bloom.sys

rhythm games are

• fun as hell, to the right kind of person
• addicting, to the right kind of person
• challenging in a way that encourages you to push your limits
• extremely easy to hurt yourself doing as a consequence of these 3 things

let me tell you some fundamental advice that generalizes across all rhythm games, and then some beatasber/osu-specific advice. First though, context: I'm not a trained physical therapist. This comes from my personal experience. I played osu!, beatmania, and sound voltex for about 5 years. then i played beatsaber incorrectly for a week and screwed my wrists up so bad I couldn't type on a computer or a phone for about a year, had to limit myself to about a half hour for the year after that, and im still healing today. I'm feeling the effects of that three years later. I can play beatsaber again now, thankfully. This shit matters.

also, if you disagree with some of this stuff, please leave a reply explaining it. i'm always happy to learn. my goal is for myself and others to hurt themselves as little as possible while having fun.

General Tips

1. always warm up. ALWAYS WARM UP. start with a song that is mindnumbingly easy. your mind and body both need to warm up to the game, but your body needs more time to catch up. a lot of injuries are a result of not warming up before pushing your limits.

2. take breaks. take short breaks between songs. take longs breaks between groups of songs. take breaks of a day or more after a heavy play session. breaks come in all shapes and sizes, and they're all important. i'm serious about this, don't let this just roll off of you like the Nintendo DS safety warning.

3. if you feel any discomfort or pain, it is time to stop. no "just one more song". no. your game session is over. stop. if you don't do this, you'll eventually find your body forcing you to stop. perhaps for months on end. you don't want that.

   • be EXTREMELY careful if you're playing on mind-altering drugs (weed, acid, etc.) or if you're on painkillers. Both of these can cause you to push past the point you'd feel pain while sober. Set strict timelimits based on known-safe playlimits that you have established while sober. stick to those timelimits, no matter how "fine" you feel. I've been there, I've done that.

4. generally speaking, you should not be playing up until the point of pain. it's going to happen when you're starting out, eventually. but it should not be your goal. you ideally want to stop before any pain starts. if you make a habit of ignoring pain, it will become chronic. you don't want that, believe me.

5. if you're feeling discomfort or pain and it seems like you haven't played very much, consider:

   • if you're a beginner, that matters. you probably can't play as long as experienced players.
   • you may already have the onset of repetitive stress injuries from other things in your life that you are aggravating further.
   • you may be practicing bad form for whatever it is you're doing. which brings me to

6. practice good form. if you don't know what good form is, someone else might. i have some specific tips for beatsaber later on.

   • practice form on SLOW maps first. You cannot practice form on maps that push your mental limits. You need to play maps that are slow enough that you can
     • see a note
     • make a CONCIOUS decision on how to react to that note
     • react to the note
   • I don't care how good you are at rhythm games, always start on the easy maps when playing a new one. take time to learn the form for it. I didn't heed this advice, and I got a year of being unable to type on a computer after a week of bad beatsaber play sessions.

When you play maps at the edge of your mental limits, you cannot think about every note. you cannot plan out every movement. you act on your training. so you better make sure that training is solid, or you'll be damaging yourself without even realizing it.

7. spend most of your time within your comfort zone. most maps you play should not be pushing the limits of what you can do. if pushing your limits is what you find the most fun, this can be frustrating. but being at your limits is when you're most likely to hurt yourself, especially if you're doing it a lot and wearing yourself down in the process.

Beatsaber

This is something im still working on learning. I haven't been referring to any particular guide so I can't give you too much specifics; take this with salt to taste. Part of that is because (be wary of this) some of the beatsaber community likes to encourage technique that involves a lot of wrist-flicking. So, let me emphasize.

do NOT wrist flick. This is how i screwed myself over when i first started. I'm willing to believe that for somebody with healthy wrists it's ok to have a little bit of wrist movement while playing. but i never intend to make flicks part of my playstyle personally.

So how do you learn to play safely? Well as far as I can tell, the basics are

1. Buy wrist braces. I like Mueller Green wrist braces as my brace of choice. these prevent you from doing wrist movements while playing the game, which forces you to learn how to play the game with your arm muscles instead. this may seem kind of difficult at first, because a lot of people are not used to using their arm muscles in a way which is dextrous. you will get used to it and you will get better. arms/shoulders are more durable than wrists, significantly.

i always wear mine while playing because i need to for health reasons. the other reason i like them, is that they provide better support when i'm doing rapid motions. holding a controller increases the inertia of your hands. i have weak wrist muscles due to aforementioned injuries, so the extra support really helps me avoid over-flexing my wrists because i can't always counteract their inertia succesfully.

2. if the movement feels awkward or uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't be doing it. there might be another movement that you can use to clear that note pattern in a better way, and you should experiment with that.

3. sometimes the map is just bad. this goes for some of the official maps as well, especially the earlier releases. some maps are just not ergonomic to play and i just don't play those.

4. along the same lines. don't try to get a full score. it's tempting, but i honestly think that the scoring system of the game encourages you to make bad decisions. its based on the angle you come into the note at and how fully you swing through it, so getting the highest score often involves doing unhealthy motions. sometimes the map is ok if you just try to go for no-misses, but not ok if you try to go for best score.

5. I have been preferring motions that avoid sudden changes in momentum, in favor of curves. your body has inertia and i personally find it's easier to redirect that inertia gradually than it is to push directly against it to reverse my direction. Play around with this. I like circles, I like ovals, I like loop-de-loops. I find it more fun too! I don't know if this one is good advice or not, which is why I'm writing it in such a subjective manner- if you know please tell me.

i encourage you to think critically about this and consult with a professional physical therapist or trainer of some sort if you don't trust yourself. as far as i can tell, good guidelines on how to play this game safely are still being figured out. it's relatively new, as an activity goes.

that said, my understanding is a lot of the form carries over from stuff like badminton, tennis, and various sword-related activities. with the notable exception that the center of mass is different, and the mass is lighter.

osu!

1. get a good mechanical keyboard. i like tactile switches for this game, but imo anything that isn't clicky is probably fine. i find the clicky switches aggravate my RSI.

2. if you use mouse, turn down your DPI

3. If you use tablet, use a large active area

4. use your arm muscles to move your mouse or tablet. it will feel really awkward at first, but your arms are way more durable than your wrists. this is also the advice for digital artists by the way. as with beatsaber, consider getting a wrist brace so you cant accidentally use your wrist. once you get used to this, wrist can be ok for fine adjustment, but be careful. they still wear out faster.

5. don't slam your fingers down on the keyboard. if you must bottom out, don't do it hard. if you must bottom out, use o-rings or buy silenced switches (they have padding inside the switch itself) to reduce the impact to your joints.

beatmania/soundvoltex/whatever other game

honestly i'm not good enough at these to recommend advice.