“What the hands try to say…
is not always what the joystick hears.”
-XSPR
When trying to learn how to do a combo, or even a special move, you can go through many attempts trying to get it to come out but before you actually learn how to do it and are able to do it somewhat consistently, it just is not happening for you.
Not before you take a step back, and carefully consider why that is happening. Nobody really gets into this process much, so don’t feel bad about it taking a while to learn how to do the combo. But if asking why does not help you, I’d suggest asking why about four more times. This might sound silly at first, but after more and more failed attempts, you may get more and more desperate to find out the reason. Whatever it takes to just make it come out, right? You never imagined you’d have this much trouble getting it to come out once, let alone anywhere near consistently, before you actually started trying it in practice. Suddenly you have even more respect for the players that can pull it off in real matches.
Asking “why” five times is something Toyota employees do. Didn’t Toyota sponsor Evo at one point? They’re a really good company, especially when it comes to getting things done right. Another thing they do at Toyota is “genba”, which refers to actually going “on location” to the site where a problem occurs, and inspecting it directly with your own eyes.
You might say “But why is ‘genba’ helpful here? I don’t want to see the problem, I just want to see me do the combo!”
Yes, and it is good to see an online video of the combo or move you’re trying to accomplish before trying genba. This helps you not only see that the combo/special move is even possible, but gives you a sense of the timing required between each move. (What is even better is seeing a video that uses my free app Execution Aid, so you can see exactly what inputs were done when, and for exactly how long, during each move of a combo/special.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=i3p9BBO02Zg). However, that is not enough. You need to get the timing down for yourself, and get it ingrained so your finger muscles can just go on auto pilot to follow through with the combo whenever you get the chance. Genba, in this case, means looking at the screen when you try it and seeing what does happen, instead of the desired combo. That is your big clue. The desired combo is not coming out, but something else usually does. What is it? There is a reason for it happening. Recall what the command motions are again. Whatever those are, it doesn’t match what you did. Your hands are trying to say something that your stick is just not comprehending.
So before you give up and start picking the EO mode in CVS2, or decide to only learn “remixed” commands, stick with it!
You might say “Thank you! Golly I sure hope I seem like a person who is grateful for your kind advice, you wonderful person who does nice things for me!” Then again, you might not say anything like that, in which case my hands failed to type what I intended for you to comprehend, or I might have something to learn myself that I overlooked. But this failure to communicate could be just as much my fault as anyone else’s.