Signs of progress
On Wednesday I reached a milestone: I successfully completed Healing Vision Angelic Mix at Heavy difficulty.
This is a notoriously difficult Dance Dance Revolution song from DDR 6th Mix (although there are many contenders for the title of "hardest song" and this is probably not one of them objectively). Since various DDR players have esteemed it as an extremely difficult song, and since it was one of the several hardest DDR songs I had ever seen someone complete in an arcade, it meant a lot to me to think of someday being able to complete it. Now I have, so I can claim, I think, finally to be a decent DDR player.
Angelic Mix and several other difficult songs I've passed are rated at 9 feet of difficulty; there are now a number of 9-foot songs I can reliably complete and others that I can't, which just goes to show that the number of feet does not represent something objective. (More precisely, the difficulty measured in feet isn't a well-ordered indication of my ability or inability to complete songs.) I have yet to pass a 10-foot or flashing 10-foot song, but now I think I'm going to get there.
It's amazing to think of the kids at the mall who are really good DDR players and can get a full combo on Healing Vision Angelic Mix or even substantially harder songs. It's clear that there are people not even in their teens yet who could absolutely clobber me, perhaps without even looking at the screens: for whose tournaments I could not even qualify, whose attention I could not elicit by playing, and who can make Heavy or Challenge play of songs I can't even pass appear effortless.
Professor Rudich taught in the name of an aikido master that the beginner makes an enormous motion, the expert makes a smaller motion, and the master makes an almost imperceptible motion.
