"Finger Lock Syndrome"

Have you ever had these moments when in a middle of a song, somehow your fingers suddenly "lock up" for a split second, costing you your combo? I don't know if there's already an official term for this phenomenon, so I just coined my own term for it as shown in the thread name.

I just know this is related to neurology, but making a scientific explanation about it is optional.

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While I haven't experienced that thing in particular, there have been times where I've had a similar moment that I would call "Foot lock syndrome" while playing DDR. Basically the same thing but it's the foot/leg that locks up, often mid-stream for me.

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I get this sometimes when I play Stepmania a lot.

Happened to me on the end stream of Pluto Relinquished Expert.. Uh.. It isn't a good feeling.

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Never really had this issue with my fingers, but I've had my feet lock up on me quite a few times before. It actually happened right at the end of Pluto Relinquish Oni recently. I made it through the final stream, but my legs locked up right as it ended and I ended up failing the song because I missed the jump at the very end. Also happened at least twice when I played Mei Oni, though it was during easier parts both times so I did end up passing the song.

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My calf muscles will tense up at times when i'm playing stuff like DDR/PIU/ect., and my leg will just not move to hit a note. It's definitely more nerves than anything since I take medicine for seizures, so i've noticed that this happens for a lot of things, but it's pretty noticeable for something like rhythm games where if you pause for a brief instance then it messes everything up. Even without that, I do experience that sensation of locking up, can't think of a specific song that I usually have it on.

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I find my fingers or legs will lock up when I'm sort of just bullshitting a part. Typically I just go into spam mode during long jack streams in DDR and hope for the best, so my legs tend to lock up during those, or just weird parts of the song I'm not used to. I've found that when playing mobile rhythm games on my phone my fingers lock up a bit more because I don't think I have quite the same feedback from actual buttonst.

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My fingers seem to constantly lock up, especially when I have to hit jackhammers (both when I play IIDX or SDVX). It's annoying because I'll get a really good combo, and then my brain will either tell my fingers to hit a different button than what's shown on the chart, or my fingers will just stutter/lock up. I even have times where I'll hit a button harder than normal because I don't feel like I actually hit it even though I did, or it will be vice versa where I am very confident I hit a button at the right time, but I actually got a miss.

It's basically like playing Chicken with your hands sometimes, is what I'm saying. XD

I call this lazy foot. At least when it happens to me.

When playing INFINITAS on a keyboard, I sometimes have difficulties with certain patterns that feel similar to this finger lock thing. Patterns that I have no trouble with in the arcade.

My legs/feet lock up pretty normally during 16th streams in DDR. Especially when I'm playing on a soft pad or with no bar.

Rarely but I do have them. Mostly with harder IIDX charts, well hard for me.

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I have LOTS of these, hence why I am pretty bad at full comboing in IIDX and Voltex. Usually it happens once I finally pass some difficult stream, and then during the recovery part my brain and finger-answer will just go "nope".
It's lie you read it, you hit that as usual...in your head only to realise your freaking finger didn't moved an inch (or somewhere completly unrelated)
Oh, and add to that normal muscles cramps and it becomes hell (I still haven't made a full run of Cuvelia's song in IIDX without my arms cramping before the end)

I don't usually have finger lock nowadays, but I used to in my early days of rhythm gaming. It still happens on occasion when I play Beatmania, especially because of the unusual hand layout.

Leg lock, I'm familiar with. The worst feeling is when the bottom half of your leg refuses to respond, but you're in enough control of your upper leg so you painfully drag your feet across the pads and trip on the brackets. This is why holding onto the bar isn't cheating, I don't want to DDR with my face.