[Update: I guess there is a hand-version of DDR, and here is a great video of some japanese guy playing it way the hell too fast! [via Anything But Ordinary]

So, for Mary's 34th birthday (she may not be able to turn water into wine, but she totally outlived Jesus), I got her Dance Dance Revolution Max 2 on the playstation 2. Of course, as a side-effect, I had to get myself a playstation 2 :), but it turns out that all I want to play is DDR (as I've come to know it). Mary and I play it regularly (perhaps daily), and it turns out that I'm way better at it than she is. So, as I'm wont to do, I was trying to understand why. Her opinion is that I look at things in terms of patterns, rather than details, so I don't figure out what arrows to hit, but rather what sequence of arrows are coming up, transforming them into a pattern that my feet follow. As a result, while she is playing catch-up with the arrows, I've looked at the next few arrows and have already internalized them into my feet. Now, I'm not perfect, and I'm only now moving from the light level (arrows only show up on the beats, 1-2-3-4) to the standard level (arrows show up on the off-beat, as well, sort of a 1&2&3&4), and I'm having difficulty. When I first started doing the higher level, I was still seeing the pattern in terms of hitting the 1-2-3-4 (even muttering it under my breath). On the standard level, where I can also hit on a &, that pattern doesn't work, so I switched to a different view of the patterns, and I seem to be picking it up better. As I play it more, though, I notice that I have started seeing, not just the pattern, but also how I have to do the pattern to make sure that the necessary foot is free in time.

This led to a great conversation this morning with Mary over breakfast about this, which then led to talking about nature vs. nurture, as we have a friend who just had twins (fraternal, not identical), and their personalities are really different: one is much more sedate than the other one, who seems to have a bit of a mean streak to her, sometimes taking the pacifier from the more sedate one for no apparently good reason. Mary has a more rebellious side to her than I do, which got me thinking to a possible genetic basis for rebelliousness. Think about this for a second, suppose there is a built-in propensity to leadership. That leadership may express itself as a more revolutionary aspect, tending to test the rules and find the loopholes. In the old days, this would have had more of an opportunity to create a change, while, today, society tends to squash this attitude in people, branding them as “rebellious” or “trouble-makers.” Do this enough to a child, and he/she is going to think it is true and the rebelliousness turns into more habit than for a reason. At this point, any time you try to tell someone to do something, they have a seemingly knee-jerk (*see note below) reaction, not to the rule, but to the enforcement of the rule. For me, I'm not really a rebel, tending to just lose interest in the rebellion and get on. However, I create things that facilitate the changes. For example, at work, we are moving toward a more test-driven environment, and I've developed a tool that will support it, and am slowly, at the more grass-roots level, introducing the tool to other people. My manager, seeing the potential, has started working in a more evangelist role for it, since he probably is more of a leader.

Just a thought.

*NOTE: Mary doesn't like my use of the term “knee-jerk,” as it shows a lack-of-understanding on my part of the motivation for the person and implies that they are ineffective and not important. I suppose this is very true, since I'm not like that. I don't say it to somehow detract from the person's attitudes, but rather to express how it appears to the outside, as well as the possibility that society has transformed someone who should be destined for greatness into someone who fights for the sake of fighting. But, again, I don't see the whole motivations behind people's reactions, so it appears “knee-jerk” to me. When you think about it, I guess people could sometimes say that my experience and instincts in programming cause me to make decisions which seem “knee-jerk.” For example, I was pair-programming with someone the other day, and I made a design decision that seemed like the only one to do, and the person asked why I did it that way and how I knew that was what to do. I just sort of shrugged and tried to explain, but the reality was that I just knew that was the reaction to take to the little red dot in NUnit. [**See note below]

**NOTE: Mary still doesn't like my explanation, but I guess that is why it is my blog. :)