My "Korean" Roots

As everyone knows I'm deeply in love with Japan and it's culture. From the music and video games to the food to the people/girls, I'm completely fascinated. But at one time there was a different country dear to my heart. I recently started to go back and revisit the music and culture that I had so cherished back in the beginning of my college days. After going through tons of songs and kpop gayo (artists), I remember something that inspired me when I first started playing DDR.

A Korean DDR group called the A-Team was the first I saw freestyling DDR. Now I've had a few arguments with people on who were the original innovators, but I believe the A-Team were the first to breakout on the internet to where people could recognize them and they started the whole copy cats following. The time I saw them and even now, I think they're the most creative and original DDR freestyle group. They time their moves, use they're bodies and arms, and make a lot of extra steps so that they don't look like they're just stepping on buttons which in my opinion is what too many freestylers do. Much of the choreography and trick moves done by them you'll find in so many people's routines these days. Plus one thing I love about the videos is the music isn't recorded directly from them playing. They went back added the audio tracks so it wouldn't sound like crap. So I've picked a few choice videos for you....

A-Team - Luv 2 Me
This is one is apparently at some televised competition. Koreans love their games and aren't afraid to put it on TV. I love the choreography and watch for the bar flare when he crosses over. These two I think were the main two guys, you'll see them again later.

A Team - Afronova (Doubles)
I saw this video at a time when I was just trying to learn how to play singles. And here the guy is playing on both pads. Imagine my shock when another person on the team plays the song on, at that time, the hardest difficulty [Afronova Doubles Hard]

A-Team - B2U Remix
The first freestyling video I ever saw and I was blown away. I'll just let it speak for itself. There's another version of this song where they do a Matrix Walk.

There's a few more videos out there which are still good but these are the best in my opinion. A lot of times performers start off with some crazy move but then fizzle out and get boring the rest of the performance. Some try to be funny and it works but it's not really impressive. I've see a lot of videos, some of them alright, some of them absolutely horrendous. I consider the A-Team the best because they were at least one of if not the first and also you look at the routines they're still creative by today's standards. They're always doing something in their videos and man do they have style. You can mimic the moves if you want, but if you don't have the style to sell it, then they're just movements. Watch out online because some of them say A-Team, but you can tell they're not just by the quality of the dancing and the quality of the videos.

Thinking about starting a Team K,
David