407 Arrows: Will and Want

Kayso, just in case you didn't get the hint and all? I rock at DDR.

What is it this time, geophf? you sigh exasperatedly.

Well, I'm glad you asked.

So, I was doing my DDR thing (Ultramix 3), and I aced "Dança de Yucca."

See, it's a tango, and the beat increases in speed along with the complexity of the steps so that in changes from a tango to a tango that a whirling dervish or the Tasmanian Devil might have trouble keeping up.

I've been dancing, and loving to dance, this song for years. Years. A tango? Me? geophf? Dance a tango in real life? That might be possible, but in the virtual DDR-world, I am dancing away like a madman or Michael Flatley in Riverdance ... wait: aren't they the same thing?

So I love to dance "Dança de Yucca," but ace it? Nevah! But I did last week.

Now there is no weapon formed against me that shall prosper. So, I put in DDR Ultramix (1) and danced "La Senorita Virtual." I FCed it. For the first time, ever.

How many arrows does "La Senorita Virtual" have? I couldn't answer that question until this Tuesday past, but now I can: 407 arrows. 407 arrows in a minute and a half, and I touched them all.

Latin songs. Latin songs are so hard for the stuffy "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" dancers with their off-beat lead-ins. But now, for this pasty-faced fella?

Yeah, the site is down, so I can't show you the numbers, but yes, it's true: in over twenty-thousand DDRers out there, geophf rings in at number 38.

Psssst! Hot! I'm hot!

So of course I tried doing "Paranoia Rebirth" ... didn't quite get it, but I came close. So I left it for now. After burning through 700 kcal during that workout I knew that now was time to take a break.

For I know this, after about ten years of DDR, a FCing or acing a song is simply will and want now. If I don't FC a song, it's now because I'm not concentrating enough on it or that I don't push myself all the way through it (Paranoia and La Senorita can get tiring three-quarters of the way through). If I don't have the skill to do a song now, like Waka Laka, it's now simply a matter of doing a song over and over and over again until I do, even if that means I must do that song for years to be able to complete it.

Perfect example: Dorset Perception. I aced that song a couple of months ago, but then I played it again the next week and my score, albeit higher, wasn't an ace, so I had a low grade staring at me from that song for two months as I played and played it to regain my ace, which I did, time and time again, but didn't earn the score to knock out that lower grade.

DDR is funny: it gives you points for style as well as precision, so may dance a song "well" but not well enough to merit a better grade: I've failed songs with higher scores where I previously had an 'A' grade.

So, what to do?

Will and want.

I kept doing that song until I FCed it, restoring my ace. Now anytime I dance it, there is nothing that will take down that peg: I can now only improve on that grade.

But isn't that what life is? You work at something because you have the will to work at it and the want for it. You don't get it because you really don't want it: your will isn't directed toward that thing. Or, you get it because your will and want is such that you will get it. You don't have something? You want it bad enough and eventually you will have it.