3... 2... 1... PUMP!

A week and a half ago, I went to the Korean finals of the World Pump It Up Festival. Tiffany and I have played Pump It Up on and off (mostly off recently) for... oh, five years now. I'd seen videos of Pump tournaments, but I haven't had a chance to check out a “real” one until recently. So, I had a lot of fun going to this one.

It was pretty cool. They had a couple different tournaments: freestyle, men's technical and women's technical. There were two machines, and they were both being used at the same time. The freestyle competitors were pretty awesome. However, I was completely blown away by the technical competitions. Basically, for each stage of the competition, they picked out a song at random, and stuck with that for that stage of the competition, so they could compare scores. The women had Love is a Danger Zone, and the men had Beat of the War 2. The women were allowed to hang on to the bar, but the men couldn't. I couldn't believe my eyes when one of the guys got a 800+ combo on Beat of the War 2! It was incredible.

They were giving out prizes. I was hoping to get something, but I didn't win any prizes. I did get the official Pump It Up cheering inflatable thingies... they are basically long inflatable plastic things that people hit together when they cheer. It's a pretty common way to cheer at sporting events, or at concerts, or whatever here in Korea.

Before each round, the hosts would have everyone count down: 3... 2... 1... PUMP!