was never officially released in the US.

We weren't really connected with the rest of the world.

JEFF: And so, hearing that we'd get DDR Ace, it's like 'Okay, like, what's the catch?'

HUDSON: Everyone's like, 'Yeah, okay, that's a pipe dream.'

And then the game came. And the pads were fine.

And the monitor was fine. And we're online.

And we have all the songs and we're connected with everybody.

It was like, 'Wait a second, do we actually have DDR now?!'

It's like we're having a dance game renaissance in America right now.

CHRIS: And then they announce KAC and I was like, oh my god.

Like, this is my chance to prove that I'm, I can be an international DDR champion.

And then, ever since they announced that, I was training to get the highest score at the qualifiers

and then eventually, to win the tournament.

JEFF: It's about 4:30 in the morning on February 8th

and I'm about to head to the airport to fly to KAC.

CHRIS: There was a qualifying period between December and January

and basically, they release these two sets of three songs.

JEFF: The sum of your scores were sent to the server

and you could play them as many times as you wanted.

CHRIS: The top two from each region get flown out to Tokyo for the event.

Plus, the one wildcard: the highest third-place score from the three regions.

JEFF: It was really awesome knowing that I was going to not only get to go,

but all my friends that I've met across Japan, we're all going to be in the same building for at least one day.

CHRIS: Getting to play with all the Japanese players the night before was

definitely a highlight of the whole trip.

They were like, really hype exhibition  matches that I'll never forget.

CHRIS: "I think it's gonna be a really close game, actually."

CHRIS: Warming up was kind of an issue. we had

We had to improvise running up and down the stairs.

JEFF: Chris and Hudson were like, using the stairway railing as a bar

JEFF: I was thinking a lot about the semi-finals.

Just, didn't even know if I would make it out of the semi-finals.

JEFF: The semi-finals was four players.  There were two songs.

JEFF: I think it'll go down in like, my lifetime, as like the craziest thing I'll ever do on stage

It means getting every note judgment as either marvelous or perfect.

Like, higher than anyone else has gotten.

And he did it on command, like, in a tournament.

JEFF: Everyone was just like, hands up in the air just like, thrills.

Cause that's like, that's the first time anyone's PFC'ed a song in KAC.

JEFF: "Apparently it's trending on Twitter and people are talking about it like crazy."

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Becoming the World's Best DDR Player

anxiety

rhythm

aspect

adrenaline