20 First Song of the Day Now & 18-Year Dance Game Anniversary Tomorrow!

20 first song of the day now! Well, an easy marathon 20, anyway. The difficulty is probably like 20.0, it starts at 200 bpm, and it's 19 mins 50 secs long. Still, maintaining 200 like that with no prior warm up is good for me, and that ending was flippin rough. It almost did me in! The rest of the chart wasn't too bad, but 220+ is no joke like 600+ measures in. Ugh Anyway, I actually only wound up passing 3 songs today as this first one kinda burned me out. 😅 I can't complain about the new difficulty so soon after ticking off that last one the other day though, and I've gotta give it to these Stamina Nation daily quests; they sure as hell light a fire under my ass! 🤣

Also, shoutouts to my friend David Sjöstrand/Urza for knocking this song out earlier today and letting me know what to expect. Due to the bpm increase throughout it, I never would've even attempted it first song if not for him doing it twice already now with 87.xx% and 93.xx% scores and telling me it was an easy 20 I could definitely do. I just kept that in mind while fighting with that GD ending. Haha

My 18-year dance game anniversary is tomorrow. I'll be out of town and away from ITG for at least 4 days but will probably mess around on the Max 2 machine where I'm going. Either way, not a bad way to pay early tribute to 18 years here!

ITG 19 First Song of the Day

19 first song of the day yesterday! 🥳 Granted, it was 191 bpm and was ~14.5 minutes long, so it wasn't the worst 19 to warm up during. Not a huge milestone here or anything, but nice to know there are charts rated that high that I can jump straight into if I'm short on time. I wouldn't have even tried normally, but the SRPG daily quest was calling my name, and I was in a hurry. 😂

I wasn't actually planning on playing yesterday. I'd run 3.5 miles at the gym in the morning and gone to bed at 2:30pm. (Hardcore night owl here.) I got woken up at 9pm to deal with a quick family emergency though and figured, since I was up, I might as well see if there was a snowball's chance in hell of doing the daily quest. I had yet to do ANY daily quest, and today's was right up my alley: three songs with 500+ measures of 16th stream (Stamina Nation faction, obviously). I only had like 1.5 hours left til the midnight cut off by this point, however, and I didn't have many practical song choices that fit the criteria that I hadn't played yet, so this wound up being my 3-song set:

[19][191] HAUNT Sampler FP: 14 mins 24 secs, 94.45% stream (613/629 measures)

[19][190] Spacetime FP: 11 mins 22 secs, 100% stream (528/528 measures)

[17][165] Gargoyle Infinite (Meme) FB: 19 mins 45 secs, 100% stream (802/802 measures)

Annnnd that's how my first ever daily quest got done! Check my sweet Fantastic counts too. 😏 (Timing was ummm..challenging today.) Pics from this set + bonus stamina stuff bc 🤷‍♀️

ITG Update: Slowly Getting Better

1/23/21: I believe the 90.44% I got on Remembrance today is my highest score on a 19 so far. Playing Never Say Dump (Medium) [19] after was just for lols and out of curiosity over what 245bpm would feel like after 20 minutes of 190. (The answer: special 😂) Shortly after that, I just finished up with a second set of slightly easier stuff.

1/24/21: Through The Fire and France (Expert) [20] wasn't awful. The 220bpm 19 I did after it was a little uncomfortable though. I took a small break then before checking out the new chimichungus pack (info and links for it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/565890830137096/permalink/3806791616046985/?sfnsn=mo) with my second set. That pack!!! 🤣 Unsurprisingly, I failed Yup (On My Tractor) [23], but I believe it was my first time doing 32+ unbroken measures of 250bpm stream before failing. As for This is America, I'm pretty sure I can do it on a good day but would like a second opinion regarding the difficulty before I do. It's rated a 21. 

Observations: I'm beginning to think my watch is onto something, telling me my recovery time will be 4 days just about every time I play ITG. As it turns out so far, I am feeling my best when I keep off the dance pad for 4 days between sessions, probably because of how I play when I let myself hop on. 😂

Sean and I have been taking the dogs out for little jogs and hikes these past few days. Though my legs are undeniably feeling a bit of fatigue between that and dance games, I think keeping on my feet more than usual is actually keeping my legs from seizing up.

SRPG's length points (LP) are given for longer songs, which logically tend to be slower compared to other songs of the same difficulty. Lately, I only bother playing such songs when my legs are too dead to move for anything faster. Accordingly, my top 5 LP songs have all been lower difficulties than my top 10 TP songs. Realizing this, I played Through The Fire and France (Expert) [20] here on 1/24/21 and may test myself on other challenging LP songs with fresher legs soon.

*I've only included 2 of the best pics from these ITG sessions below. View the rest on Facebook here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157360695702024&id=550422023&sfnsn=mo

A bunch of my recent ITG videos:

[In The Groove] JOKR - Through The Fire And France (Expert) [20] 82.81%

https://youtu.be/QvexDyFzys4

[In The Groove] JOKR - The Game (Hard) [20] 78.49%

https://youtu.be/b4IFMktwyu4

[In The Groove] JOKR - We Came To Gangbang [20] 78.53%

https://youtu.be/UTrTvnzT8YM

[In The Groove] JOKR - Stanislav Grof [20] 76.39%

https://youtu.be/kZsaW-xSvwQ

[In The Groove] JOKR - Remembrance [19] 90.44%

https://youtu.be/voN_U1085K8

[In The Groove] JOKR - Cranked Pastry Megamix (Side A) [19] 86.80%

https://youtu.be/kYKMKuQ0P4A

[In The Groove] JOKR - Sayonara Planet Wars [19] 84.21%

https://youtu.be/da-i2njM2jc

[In The Groove] JOKR - Plateau (Hard) [19] 83.80%https://youtu.be/PJNV3uxqTk0

[In The Groove] JOKR - Mario-chi Survivor (Medium) [19] 83.05%

https://youtu.be/pMmuS2Y7BpQ

[In The Groove] JOKR - Formidable Enemy (Super Arrange) [19] 82.79%

https://youtu.be/X4zrsLDVp1U

[In The Groove] JOKR - Along A New Path [19] 82.70%

https://youtu.be/OuJ1M4PPMpI

[In The Groove] JOKR - Kuru Kuru Ki Ki [19] 82.06%

https://youtu.be/RT_iFCYURrY

[In The Groove] JOKR - Rap God (Explicit) [19] 81.69%

https://youtu.be/7zx9pNjignQ

[In The Groove] JOKR - Circles [19] 80.44%

https://youtu.be/yC5Wo7uBWg8

[In The Groove] JOKR - We Luv Lama [18] 92.47%

https://youtu.be/5l2MRljgr_E

[In The Groove] JOKR - Happy (Makoto 170 Edit) [16] 1.14x (196bpm) 94.83%

https://youtu.be/71tY6kxVGHs

5 Hour Workout Yesterday: ITG, DDR, Running, and 100 Day Challenge

After work yesterday, Sean and I spent roughly 5 hours working out. Here are the details:

ITG: I decided to check out the Girls Coast Stamina 3 pack. With difficulties ranging from 9 to 19, I played two of the three 19s (including Dodgeball for the billionth time 😂), kept working on my footspeed with some easier stuff, and messed around with a few good-sounding songs to warm up and for breaks between harder ones. I still have the 222 bpm 19 to get another day. A lot of fantastic packs have come out recently too and SRPG4 is reopened, so that should help with dance game motivation for the next few months. 

Running: Relaxed 1.5 mile jog. Doggies came with me for the first part but got tired after a few minutes and started refusing to move, so I dropped them off halfway before jogging on a little more. Though this wasn't much, it was a nice way to break up the workout session and actually get out of the house for a few minutes today, plus the baby steps back into regular running feel good.

DDR Extreme Pro: Sean and I played a bunch of Oni and other 1x stuff — something it's taken me 17 years to come around to and appreciate. Our trips to the Mesquite, NV DDR Max 2 machine in recent months have me improving at old school DDR a little and finally finding a little enjoyment there again! (We've been spending ~4 days per month in Mesquite these past several months, and their old Max 2 is one of the best ways to exercise there when it's over 100 degrees outside.) Despite their worsening pad issues, I did Maxx Unlimited on extra stage and some challenging songs, such as Insertion, while playing Oni with Sean last visit. Back on my own pad last night, it was easier than ever before. I still can't do lots of stuff I try on Oni, I'm not good at DDR by any means, and I probably won't get into playing very regularly again, but I'm having fun dabbling when it's presented to me. :)

100 in 100 Days Challenge: I'm getting the left-foot-in-front side splits pretty regularly now. I'm still inconsistent with other splits, can't quite get on the floor other directions, and always feel sore. Not much else to report except that I feel a little healthier and stronger thanks to the daily miles and various exercises. With less than 2 weeks left in this challenge, it's time to start thinking of the next thing to keep my fitness goals on track! 

From my Maxx Unlimited extra stage pass in Mesquite. 😂: