Whenever people are watching me play, I always seem to get nervous. Whether it be in a tournament, in casuals, or even in a huge online endless room, I get shaky and it makes it hard for me to focus on the match. I always think about what everyone is thinking of me play and it gets to my head. I feel the need to “impress” everyone if that makes sense.
I think of myself as a decent player, but this is really hurting my game and causing me to play like crap. It’s also providing an inability for me to have fun while I play. How do I chill the hell out? Any advice or help would be much appreciated. Also don’t say smoke weed xD
everyone gets nervous. Hopefully with more experience you’ll be less nervous. If I’m playing online or offline I get “that” feeling. I guess it goes back to the day of arcades, you don’t want to lose your .25(even though it was either allowance or lunch money)! XD
you get nervous cause you don’t leave emotionts at the door
the emotion comes after and before the match, but while you play you are cold as a block of ice, if you don’t do that you will never be a consistent player
Adrenaline from being put under pressure. You really want to perform well with a crowd. You get the shakes, start sweating, your heart rate increases to ridiculous.
It’s pretty potent stuff. The only solution is deep breathes, focus on your opponent and keep playing until your body normalizes under those conditions (Could take months of play). I still get my heartrate up from playing 1 on 1 when even the smallest thing is on the line (Could be pride, could be the last Cheeto). That shit shoots through the roof when I’m recording, even if there’s no one else and I know no one else will see the match.
My bad, I didn’t know AYO stood for something. I thought it was AYO as in ayo, cool talk. Sorry bout that
Edit:
Anyway, thanks for the responses guys! That’s definitely how I feel with the pressure and such. It’s not so much a feel of losing, it’s more just a fear of looking like a scrub honestly lol. Playing like a “cold block of ice” is the hard part, that’s what I really need to work on. I’ll try the deep breathing next time. Sometimes my hands slightly shake too and it throws my execution out the window. I’ll try to work on this, easier said than done though.
try eating a banana before you know you are about to play, like before a tournament or w/e. It contains tryptophan to help ease nerves. Other than that, it just takes constant exposure to the tense tournament environment for you to get used to it. It goes away with time, trust me. My first tournament I was literally shaking with anticipation, anxiety, and shit, but now it’s nothing; I played Marn at UFO yesterday and it felt like I was just playing another guy. You could also try playing with music to drown out stuff going on behind you. I personally like Kaskade radio on pandora, but yeah, just do you, boo boo.
No problem at all it’s my fault anyway, I should’ve known it was someone else’s.
And wow thanks I’ll actually consider that. I’ll let you know sometime thanks dude that’s awesome of you.
Does a banana really help? I’ll try to have one next time. Too bad I’ll probably need a whole tree of them to make my nerves get better lol. And it’s good to hear that this goes away over time and I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this way. Thanks for the post, your advice is good and helpful.
1.) Always try to constantly put yourself in situations where you can feel that hardcore and intense pressure all the time, keep playing at tournaments, keep having people watch you play, etc.
2.) Always try to play with the situational pressure along with something on the line, it can be a money match, the tournament, or some sort of bet where you will face the outcome of losing something.
3.) Try to not always strive to ‘impress’ the crowd when you but yourself in these situations, just try to have fun, don’t put a big emphasis to win all the time. Sometimes, you can just try to fuck around a bit and don’t take it serious. Pick a character you don’t don’t normally play with or some shit, or just try to land a combo you’ve been working on, and if you lose, so what? Then after a while once you notice your nerves start to diminish, amp it up a bit.
4.) Like someone mentioned, keep your emotions at the door. Keep all your negative thoughts out of your head, and whenever they try to creep in, try your to replace that negative thought with something positive or neutral for you can concentrate. Always have thoughts of things you need to look out for when you play and anticipate various outcomes, options and choices your opponent can make for you can react accordingly.
Exclusive Attention span (the opposite of Attention Deficit Disorder)
These things will help you drown out the rest of the crowd and help you keep yourself in your game.
Don’t force yourself to act the way people teach you. You are limiting yourself to what they are able to explain to you, instead figure out your strengths and play on them. This is the absolute best way to learn how to maximize your potential. Remember, your playing Street Fighter… a video game that you didn’t make, that means that you already have to fit your thoughts around the parameters of the game. Don’t hurt yourself more by taking everyones advice literally.
Using myself as an example:
(just read it and do what you want with it)
I usually try to have as much fun as possible, the more fun I’m having, the smoother my gameplay is. If I’m laughing a lot, and making comments to build everyones game then thats when I do the best. On the other hand, when I’m on GGPO where everyone is using the “troll or get trolled” mentality it makes it hard for me to do well, or learn about the game, because people are just there for the win and nothing else, because they’re afraid of potentially losing in the future because they taught you a trick.
TL;DR version:
find what emotion complements your “good” game-play and pursue it to maximize your results.
But in all seriousness I think you just need to clear your head before you go to play, im assuming your not playing this game for any kind of serious money so maybe you just need to remind yourself there’s nothing to get nervous about. Your just playing street fighter…
I have several friends who are very good at the game, but crack under pressure.
I was in a 3v3 at NCR 2009 with a cammy friend of mine and he could have easily beaten Marn until he started dropping combos, it wasn’t helpful that he could hear the commentators saying “Remember to not drop your links!” and other statements of that kind.
My advice would be to focus on smiling. Feel happy about the game and play for your own enjoyment, rather than the enjoyment of others.
I improved in this department in an unexpected way. My real problem used to be getting really jittery when I was close to dying. So i’ve started to actively ignore the health bar. If your style is solid, you should play the same at 100% as 10% health.
So, practicing calming my nerves when close to dying had an unexpected effect. As I got better at that specific time, it started to carry over to the whole match in general. Once I learned how to control my nerves in one specific situation, I found it was similar process to settle my nerves when people are watching.
Basically I really started to BELIEVE, hey, its just one match. My stats indicate that I will be playing more of them. There will ALWAYS be another fight.
Lastly, Paper had a GREAT idea. Smile while you play. I’ve found when I smile while I play - my groans (after missing my 3rd throw tech for example), turn into laughter. Even when I get smashed with a huge combo, if I’m smiling before I end up laughing afterwards. If I learn something from a loss I get excited becuase then I feel I’ve become more dangerous, like “oohh I can’t wait to hit someone with that next time!” or “Next time, I’ll counter that and someone is gonna eat an ultra!”
Being happy helps staying loose. My buddy brought a great saying back from Iraq, “Stay Frosty”.
I’m only nervous at tourneys, and ONLY nervous before it gets started. For some reason getting the thing organized and started, and the buildup to whoever I fight first gets me stressing. But then once I start playing I’m fine.
Same thing happens with me online. For whatever reason, when I first go to play online, I’m very nervous in my first fight. Then I’m fine for the rest of the time that I play. I don’t know what it is, it’s really strange.
I’m NEVER nervous at casuals, though, even with a crowd.
