DDR

Imagine the consternation of a baby boomer having his son come home and announce that he's a DDR Freak. Growing up during the Cold War, I fully knew that DDR stood for communist East Germany, the Deutsche Democratic Republic. Yikes! My son's a commie, I thought.

Subsequently, however, I learned that DDR stood for Dance Dance Revolution and it's not related to communism nor political revolution. DDR is merely a youth-targeted video-music dance system designed to take a person's heart rate from normal to over 10,000 beats per minute in less than 90 seconds. Starting in Japan, DDR is now distributed world wide and gaining in popularity. This is contrary to most youth fads which have a history of short extremely successful lives and quick ignominious deaths.

DDR Freak.com provides this explanation.

"Oprah doing the macarena? Swing craze? Riverdance? Nope, it took a videogame to turn a legion of career wallflowers into hip-shakin', dancin' idiots--er experts. The DDR phenomenon may have started in arcades, but its combination of no-look dance routines and profuse sweating has since migrated to your living room, and even into some school PE classes. It's the new Jazzercise."

Currently, DDR tournaments are being scheduled and held in many locations with $1,000 + prizes awarded. DDR is also being offered to the public as an exercise tool.

For the sake of full disclosure, I personally have not experienced Dance Dance Revolution at the advice of my doctor. He stated that I should participate only on a DDR system that is adjacent to an operating room at the Cleveland Clinic. I checked. They don't have one.