Well how else are you going to practice endurance and learn to adjust to the player. If you’re falling into auto-pilot mode because you are winning (or even losing), force yourself to rethink the match and work on never letting the opponent get the better of you. This style of play is helpful in forcing you to stay active on your feet and have fresh ideas as much as possible.
A week or so before Evo, I played Francis in a FT10 (though we didn’t plan it, it ended that way) and he beat me 10-9 after I had an 8-4 lead on him. When it was 8-4, he completely changed his style and won back 3 more before I was able to adjust a little and squeeze out another win to make it 9-7. In the end though, Francis was able to edge me out (not to mention in an unfavorable matchup) because I couldn’t completely adapt to the changes he made. You can also ask Frank about our FT10 for Dojo rankings back in Vanilla where it was Gief/Bison and Frank barely finished me off in the final round to close it at 10-9.
I feel that long term endurance is a big factor why I didn’t go as far as I could’ve in Evo. I felt completely worn out after playing Valle on the stream and had to jump into my next match against an okay Balrog. He kinda destroyed me in the first game but I wasn’t going to let Evo end there for me and I forced a game 3 where I was actually up, but the Rog was able to outlast me as I just ran out of ideas and wasn’t playing anywhere near my “A” game.
I’m pretty sure Cole has a solid understanding of what it takes to become a top player and seal up weaknesses. Having these different stations at the Dojo is probably the smartest thing to happen to Seattle SF4 since Tournament Wars started.
Also Cole, is there going to be a tourney tonight? Your post kind of made it seem as if we’re just doing stations.
Much love David. You’re getting better though with the timing on the cross-up Kuenai setup. Keep working at it and you’ll be dominating fools in no time.