Gamerise Exercise

I think I may have finally found a solution to my perennial problem of not sticking with an exercise routine for long enough.

(I did try for several months at the whole martial arts samurai sword thing, which was decent, but I kept missing being able to go home at non-9-10pm hours and when work starting insisting I stay back longer past 6pm, it just provided a push in the wrong direction to quit.)

The whole schtick of going somewhere /special/ to exercise really killed it for me. First you had to change into special clothes. Then you spend significant time NOT at home. And maybe there are other people watching you, which is embarrassing and makes a fat dwarf like me feel muy awkward. And you repeat them all backwards before you finally are home and comfy again.

Not even the mini-gym downstairs in the condo would work. Mostly because for some twisted reason, there is no special member card that you can just beep yourself into the place. I mighta snuck in at night when I was ready to exercise if that was the case. Instead, it is kept locked tight with a physical key that the security guard holds. So if I want to use the gym, I first have to a) hunt down the guard, who may wander around the place doing his sporadic patrol to look busy, and b) he has to know every single time and instance I go exercise? Even late at night or whatever? *twitch* *privacy invaded* *slinks away to vegetate in front of the bright glare of the monitor instead*

And y'know, aerobic exercise or cycling on a stationary bike is kinda boring. Presumably if you do it with a group of people and an instructor and dance music, then no, but then you run into the OTHER PEOPLE aspect that is so off-putting. Nor do I want to get rammed down by the clumsy way Singaporeans drive if I really cycle. (And there's the going out and special clothes and equipment aspect.)

Presumably, if the bike was in front of my home TV, that would be great. But my parents slammed their foot down on having one of those, under the rationale that there was no more room in the house, and I would probably get bored of it in under a week - which I don't think I would, with a regular TV program to watch, and I was offering to buy the thing with my money too - but yeah, despite ever-constant jabs about my size, they refuse to compromise on possible viable solutions. Go fucking figure. I learned the definition of consistent from the anti-example of certain people.

(Now that I have an iPad though, there is an increased viability of using the crappy bike in the gym downstairs, but there's still the whole privacy and lousy equipment and special clothes aspects which are a downer.)

I did think about using minimal space zero-equipment workout routines, such as the hacker's diet, prison-type exercises, flowfit, etc. And I did try for a couple days. Two problems. Lack of space and lack of discipline.

Seriously, there is no space in this house. Or in my room, which would be the best, most private place to attempt exercise without inviting constant snickers from my dad (which is also a downer) or endless comments/nagging/commentary from my mum (which goes without saying, passes beyond down-iness into the pits of Hell).

So I cannot lie down without serious discomfort and furniture shoving, which puts a crimp in crunches. Or lame attempts at it. I could do it on the bed, but that's kinda cheating. I lack a proper chair or bench at a certain height in order to do other kinds of exercises, and again, the bed has a certain give to it that is not the same as a hard flat surface.

And the fact of the matter is that I am significantly overweight for my height and some of the standard 'easy' exercises are significantly difficult or impossible, or I could do them, and not be sure that I was getting them down properly or break much of a sweat because I was taking it too easy, and after a while, all the obstacles get in the way and make the chance occurrence of 30 mins of exercise 3 times a week significantly less likely.

Crap willpower.

Or lousy plan. Whatever.

I needed something with much better design that I could maintain interest in. Enter Project Natal.

Or rather, the new rebranded Kinect. It so happened that during the last Christmas hols, we spotted that Starhub was busy giving away Microsoft Xbox 360s + Kinect for a broadband subscription at the same price we were already paying. Well. Well, well.

Counting on my fingers suggested that it has been about 2 years since we last scored the same type of deal with the Sony PS3 (I had to wait 1+ years for Heavy Rain - my main impetus to con my dad into getting his Blu-Ray player aka the PS3 - to come out.)

So we gleefully made the trip all the way down to the Computer Expo in the east end of Singapore, queued up in the colossal Starhub queues, re-contracted for another 24 months (our family can't live without broadband anyway) and took away a coupon for the Xbox 360 + Kinect to be claimed later on Dec 24 or thereabouts.

Hrmph. Oh well, can't argue with free. Long story short, we did get it in the end. During the expo though, I had spied something that looked a tide cheesy, but possibly fun.

A dancing game. Dance Central, they called it.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds sissy and girly and so not me. Secretly, I always thought Dance Dance Revolution looked kinda fun. It was just too public out in the arcades, and I never owned the proper consoles during that time. There has always been a kinda secret hope that maybe, maybe one of these things might actually teach me proper limb coordination and/or a sense of rhythm if I practiced hard enough. (Musical, rhythmic or kinesthetic intelligences have never been my forte. Win some, lose some, y'know.) At least enough not to look like a cuddly hamster or a confused penguin, and progress on to decently average.

I finally bought Dance Central today. And tried it. And I'm semi-optimistic about it.

It hits all the right notes. I get to do it at home. I can do it in my 'jammies. I don't look like I'm exercising, so no comments from the peanut gallery.

The game is designed to be very encouraging - you mirror a character that faces you and gives you comments and tips like an aerobics or dance instructor and praises you for good work and gives you a gentle pep talk if you suck. And if you really fail at learning the dance move, you can go in slow-motion, and you can do it OVER and OVER ten times or more, and the computer will never try to hide an eye-roll of uncomprehending impatience or sneak a glance at their watch. It will work with you one-on-one until you get it, give up for now or keel over from exhaustion or a heart attack

And yes, I did walk away sweaty after an hour (or was it two?) at it.

It helps that I have Achiever tendencies. (I came back from a course today that did a self-assessment, and my score for Loves Challenge was a 7.5 out of 10. Which is true enough. I think I used to be worse, but learned to moderate it just a teensy bit.)


Dance Central provides fantastic feedback via its scores. During practice mode, it will count how many moves you got right, and give you a percentile score at the end of it. During each move, you can see immediately if you were NICE at it, or FLAWLESS, or if you didn't get it, period. When you do it as an actual song, then your entire performance is scored with a numerical score and a rank of X out of 5 stars at the end of it, similar to music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.


In the vein of all games, as you master the easier levels, increased levels of difficulty open up to you. I managed the easiest song on easy passably enough, and unlocked medium. Medium was decidedly more challenging and took a while to learn. I wussed out on hard, and switched to another song a couple rows lower on the list, and nearly fainted on the "easy" mode. Backtracked hastily to songs nearer the top and presumably easier, managed another "easy" mode, and another. Attempted another medium, and didn't do so good...


...and decided to stop for the day there as I'd lost track of time, I was covered in sweat, and it wouldn't quite do to move from completely sedentary lifestyle to attempted dancing for 4-5 hours and falling over stone dead afterwards.


But yeah. I'd like to do it again. Tomorrow. Which is a lot more than I can say for any other form of exercise I've tried.


I'm hopeful. Let's take it one day at a time and go from there. Maybe some day way later in the future, I'd actually weigh myself and not feel a twinge of guilt, and/or dance in front of my colleagues at a dinner n' dance and not feel hopelessly self-conscious.


Since I'm not quite at the revealing self to public stage yet, here's a video of Ellen playing Dance Central instead.