Realizing when you are "free"?

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
41

actually, if I choose believe in what you’re saying, naturals and born losers still exist. someone who practices mastery could decrease the time it takes to achieve mastery. that would mean there’s different levels of mastery.

I’m pretty skeptical. 10,000 hours seems like such a blanket number to throw out. anyway, when I said that practice alone won’t make you good, I meant things such as… you are not gonna dominate like Daigo by spending over 3 years in the training room practicing combos. you won’t do it by practicing playing well outside of tournament settings yet do nothing about the fact that you still crack once you get there. you won’t do it if you have turtle-slow reflexes (slowest humans have .40 reaction time if I remember right), do nothing to compensate for them or hide this weakness, and let opponents take advantage of if. before you can say “practice makes perfect”, you need to know what you’re even practicing. if everyone could accurately pinpoint their exact strengths & weaknesses then practice accordingly, then I might agree. but it’s because it’s not clearcut that I don’t agree

42

Another SoVa head here. I know a few people, but mostly end up just playing online. I had the good fortune to attend EVO this year, though not with the SoVa crew, unfortunately. Maybe next year…

In any event, I’ve done a lot of thinking on this subject as I am perpetually overly realistic by default and also new to fighting games. I’ve also done a lot of work, though not enough, towards becoming a great player. When I was talking to my friend SHGLBMX before heading out to Evo (he’s a notable socal blanka player) I said to him “Hey man! I’m coming to Evo…not expecting to win anything, but hey, Bang The Machine will be cool!”. He replied with “Don’t say that, that’s a terrible attitude”. I replied with “Man, I’ve only been playing fighting games for a year, I never make it out to tournaments and I can’t even beat Joe Schmo online with 2500 BP consistently, how am I going to roll into Evo against real tournament competitors and even win a match when most of these guys have been playing since SF2 Turbo or Alpha?”. He didn’t reply. So I go to Evo and win my first match. A pretty thrilling come from behind victory where I went down a set and a round and that went all the way down to the final round with 10 seconds left. I pulled it out. Sure, I lost my next two, it is what it is, but if it’s taught me one thing, it’s this: As tempting as it is to be realistic about where you are in the Street Fighter world, being realistic is being negative whether you are trying to be or not. Instead of saying things like “I’m just not getting better, I think I can’t get better, or I will never be as good as Person X” say things like “I need to work on this fundamental technique to improve” or “I need to get better at this matchup”.

I think that focusing on smaller steps like improvement of anti-air or defense is a much better way of working towards achieving the bigger picture. If you are only concerned with what happens in the win/loss column then you can never really focus on the techniques and proper strategy you need to actually win more often.

Alex Valle once said to to me not that long ago, “How you handle losing determines what kind of winner you will become or if you will become a winner at all”.

As far as paying Gootecks, I offered to do audio cleanup and editing on his latest SF Secrets he is working on in return for some play sessions. Honestly, it was one of the most insightful sessions I’ve had and definitely is helping me think differently and has gotten me on the right track in some ways. So, it’s not all bad considering I can’t make it out all that often to train with the local gurus. I recommend him.

Check out my first blog on SRK. It was a conversation I had with an old friend of mine. He is a great NorCal Fei player and he has some insightful things to say to me in a chat log a while back. There are definitely echoes of your predicament there and I think that its a pretty good read for anyone down and out. Many of my blogs are bitch sessions about how I’m not getting better, I’ve realized the error of my ways, however. I think many people go through this and must learn to overcome it.

In closing, I don’t agree with quitting or saying “hey, I’ll never be RyRy, so fuck it”. It’s not fun to lose, but then if you focus on the smaller steps and actually improving on different aspects of the game that you aren’t so good at you will begin to forget about winning and losing and you will just have fun again. The side effect will be that you will get better while doing it. It doesn’t matter that you win today or tomorrow or a year from now, we will all develop at different rates.

Hope this helps

43

Just get a good community, learn shit from each other, play the best players you can, even if you only have online, hop on IRC, get to know people, get them to play you, I know Henry Cen is always on there looking for people to play, although now that evo is over his training regiment may be toned down for a bit.

you wanna play good players, you can find them, and it shouldn’t have to cost you money to play them.

44

there’s an IRC?

45

yes there is. thats where all the top players communicate at. thats why most of them dont post on srk nomore

46

Some people will never be good at fighters. I’m one of those people. It’s just a simple fact. I spend tons of time watching videos, playing, trying to learn and I can never get past 1100pp to save my life.

It’s life. Some people just suck at fighting games.

47

and because of that you will remain free.

48

I agree some people will never be go at fighters, but i will never admit to be one of them…

mofo’s just don’t get it…

49

“when you lose you learn and when you learn you win”- steve H

when you lose dont get mad, go back to the lab and keep trying. if you keep thinking your free then have fun sucking for the rest of your fighting game career.

50

Gonna have to agree with OJ4… I’m free right now, but that isn’t stopping me from very slowly improving. This is gonna sound cliche but… Yeah, you may never be a top tier Fighting Game player but… defeatism like that is a self fulfilling prophecy.

51

there is a this local gamer who i met named jae mito. dude came into the scene not knowing much, i even told him basics. but now hes not “free” because he trained and got help and was not afraid of losing and asking why he lost. i saw a big improvement in his game. thats just one of many local sova players(aleri, k1sauce and so on)

basically, we all gotta start somewhere. its never too late to improve

52

my man mito still free beyotch :slight_smile:

love you mito…

53

No, your defeatist attitude is why you will never get past 1100pp. Unless you have some sort of physical disability.

Before a week ago I had played Street Fighter maybe 15 times in my life. My friend got me into it and I’ve started a daily regimen and I’ve improved rapidly since then (as these things go). I was (and might return to being) active in another less respected fighting game scene with a much smaller execution barrier than SF has but many fundamentals carry over (Playing to Learn - Smash World Forums would be a great read for anyone trying to make it any fighting game), but anyways… My point is that as far as street fighter goes I’m the last person you want to take advice from.

I am, however, a classical musician. Practicing is more or less my life. That saying - “practice makes perfect”? It’s not true. Practice makes permanent. If you allow yourself to get frustrated, you are practicing frustration into your game. If you allow yourself to panic, you are practicing panicking every time you play. If you practice telling yourself you’re not going to make it or that you’re not cut out at fighting games (or whatever it is you’re trying to do), you’re building a self image of someone who is weak and helpless and might as well quit because you’re destroying your own chances.

Working hard is good and important but many people get stuck in a rut repeating the same mistakes and pracitcing in defecincies. Usually this issue is caused by working too hard, actually, and reaching the point of frustration. Frustration will destroy you. It clouds judgemnt, reduces your rationality, and makes it more likely that you’ll continue making he same mistakes if not worse. Working smarter instead of harder is the key. When it comes to execution (the only aspect of SF I can really offer any insight on), this is stuff like breaking down combos instead of trying the whole 4+ move string at once, careful study of why your inputs don’t work, etc… I assume most people are past the execution stage of practice and there are plenty of great posts here and around about how to improve that. The important thing is that you don’t just sit there for hours on end practicing one thing wrong or in a way that generates a large amount of frustration. Ultimately, this should be a source of fun.

If SSF4 is becoming not fun for you, the only option is to stop. Stop for 5 minutes, stop for a half hour, stop for an hour, stop for the day, stop for a couple days, stop for a week. Whatever it take, return only when you can stay focused and observe and learn from waht you are doing.

The other end is practicing playing against opponents and in tournaments. This is also mental practice. Divorce yourself from the need to win and focus on playing to learn, with your goal to be to observe and better yourself. You will learn something from every match you play, whether you realize it or not. It might be intangible, it might be something obvious (oh I get punished every time I ultra in the middle of nowhere?). No matter what, you can and will always pull some thing from a match. Don’t let that be frustration.

54

That’s complete bullshit. You’re not free so you can say stuff like that. I’ve played and played and tried to learn and learn and read all the articles and the positive thinking and it doesnt’ seem to do much.

55

Also like to add, yes, some people can go from free to not free but they never do it on their on. This game takes years to get good at.

56

that’s what I tried to say earlier except in a nicer way. no one paid any attention.

it’s not always a state of mind that attributes to a losing streak. you think a simple change in your state of mind can make you beat Alex Valle? Justin Wong? Daigo? that’s bullshit. though your state of mind can contribute to you playing even worse, it’s not the reason you’re losing. the reason you’re losing is cause you’re getting your ass kicked. and like I said before, sometimes you just get your ass whooped and there’s nothing you can do about it (at least at the time).

I remember back when I sucked at SSF2 and ST I would play DGV all the time. I actually got 50 streaked by DGV without getting a single match win. not one match did I sit there thinking “I’m gonna lose, he’s much better than me”; in fact, I went in thinking that no matter what he did, I was gonna hit him.

there’s different kinds of “free”, but chromer didn’t answer my post so I have no idea which one it was

57

What are you reading and what are you trying to do in matches?

Do you panic or feel frustrated? If you do, combining that with positive thinking doesn’t work. When you positively think, you have a clear mind and you know what you need to do to win. Even if you lose, you knew that you had control over your emotions. Negative thinking just leads to a lot of doubts on the mind which causes stupid shit to happen.

Trust me man, I’m free as hell but I don’t let that get to me(anymore). Just learn from your mistakes. SSFIV has a new replay system, so use that to your advantage.

The things you read does do and help a lot. Maybe you’re just not applying it right to your game play. I had those thoughts before. That’s why I stopped playing for awhile. Now, I’m reading again and trying to apply the things I read into my game play.

The reason why I started playing this game again was because of the Evo2k 2010 stream. The insights they give and the explanation about the players’ mindset made me think to myself, “why did I stop playing?” I mean I thank the stream because my mindset has changed or am currently developing the new mindset.

58

I posted that reply then went and won 10 in a row and got that trophy. From now on don’t listen to anything I say.

59

lol.

60

I’m still free as fuck. Anyone with 1700pp or over owns me all day.