AED, brainblast me!

I ordered and purchased 6 different cheap ass insoles from AliExpress so you don't have to in order to know what you're getting into. 😂 "Graphene Latex" Insole https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808052783395.html These are the first ones I tried which set off the whole cheap insole ordering and experimenting craze for me. They alter the drop of the shoe a tiny bit higher heel-to-toe, but they're pretty squishy because they're made of latex. They add an insane amount of bounce to whatever shoe you throw them in. These are almost the best in terms of how much bounce you get relative to the added weight, but they might make the fit of the shoe you toss them into feel odd-- they're kind-of hit-or-miss based on that. I think the holes in the bottom of the insole almost act as a psuedo air pocket type thing. I think the idea is that if the insole is sized correctly in your shoe, a vaccum is created where air pockets/bubbles squish between the midsole of your sh...

Sourced from random YouTube comments on a video about the many different Feiyue Shoes:   Apparently, the DaFu Rubber shoes I've been enjoying the past week aren't even the best Feiyues-- they're authentic, but the ones produced by DaFu Rubber with the red circle on the bottom (Feiyue 501) are apparently heavier/thicker than the ones produced by Dabowen/Top One with the green triangle on the bottom (Feiyue 511). The thinner ones are the ones that martial artists, parkourists, etc are huge fans of. I ordered some of the Dabowen Top One Feiyues with the green triangle bottoms off of AliExpress, so they should arrive in a couple weeks. They look like this: Some other cool findings while using the DaFu Rubber Feiyue's the past week: The lacing eyelets not going across the big tendon in the front of my ankle prevents me from lacing my shoes too tight in a way that constricts my ability to rotate my ankle.  I took this intel from the design of the Feiyue's and adjusted the...

🗣📣Attention all DANCE GAMERS‼ China already solved dance game shoes in 1958. MF SHAOLIN MONKS and MARTIAL ARTS PRACTITIONERS were using these before dance games existed.   These soft rubber shoes are insane. And they're cheap as shit because they've been mass produced in China for literal generations. I feel so fast in them when I'm using them, that I'm actually rushing/skewing a bit more than I usually do because the lift-off speed feels THAT instant. But the shoe weighs like around 300 grams on my scale. How the hell does it feel faster than shoes I own that are like 200 grams? Weight balance, lockdown, shock absorbency. These shoes are on some Thanos shit. Perfectly balanced.  From heel to toe, the entire thing almost weighs the same all the way through due to being zero drop, or nearly zero drop. It feels REALLY nice for stepping on the down panels on SMX/DDR & the blue panels on PIU because it feels like a minimalist zero drop shoe, but has shock absorbency w...

For a while, I thought that using a shoe as lightweight as possible would be ideal for dance games.  The logic was if I don't need to lift as much and put in as much effort with each step, I would get more energy savings in lighter shoes. This is true in a vacuum.  The problem is that many shoe manufacturers have a tendency to cheap out by saving weight in the upper portion of the shoe, which is the piece of the shoe that is responsible for the responsiveness of lift-off time and player perception of speed at which the foot goes airborne. Having responsive lift-off time is really important for dance games to me, since I play with a "steppy" form for accuracy on SMX and DDR. My experience has been that there is less overall latency between sending the command to my foot to lift and the foot+shoe raising together, knowing that my foot+shoe is airborne, and moving it to a new panel quickly without risk of tripping. So recently, I started playing in the Tiger Serrano which I...

SIZING There is a small level of discomfort I have to put up with when breaking in a new pair to ensure that it fits like a glove.   In running shoes, I typically wear a 9.5 or even a 10 depending on how the shoe is built. The sizing isn't really 1:1 with the type flat shoes I prefer for dance games, because they typically feature stiffer, rockered designs that don't allow the foot to naturally flex as much so I need the larger sizing to compensate. In my dance game shoes, I typically wear a US Men's 8.5 (EU 42, 26.5CM) or a 9 (EU 42.5, 27CM) depending on how the shoe is built.    GORILLA GRIP I personally prefer having a lot of grip as it allows me to utilize all of my muscles in my legs to help control my timing on wider doubles motions when playing. I feel like I can move my legs significantly faster from point A to point B when I am able to launch myself with confidence using my leg muscles. If the pads are extremely grippy from being cleaned/extremely humid envi...