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Jan 23, 2011

Expert/Challenge Tips

On expert and challenge you will need to run much more regularly from arrow to arrow. Start off on slower songs that are around 150 BPM. It's alright if you can only get a D. Just keep playing a few weeks and then take a break for a few weeks. Suddenly, you will come back and that D may turn into a C or a low B. Keep training your brain and continue relearning the step patterns. Soon, you'll be able to step it up to 170 BPM and then 190. Every time you make a breakthrough it feels like you've reached your peak. When you feel like this all you have to do is take another break and then come back. Believe me, you will keep getting better. Physical limitations are the only limits and learning new techniques will help you get beyond these.

-Gallops-
Have you ever seen a stream of arrows that has two of each arrow coming at you but are not spaced evenly together? Likely, these are gallops. The way you handle gallops is by treating them like jumps. The only difference is you let one foot land before the other. Once both feet have landed, use the energy you put on the second foot to spring yourself back up so you can do your next gallop. Once you get this down these notes become very easy. Eventually, you will find gallops integrated into a stream of evenly spaced notes and they will be easy to do.

-Crossovers-
There are some arrow combinations that seem like they're impossible to do by alternating your feet each note. A common example of this is shown here.    Your first instinct is to use the same foot twice in a row on two arrows. This may work at first but it will slow you down on harder songs. The correct technique is to put your left foot on the left arrow. Then put your right foot on the up arrow. Finally, take your left foot and bring it behind you to the right arrow. It kind of leaves you turned around but it is the quickest way to do this combination. With enough practice, doing crossovers becomes very fun to do. DanDanDo on expert is a great official song for learning crossovers. Most other songs just have crossovers thrown in every now and then.

-Heel-Toe-
The final technique to learn is heel-toe. This is important to learn in order to have enough energy for the hardest songs in the game. The whole point of this technique is to save energy and shave off time in between notes. To do this, have both feet covering all the arrows. Two of the arrows will be covered by your toes and two will be covered by your heels. You will be facing diagonally either to the left or right. One foot will always cover the top arrow along with the left or right. The other foot will cover the bottom arrow along with the remaining left or right arrow. Try to stay in the position you are in as long as you can. Only pivot your body when you need to. Remember, the whole point of this is to minimize movement. Another benefit from applying the heel-toe technique is that your stance becomes closer to the center. When you're closer to the center your body stands up straighter. When you stand up straighter you can move faster. Test it out. When you stand with your feet completely on the left and right arrows you feel more spread out. The straighter you are the better. Keep practicing all these techniques and eventually you'll be able to pass any song!

-16th Arrows-
As you get better you will encounter 16th arrows. These are easy to do but can wear you out if you're not in good enough shape. I can jog for miles but a hard DDR song that has a lot of 16th arrows will tire me out almost as much. My tip for this is to simply to get in shape by playing DDR a lot. Once you are able to pull off a stream of these you will really look like you're insane! Not only that but a song that skillfully adds 16th arrows and gallops allows the arrows to flow with the song better which adds personality to it. Once you learn how to do 16th arrows and gallops very smoothly, then you are ready for a boss song! But how do you get from being able to do level 9's to boss songs? This leads to my next tip. Play In The Groove.

-Progressing to Level 10 Songs-
The problem with DDR is that there are hardly any songs to transition you from the average level 9 song to a boss song. Boss songs are way too hard compared to regular songs and there is nothing to get you ready for them. In The Groove is the perfect solution. There are no boss songs in ITG. Almost all the songs in ITG have a difficulty that is almost as hard, if not, as hard as a boss song. The way ITG did the step combinations makes this my favorite version to play on. The creators skillfully added every technique to make it the most fun playing experience. If you want to buy ITG, you can find it used very cheap off of amazon or similar web sites.

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