Cyber Cypher #1 Results!

Hey everyone! In case you missed the announcement on our podcast yesterday, the full results of our first ever DDR Cyber Cypher are here! Following the excitement and hype of our first Freestyle Takeover tourney in January, we wanted to give you a platform to compete and show off your moves if you couldn’t make it to the Bay Area.

And boy howdy, did all y’all blow our expectations out of the water! Players from across the Pacific in Japan to the United States proved freestyle is alive and well. You can watch all the entries via our YouTube playlist. Additionally, the judges’ scorecards have been posted.

Without further ado, here are the top three routines from Cyber Cypher #1!

FIRST PLACE:
RIRI / @ugogon
Nagoya, Japan
Try 2 Luv U

SECOND PLACE:
Applefrog
San Francisco, CA
Try 2 Luv U

THIRD PLACE:
Zio
Tokyo, Japan
Dance Celebration

If you missed out, fret not. We’ll be running this back soon!

We here at Freestyle Takeover thank each and every one of you for stepping up, getting down, and recording your routines at your local arcade, bedroom, garage, etc. All while using the hashtag #DDRFreestyle on social media. We’re eager to see what you’ve got in store for us next time!

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The Freestyle Takeover Podcast: Episode 2

USPF2018 freestyle champ @DaKree joins us for episode (Try) 2 (Luv U) of the podcast to talk dance training, freestyle background and the importance of character development and trusting your own instincts! We also recap the results of Cyber Cypher #1 and give our initial Dance Rush impressions in an EXTRA STAGE segment! This was a jam-packed episode and a very fun conversation with a one of a kind freestyle talent. Don’t miss it!

Soundcloud: http://bit.ly/2IuBaU2 
iTunes: http://apple.co/2GCCWFC 
RSS: http://bit.ly/2uW3lZU 

Freestyle Takeover: Fanime

We’re hosting a tournament on Friday night at Fanimecon! While the gaming hall has always been a perfect spot for DDR freestyle, it’s been way too long since we’ve seen dancers throw down in a competition. With the release of DDR Ace sparking a renewed energy around dance games and freestyle again in 2018, it is our DUTY to bring you an official tournament at the grandest anime stage of them all!

WHERE: Fanime Gaming Hall @ San Jose Convention Center
WHEN: May 25th, 7:30PM
MIX: DDR Extreme
ENTRY: Free w/ badge

The tournament will consist of two rounds:

ROUND 1 – IMPROV
Competitors will randomly draw a card from a curated set of songs and freestyle to it to the best of their ability. Singles/doubles and all modifiers / difficulties are allowed. Judges will select the top 8 dancers from this pool to move onto the next round.

ROUND 2 – ROUTINE
Bring your A game on a song of your choice!

JUDGING CRITERIA: https://freestyletakeover.wordpress.com/freestyle-takeover-rules

JUDGES
TBD!

PRIZES
– 1st place will receive a SURPRISE GIFT~ and a gift pack from the wonderful artist emu (check out her work at http://concon.tictail.com/)
– 2nd & 3rd place will receive emu gift packs as well!

More details soon to come!

The FST Podcast: Episode 001

Our latest podcast episode is up! We sat down with James Szeto (aka 001) to learn about his history with DDR freestyle and his approach to building routines as well as ambassador and USPF 2018 host Kevin Tan for an enlightening discussion on the international Pump It Up scene. Enjoy and be sure to share if you like what you hear!

SC: https://bit.ly/2Ke1mmZ
iTunes: https://apple.co/2Kf27Mz
RSS: https://bit.ly/2uW3lZU

Cyber Cypher #1

We’re excited to announce Cyber Cypher #1, an online DDR freestyle tournament! We wanted to reach out to freestylers outside of California and a remote event sounded like the perfect way to showcase talent from all across the world.

To enter, choose from one of the following three songs and record a performance to it between now and May 5th!

Full rules are as follows:

Hands up in the air! 🙌

Big announcements today! We knew we didn’t want January’s tournament to be the end of DDR freestyle in 2018, so we’ve launched Takeover as a Brand ™ with the intent to celebrate and foster freestyle in the DDR community and bring you more content & events throughout the year.

First item of business is the launch of our podcast! Tune in to hear Paolo, Mel B and James reflect on the performances from the first DDRFS tournament in NorCal in damn near a decade!

SC: https://bit.ly/2qah7mv 
iTunes: https://apple.co/2GCCWFC 
RSS: https://bit.ly/2uW3lZU 

We’re also super excited to share an ongoing project with you: The DDR Freestyle Archive! James is spearheading this with the goal of creating an accessible, centralized repository of tournament performances dating all the way back to the year 2000. For anyone curious about past events or looking for inspiration for their own routines, this thing is a must-see.

We’re open to any and all feedback and want to foster engagement and participation in freestyle as best we can. Let us know if there’s anything you’d like to see and be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook in the meantime! Happy weekend y’all!

Freestyle Takeover Recap!

Photo Credit: Carl Valencia

We’re hoping that all y’all have sufficiently recovered from the inaugural Freestyle Takeover this past Saturday at Round1 San Jose. We here at Freestyle Takeover HQ have been overwhelmed by the response the event received. Frankly, we’re still coming down from the euphoria whirlwind!

To those who: showed up in-person to watch and support; logged onto our Twitch stream from around the WORLD (literally, we had people from Virginia to Japan to the Philippines watching), hashtagged #DDRFreestyle, competed in the event, and helped us run the event (shout out to the Round 1 San Jose staff!)… THANK YOU.

This was as much a Takeover as it was a reunion and reintroduction of what the DDR Freestyle community meant to us, your humble event organizers. Seeing the confluence of DDR OGs, technical players who are currently holding it down, and those in the rhythm-based gaming community all under one roof made our hearts full. It’s given us plenty of optimism about the heights that DDR Freestyle can reach in 2018 and beyond!

We did this for all of yall. And we cannot wait for to do this again. On to tournament business!

FULL RESULTS FROM FREESTYLE TAKEOVER

Here is the judging criteria as taken from the Freestyle Takeover rules if you’re curious about how we ranked the competitors:

After the final performance of the competition, each judge will submit their top-10 candidates using the following voting vector (14, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1), where 1st place receives 14 points, 2nd place receives 9 points and so on.

COMPETITOR	SONG
001 of MsZ  (59 points)	Aoi Shoudou
Bran Man (43 points)	Moon
Joey (41 points)	Afronova
Eckoes (35 points)	Special One
Uncle Phil (34 points)	Scorching Moon
Kanauru (29 points)	Asaro no Kamihikouki
Telpie (22 points)	South
Andrew Vaquilar (17 points)	Special One
Rose Ryuzaki (10 points)	Drop Out

For those data nerds, check out the judging matrix with full scoring.

VIDEOS

If you would like to relive all the magic of Freestyle Takeover (and frankly why wouldn’t you) here is the Youtube playlist of all competition AND exhibition routines from some DDR OGs! Also, shoutouts to co-organizers/judges James + John for their FIYAH Exhibition routines!

Captain Canada – Dadadadadadadadadada (Exhibition) (feat. Paolo and Ryan)

kay0ss – M.A.Y.U. (Exhibition)

The Twitch archive of the Stream (complete with stream chat!) lives here:

Part 1 (skip to 10:00)
Part 2