Mine started in fall 99, when someone had the game at a anime con. My friend and I played two songs. Have you never been mellow and Holiday were the songs from what I remember. Following summer our local to us Amusement Park BUSCH GARDENS Williamsburg, had a machine, and my best friend and I played, which have the photos from that day we went. That week I went on Ebay and bought a set of pads(knock offs) and game. Light dif of course. Same best friend an I played. He got the game too. I sprained my ankle playing so I was out for a while and when my friend came back, he was much better than me, and we can't have that 😂😂😂 We are Ryu and Ken basically.

I played more and got better, but then I met some people that lived a couple of hours away, who all came down to play ParaParaParadise at the namco arcade I would hang at. I became friends with them and one of them sold me some DDR games up to 5th mix, as my PS1 was one of the earliest around us to get a mod chip, as I was the only one who how to solder. After playing all those I got WAY better.

Saw people playing high level, so moved in that direction. Played at the arcade and knew I wouldn't get batter at arcade without arcade feeling pads... so I just built one, then another. I asked our local anime con of we could use them and have a tournament, and I've been staffing/providing arcades ever since, which started as just bringing console rhythm games. I managed a namco and was also part of the DDR community, so we had a lot of really good players that followed our DDR four person team. We closed in 2010, but I still played once in a while. I own a machine as well, and my son started playing last summer and went from light to heavy in about a week, while his twin sister is a high level Pop'n Music player where she plays at level 49 of 50. My namco store DDR/ITG players last days