Mental blocks are just as hard to overcome as physical ones. It took me YEARS to pass Max 300. Mostly 'cause I had built up this belief in my head that I couldn't pass the boss songs, no matter what.

Somehow, once I finally did pass it, The other maxes followed close behind it. Sometimes we psyche ourselves out too much.

These two aren't personal, but the employees at the arcade I used to hang out at told me these stories that I thought were interesting.

The first one was one of the employees playing Dance Maniax and getting really into it.  He ended up hitting his hand on one of the sensors HARD and when he came around with it again, ended up flinging blood over ten feet away onto the walls.  IIRC, he needed stitches to close the gash in his hard.

The second was a sketchy guy running into the arcade and then laying low in the back.  A few minutes later some cops showed up looking for someone who'd robbed a liquor store or something.  An employee motioned to the guy in the back who ended up getting arrested and led out in handcuffs.  :/


Two personal ones are when I was total fatass, I played Energizer on easy (lol) and ended up so winded I had to go sit outside by the bushes because I almost threw up from over exertion.  I'm happy to say that I've literally halved my weight by changing my diet since then.

Second was later on when I was still playing 7 and 8 foot songs on hard.  I played Romeo & Juli8 on expert (which is a 9 foot song) as my last song of the set without even expecting to pass it.  I passed it and it totally blew me away.  I started playing expert 9s and passing them after that.  Before then, every expert 9 I played I failed miserably but would play them anyway as my last song for the practice.

It was almost like passing Romeo & Juli8 that night unlocked something in my brain.  All of a sudden I could pass songs that I couldn't even come close to passing not even a day before.  I'm still not really sure what happened.  Weird, I know.

Sometime circa 2004 in Pullman, the local mall's arcade had a series of DDR Extreme tournaments. For the 'final tournament' they moved the entire DDR machine out into the mall's main walk. For us players, it was awesome. We gathered huge crowds of 30 - 40 people and got to show off our moves. Unfortunately, the other mall tenants didn't appreciate the noise pollution. Apparently the music echoed all the way down the entire mall. The arcade operator said he probably couldn't do something like that again, so I'm glad I got in on it while I could.

P.S. I have an old picture of the event. If I can find it, I'll post it.

I will never forget the day I gave 5 little fan girls autographs... I had just finished beasting HDV Oni at Acme...The next thing you know, I was shown a pencil and a piece of paper, requesting for my autograph. It was the darnest thing, and so I proceeded in fulfilling the little girls wishes.

That is the first time ever, anyone has asked me for an autograph... And so that's my Bemani story. =)

He did. It was the first song of the last set and I was in no condition to continue the next song after that. Also, it was getting late and the arcade dude wanted to close shop and get home. =D

So who won the match???

I recall passing Paranoia Survivor for the first time. It was a huge moment for me since the hardest thing I could pass at the time was Sakura on Heavy.