Stephanie and DDR

Calvin and I had breakfast today with Stephanie Studenski, my best friend from high school, and her family who are here in the New York area for a couple of days. Naturally, I started talking about Wii Fit (I am sure no one is surprised about that) and I found out that Stephanie is conducting research on the benefits of Dance Dance Revolution for women our age and older (Stephanie is a gerontologist). She is an obsessive practitioner as well, she has danced 50 pounds away. Stephanie was called "the high priestess of DDR" in USA Today.

Here is a link to a story about her research. She gave me advice on which games to start with and which pad to buy- you can get one that works with both the Wii and Playstation 2! (Her kids had a familiar expression I've seen on other people's faces when I start going on and on about some aspect of technology and its benefits)

Updates on potential new obsession to follow.

More about Wii Fit

I have really been enjoying Wii Fit. Combining video games with working out is brilliant. Here is an article about the designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. I have used it every day since I got it.

A couple of things- I seem to be much better at learning the stuff I already know a little bit about in the non Wii world. I guess this could fall under the category of stunningly obvious observations- but it is a little weird when I get really low scores at some of the easiest activities and high scores at stuff that is actually kind of hard to do. Also, I have found it difficult up to this point to get a really hard workout. I think this may change as I unlock more reps and also figure out which activities I want to combine. As it is, I am still spending a lot of time watching demos on activities before trying them.

I am spending more time every day, and more on yoga, strength training and aerobics. There are a lot of charming balance games, which seem designed to make you better at Wii balance games- I am not sure they actually help your balance all that much.

Calvin has not spent as much time as I have on Wii Fit, but he uses Wii baseball for batting practice before his softball game. He and I continue to play Wii golf, bowling and baseball after dinner. His golf and bowling have improved, I cannot say the same for my hitting.

Anyway, thank you Eric! More pictures to come.

Wii!!!!!!

For the few people out there who don't already know this, Eric gave Calvin and me a Wii.

I set it up yesterday after getting all my grades in. Last night we played Wii baseball and Wii bowling (actually, I had obsessively gone through all the games earlier in the day and created many Miis). Calvin was better at baseball, I wasn't a bad bowler.

It was incredibly fun.

Unpacking the Wii.

Here is Calvin (and his Mii) taking a few swings.