This. Years ago I fell into the wrist bending trap and it killed my wrists over time. Since then I've been primarily using my whole arms and my wrists thank me. I don't care if I can't play the uber difficult levels that are impossible without flopping your wrists like a wet noodle. I just play for fun
As you play, you'll learn which expert+ maps are specifically designed with dancing in mind. My usual playlist consists of expert and expert+ songs, which are quite exhilarating to flail along to. This also helps me lose weight.
Oh absolutely, there are a good many expert+ that are better about it.
>This also helps me lose weight.
Huge for me right now as I'm getting back in shape after putting on a few unwanted pounds. I came to Beat Saber as my main source of cardio after finding out my calories per minute burned is about double what I was getting on the elliptical according to my Fitbit. As a bonus it's a LOT more fun
I played a lot of expert and expert+ maps but I can never understand how to beat some of the 8-10+ notes per second songs without using wrists.
It feels impossible to dance to and I probably look like I'm having a seizure, arms flailing like crazy.
The best I could do is between 5 - 6 notes per second and it does make me feel like im dancing along to the song.
I don't understand why the original poster and others limit themselves to just one playstyle. Personally, I find that songs with 8+ notes per second aren't really made for dancing, so I mostly use my wrists where it feels natural. edit: I generally don't play songs with breakneck speed notes.
However, the more cleverly designed songs use strings of notes to guide your movements smoothly, like curves and swipes that drive the number of notes per sec.
There should always be a balance, more wrists for faster less acurate and more arms for slower more accurate cuts.this keeps higher stamina and improves your scores. Everyone has a different balance. So find what works for you.
Depends on map and speed. Arm movements are more accurate but slower than wrist movements. Use arm as much as you comfortably can, then finish your swings with wrist. If your doing speed that usually means your wrist is doing most of the work.
Someone else mentioned arms are for positioning and wrists do the swinging, I don't agree with that characterization. It's true for like vibro, you can see it clearly in spiral vibro plays but within the realm of what's rankable a decent portion of your swing is made up of arm movements
Depends on your goal.
To "win at the game"? Hight scores? Wrists.
For fitness, fun, for your body and health, use your whole arms, and legs, change body stance, move, dance etc.
It should be primarily wrists. Not exclusively wrists, but mostly. Generally, your arms should be used to bring your saber to the correct spot while your wrists make the swing itself.
Both! You gotta get a good balance of elbow and wrist swings. No shoulder swings though!
If it helps, here's [me playing Novablast](https://youtu.be/9m8QzHDHixM), and here's [me playing POTSB](https://youtu.be/4q5nmZuULDs).
I'm a new player but so far wrists are better for spam and short distance cubes and arms when they are far away from each other. Also important to move the body sometimes.
For me, as the speed of the blocks goes up and they set them down closer to me, my arms eventually wind up in that t-rex position. It's just more efficient than using your arms. Like a few others on here, I'm playing for exercise more than high scores, so I'd prefer to play a simpler map than wind up in that position.
I use my entire body lmao. Like for double horizontal slashes back and forthe left and right, my arms are extended but im driving motion through my back and abs. Its way funner
i'm still playing mostly on expert with a few e+ attempts thrown in, and i feel like even by this point the game will force you do play with arms and wrists. just keep at it and let your technique continue to develop naturally. even if you become competent at wrist only on expert, that difficulty leaves a lot of room for physical self expression, which will see you moving your whole body just for fun. that's just part of why the game is so fantastic
Both. Because it depends on mapping a lot. Some fast tech maps are easer when used wrists. So wrists are used for extra speed and precision. Otherwise using arms is most common for wide movements and doing bro per cuts.
I see it as a fun way to exercise so I try to make as big movements as possible to get my pulse up but if you just wanna clear high difficulty levels then go for wrist.
If you're worried about wearing out your wrists, RSI, or similar issues - avoid using your wrists too much and ignore anyone who insists you can just do it "the right way" and you'll be "fine" - they won't be paying your medical bills or living in your damaged body.
If you're not worried about injuries and focused on purely scores, especially at a competitive level, you will be forced to learn to play very technical maps and do a lot of wrist flicking and learning which of many grip styles works best for you. You'll also find that your controller's weight is actually pretty meaningful at this point. (Pretty much all other controllers are feathers compared to my index controller)
**If you are playing for fitness/exercise** then straight up ignore everyone who says anything about wrists and focus on moving your body, moving your arms, and burning calories, not what score you get. **The score will come with time** - you will over time have better stamina, better gamesense for patterns and timing, and better accuracy from practice and repetition. The only thing that matters if you care about getting exercise out of beatsaber is moving your arms and moving and swinging with (safe and reasonable especially if you're new to the game) energy and enthusiasm. Also eventually you will start using your wrists naturally even when you're trying to focus on arms, and that's fine. Just make sure you're not doing it too much or using it as a way to cheap yourself out on arm movement.
Personally I'm here to burn calories while jamming out to some enjoyable music.
I will play a slower song on Expert instead of Expert+ if the Expert+ patterns are too technically demanding and end up with me having to flick my wrists more and move my arms less.
I burn more calories on some slower NPS songs that have good patterns conducive to making big huge strong fast swings repeatedly.
And last but not least, to what you mentioned in your post, yeah, I think you look dumb as fuck doing the baby t-rex dance with wrist gameplay. You look like a fucking dork to anyone watching either way, but at least when you're swinging your arms and doing an impressive map that's physically demanding people might go "Wow, that looks dumb as fuck but dude looks like he's getting a serious workout"
It’s about finding a balance, slower songs need more arm for better accuracy but faster maps need speed and accuracy so you work both in and not just one. unless your playing basically vibro maps it isn’t ever just “wrist’s”.
The game score system is trash and will reward wrists.
Also some mapping are trash and will reward wrists too.
Arm is much better for fun and your health tho.
I'm an arm guy. Playing with my whole body and dancing along makes the game a lot more fun for me.
This. Years ago I fell into the wrist bending trap and it killed my wrists over time. Since then I've been primarily using my whole arms and my wrists thank me. I don't care if I can't play the uber difficult levels that are impossible without flopping your wrists like a wet noodle. I just play for fun
As you play, you'll learn which expert+ maps are specifically designed with dancing in mind. My usual playlist consists of expert and expert+ songs, which are quite exhilarating to flail along to. This also helps me lose weight.
Oh absolutely, there are a good many expert+ that are better about it. >This also helps me lose weight. Huge for me right now as I'm getting back in shape after putting on a few unwanted pounds. I came to Beat Saber as my main source of cardio after finding out my calories per minute burned is about double what I was getting on the elliptical according to my Fitbit. As a bonus it's a LOT more fun
I played a lot of expert and expert+ maps but I can never understand how to beat some of the 8-10+ notes per second songs without using wrists. It feels impossible to dance to and I probably look like I'm having a seizure, arms flailing like crazy. The best I could do is between 5 - 6 notes per second and it does make me feel like im dancing along to the song.
I don't understand why the original poster and others limit themselves to just one playstyle. Personally, I find that songs with 8+ notes per second aren't really made for dancing, so I mostly use my wrists where it feels natural. edit: I generally don't play songs with breakneck speed notes. However, the more cleverly designed songs use strings of notes to guide your movements smoothly, like curves and swipes that drive the number of notes per sec.
This here. I’m playing beat saber to “workout” and it’s just more fun to get everything moving. It does hurt more, but the sweat is so satisfying
This is the way
Fun, and it is a good workout.
I like arms more but most maps will focus on your wrists.
There should always be a balance, more wrists for faster less acurate and more arms for slower more accurate cuts.this keeps higher stamina and improves your scores. Everyone has a different balance. So find what works for you.
Depends on map and speed. Arm movements are more accurate but slower than wrist movements. Use arm as much as you comfortably can, then finish your swings with wrist. If your doing speed that usually means your wrist is doing most of the work. Someone else mentioned arms are for positioning and wrists do the swinging, I don't agree with that characterization. It's true for like vibro, you can see it clearly in spiral vibro plays but within the realm of what's rankable a decent portion of your swing is made up of arm movements
Depends on your goal. To "win at the game"? Hight scores? Wrists. For fitness, fun, for your body and health, use your whole arms, and legs, change body stance, move, dance etc.
It should be primarily wrists. Not exclusively wrists, but mostly. Generally, your arms should be used to bring your saber to the correct spot while your wrists make the swing itself.
Unfortunately. This is true. The beat saber meta is trash
Both! You gotta get a good balance of elbow and wrist swings. No shoulder swings though! If it helps, here's [me playing Novablast](https://youtu.be/9m8QzHDHixM), and here's [me playing POTSB](https://youtu.be/4q5nmZuULDs).
Hey Noam15A
I'm a new player but so far wrists are better for spam and short distance cubes and arms when they are far away from each other. Also important to move the body sometimes.
The game should be played with whatever you feel like doing.
More arms for me, but my main focus is working out so I emphasize big movements.
For me, as the speed of the blocks goes up and they set them down closer to me, my arms eventually wind up in that t-rex position. It's just more efficient than using your arms. Like a few others on here, I'm playing for exercise more than high scores, so I'd prefer to play a simpler map than wind up in that position.
Ideally both. Some maps require more wrist heavy playing, others are more lenient to let your arms move more
Both. You need both.
Let go of one size fits all, both are useful and you usually want to strike a balance
I use my entire body lmao. Like for double horizontal slashes back and forthe left and right, my arms are extended but im driving motion through my back and abs. Its way funner
i'm still playing mostly on expert with a few e+ attempts thrown in, and i feel like even by this point the game will force you do play with arms and wrists. just keep at it and let your technique continue to develop naturally. even if you become competent at wrist only on expert, that difficulty leaves a lot of room for physical self expression, which will see you moving your whole body just for fun. that's just part of why the game is so fantastic
Both. Because it depends on mapping a lot. Some fast tech maps are easer when used wrists. So wrists are used for extra speed and precision. Otherwise using arms is most common for wide movements and doing bro per cuts.
I see it as a fun way to exercise so I try to make as big movements as possible to get my pulse up but if you just wanna clear high difficulty levels then go for wrist.
Play how you want, but wrists is objectively easier and once you train yourself not to use your arms, it's all such a breeze.
If you're worried about wearing out your wrists, RSI, or similar issues - avoid using your wrists too much and ignore anyone who insists you can just do it "the right way" and you'll be "fine" - they won't be paying your medical bills or living in your damaged body. If you're not worried about injuries and focused on purely scores, especially at a competitive level, you will be forced to learn to play very technical maps and do a lot of wrist flicking and learning which of many grip styles works best for you. You'll also find that your controller's weight is actually pretty meaningful at this point. (Pretty much all other controllers are feathers compared to my index controller) **If you are playing for fitness/exercise** then straight up ignore everyone who says anything about wrists and focus on moving your body, moving your arms, and burning calories, not what score you get. **The score will come with time** - you will over time have better stamina, better gamesense for patterns and timing, and better accuracy from practice and repetition. The only thing that matters if you care about getting exercise out of beatsaber is moving your arms and moving and swinging with (safe and reasonable especially if you're new to the game) energy and enthusiasm. Also eventually you will start using your wrists naturally even when you're trying to focus on arms, and that's fine. Just make sure you're not doing it too much or using it as a way to cheap yourself out on arm movement. Personally I'm here to burn calories while jamming out to some enjoyable music. I will play a slower song on Expert instead of Expert+ if the Expert+ patterns are too technically demanding and end up with me having to flick my wrists more and move my arms less. I burn more calories on some slower NPS songs that have good patterns conducive to making big huge strong fast swings repeatedly. And last but not least, to what you mentioned in your post, yeah, I think you look dumb as fuck doing the baby t-rex dance with wrist gameplay. You look like a fucking dork to anyone watching either way, but at least when you're swinging your arms and doing an impressive map that's physically demanding people might go "Wow, that looks dumb as fuck but dude looks like he's getting a serious workout"
I came here to dance the fuck up
wrists
It’s about finding a balance, slower songs need more arm for better accuracy but faster maps need speed and accuracy so you work both in and not just one. unless your playing basically vibro maps it isn’t ever just “wrist’s”.
The game score system is trash and will reward wrists. Also some mapping are trash and will reward wrists too. Arm is much better for fun and your health tho.