Some thoughts on stamina
Stamina is the ability to maintain performance of some sort under a strain that is induced by the performance. In athletic sports, it's most synonymous with distance running, cross country and marathons. It's also found in sports like swimming, rowing and skiing, as well as many other tests of endurance.
ITG is much the same way. It's a simple activity that requires a degree of active maintenance and a push against the buildup of fatigue over time.
It isn't the only way to play ITG, but it's certainly a rewarding one. I was originally a stamina player, and arguably all forms of playing are stamina-centric in some capacity.
The raw stamina life is probably the most physically painful but most satisfying way of playing the game. It requires great mental focus and physical push to last a long time against the seemingly unending flow of arrows. When I say stamina, I'm talking long periods of time under tension. Minutes, stretching into tens of them, sometimes into hours and lower intensities (although people are becoming more capable of doing faster songs for longer).
Just take a look at this:
And if you don't believe it, the "Up Next" has someone else doing it with a body angle as well.
Broaden your perspectives
Most people think of stamina as something purely physical - it's a physical stress experienced in a primarily physical way, so improving one's stamina is a matter of improving your resistance to that stress, right?
I've been evaluating the definition of what stamina is and what it means to have alot of it over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. There are stories of people undergoing superhuman feats of endurance under great duress, but without years of physical conditioning to consolidate it.
My postulation is that the mental aspect of stamina is conditioning the body to continue performance under stress and numbing the pain that comes from it. Some people are tired after running half a mile, but others can run 26 more with little difficulty, and some can even do so every day. From this data, what does the every day marathon runner possess that allows him to endure consecutive efforts for extended periods of time? It cannot be purely physical, otherwise surely his body would have undergone great visible transformations in musculature and in joints and tendons. Surely, his body would have broken down.
Therefore, the stamina must be a great portion a mental game, and it seems that to build it, one must first endure the pain and come to relish in it. Stamina only ever gets more difficult and never easier, but forcing a conditioning to the pain so that it becomes barely noticeable as one continues to push forward.