get better at DDR

I totally sucked at DDR the other day since I was sick. I got a C on Spin the Disc heavy and failed A heavy. Both are 8 foot songs :(

Right afterward a guy got on the machine and A’ed Healing Vision Angelic Mix and Rhythm and Police (both hard 9 foot songs). I felt like I really suck after that. I need more practice!

I passed 2 new 9 foot level songs today.

Can’t Stop Falling in Love (Speed Mix) with a D.
Insertion with a B.

Still not quite:
So Deep
Matsuri Japan (Should be easy. I need more practice with gallops.)
Rhythm And Police

No 10 foot passes as of yet. The local arcade is getting a brand new DDR supernova cabinet later this month!

I bought a new metal DDR pad. I didin’t go with the flux because I couldn’t justify spending $350 on a game controller. That’s too much really.

I ended up purchasing the BNS fusion metal pad from buynshop.com. The pad looks really nice but when I received it, the thing was a dud right out of the box. The problem is the control box, so I don’t want to ship the entire pad back just because the control box is bad. I’m going to contact BNS today to see if they will just exchange the control box and to find out what type of quality control these guys have on these dance pads. So far I do not recommend the fusion due to what’s written above but that may change depending on what BNS does to correct the situation.

I haven’t played DDR in a couple of months outside of the arcade because I keep breaking dance pads. I’ve gone through 2 of the ignition style hard foam pads and one of the flimsy “soft” pads that I’ve duct taped to a piece of plywood.

I’m going to buy a Cobalt Flux next week sometime. I hear that they will last a very, very long time under heavy use and there’s even a video of someone running over one with an SUV, then AAing holic on the same pad afterward.

Anyhow, my scores are starting to drop after not playing regularly enough. I can barely pass the 9 footers I used to get B and C on and I’m getting C on the 8 footers that I used to A and AA.

What type of dance pad does everyone here use?