Cheeri-Oats
Smash Lord
I sat in the passenger seat of the car feeling good. Hell, I felt great. It was the best feeling I have ever had going to a tournament before. I was typing out a screenplay I was working on with little difficulty. There was no writer’s block here. And I was jamming to Hall’s CD, in my own little party world. I was complete that morning, and I was showing it off for everyone on the highway to see.
When we arrived at the venue, I had almost forgotten that it was Chu Dat’s Tourney. It was his because mostly everyone was there to see him, and every match he played at, people gathered round to analyze and enjoy. His Kirby is spectacular. It’s precise and elegant and with his phenomenal spacing, there was a deliberate and determined pattern to his movements. Chu Dat was worthy of the 2 Good Grant that brought him to West Coast.
I started off the day playing friendlies with my teammate, Fierce. It had been a whole month or so since my previous tournament, and probably the first month in a very long while that I felt like I actually wanted to be at. I made a conscious effort to attend and put a lot of my other priorities on the backburner. While I originally intended to play friendlies to warm-up my Lucas (yes, I am still a Lucas main), I was also warming-up every other part of me that had laid dormant. I began to ****-talk.
For those of you that haven’t heard me ****-talk, you should go back in time to mid-to-late 2008, and attend a big SoCal Tourney or a Chula Vista, and just listen to me ramble on. Go on, this blog will be here for you when you come back.
The same rush that had started my morning and blasted our party off on the highway to Los Angeles, had stayed with me through friendlies, and through lunch with Fierce. At Pick-up Stix I was beaming, and the server was responding to my energy with a smile and great service. This was not just your usual rush. I was confident, and I was in the ****ing zone. I told Fabian that I could feel that we were going to do well that day. We were going to ****ing ****.
And we didn’t. We got 2-0’d in doubles. That was fine though. My personal high didn’t go away. Are you familiar with the butterflies? These are the kind that leave you feeling hollow and weak. These are the kind that would lift your stomach depending on the situation and take you somewhere you don’t want to be. These butterflies flew south for the spring. There were no butterflies after those pathetic losses. I was not weak and I was not empty. I was still very much full, and what’s better is that I was still very much hungry.
Time had passed and I asked Champ about my singles matches and if they were going to come up. They hadn’t up until that time. He tells me I was not added to the bracket because of a mistake, and I was fine with that. I was not mad and I was still in the most amazing mood. I tell him to put me where there is free space, and in Mid-Tiers he puts me in first round against Chu Dat.
I stopped. And I thought for a moment. But that moment was gone in an even faster moment, as I was not going to doubt myself. I was not going to think. I was going to feel and flow. I called over Havok and told him I was going to play Chu Dat, I told him I could win it.
I have Kirby experience. Well, that was a year ago, but that didn’t matter. I still had knowledge of what to avoid and even though I was rusty, that was not an excuse. It was not going to hold me back. I travelled the distance, so I could definitely do it. There was prep work that I wanted to make though so that I could be that much better. More knowledge never hurts. At that point nothing would satiate me.
Looking for an empty TV was easy. I sat down on a chair, called MogX and asked him to play me.
“Oh, Oats! You’re going to play Chu Dat? Ok.” He said.
As we were playing, my mind was focusing on everything he did and I was able to keep up. For those of you that don’t know who MogX is, I’ll let you go back in time to August 2008, at Axis, and watch MogX, play BarDulL, at his first big West Coast Tournament. Go on, the blog will still be here when you come back.
MogX and I were almost even, and he was pulling ahead. I was still pumped, and I thought I was focusing hard on everything he did. I was even thinking of what to predict and what to watch out for. I needed to avoid the grab, down-air-to-forward-smash, etc. He started to take the lead. But after he took off my first stock, something just clicked. Everything just clicked. Clicked like clockwork. Cogs located deep within the recesses of mind began to spin and move other cogs and move other spridgets and gidgets and gadgets. I was a Dr. Seuss contraption, operating at weird angles and breaking through to parallel worlds where thoughts are realized in full 720 degrees. It was weird.
I gained momentum in our friendly. And soon enough on that second stock, I was poking Mog, out-smarting Mog, and definitely getting him with some new mix-ups I’ve never even done before. It was spectacular. This was Oats, circa February 2009. This was the Oats that Tyrant feared back in December of 2008. This was Oats that beat Meep’s Snake and Meta-Knight in pools. This was Oats as people hopefully remembered him. I had found him again.
We didn’t finish the match because Chu Dat had just arrived, and I was ready for him. The butterflies actually flew back though. I could feel them flapping their wings along my insides, trying to distract me through their innocent tickling of all my inner-tracts. They were trying to sabotage me; I was trying to sabotage myself. It was all that doubt that wanted to creep up my throat and regurgitate itself all over my controller and gameplay. It wanted to tell me that I was a low-tier main, about to play one of the smartest players in the nation, and I was going to lose miserably. It wanted to tell me that I couldn’t keep up with MogX. It wanted to tell me that I was rusty and that I would not be ready. But I told that ***** to shut the **** up, and tied those butterflies to a motor, and had all that pent up energy work for me.
I respectfully shook Chu’s hand and tried my best to understand him as a player entering the game. And once he picked his character and took me to Smashville, I tried my best to respect him and understand him as a player playing the game. I was not doing as well as I thought I would. I was getting ***** that first match. He was spacing perfectly. He was doing the Chu. My thoughts were focused on surviving, and learning. I wanted to learn. I wanted to find out why this man is so good and what was making him tick. I went into that first match defeated because I was not going in to win. I was doing the Rickety. I was doing the Batman.
Second match starts and my mindset changes. Every single fiber of my core focuses on two things: I want to beat Chu and I want to show everyone I can still compete. And with the change in the mindset, I start approaching my Nirvana again. F-tilt, to d-tilt, to grab, to grab-release, to wait for the roll, punish with d-smash, and then kill with baited f-smash. I was at mid-percent range, and I just took off Chu’s first stock. I can see him smiling from the corner of my eye.
His second stock was better in the sense that he took a stock off me, but I still smashed through every wall he put up like a train powered by unholy momentum. He thought he could swallowcide me, but I broke out immediately and jumped to spike. His second stock lost, and I was still on my second, mid-to-high percents.
As I was winning I could feel the train slow down. My thoughts no longer focused on thinking of beating Chu because I could slowly feel my hunger being tamed. I could do it, if I felt like it. I was a stock ahead and I hadn’t even broken a sweat. I was already able to do it, hell. And so, instead of focusing on beating Chu and impressing others, I really only thought about impressing others. I died twice to stupid things and greedy mistakes and I lost the set to Chu.
Now, mind you, that is a bit of a let-down story, but there is an amazing ending to it. I tapped into a part of my brain I thought I could never reach. I could do it command. I can do it command. To prove to myself that I could and that it wasn’t a fluke, I money match Chu, and the first match was close, and I take the second one. The third one, I lost again, and he became five dollars richer, but he still took the time to talk to me and respect me. Respect me because of my mindset, and respect me because I respected him.
Usually when people hit walls in their gameplay and can’t seem to break through they are usually told to keep playing and that they’ll eventually reach it. The keep playing is usually super frustrating, but the next plateau in their skill is meant to be the reward for all that hard work and frustration. Like hitting a wall again and again, you’re supposed to keep making the same mistakes over and over again until you learn to avoid them and open your mind. Some people hit this plateau from extensive breaks. Others are naturally gifted at avoiding these walls by understanding the process of keeping their mind in the zone 24/7.
I’m working on keeping my mind in the zone 24/7. Here are some tips for that.
1) Break habits. Hide your wants every step of the match.
Habits are horrible and predictable. Do whatever you can to break all of the ones you have and just work like a blank, empty slate. Habits basically tell your opponent what you’re going to do at every step of the match, and if they know this, they can punish you. If you’re blank, empty slate, with no habits, you’re unreadable, and you just react and flow.
2) Be aware. Know what your opponent wants every step of the match.
Know match-ups, know true combos, know stage lay-out, and know your opponent. If they habits, you can punish them because you’ll know what they want to do every step of the match.
Basic right? But we always need a little reminder.
Oh, and by-the-way. I’m back. The people I played that day can vouch for that.
(Oh and RARE, you only get one match reset per lifetime. Next time, you better have a working controller, or I will personally **** you in the face with my big-fat rope-snake.)
I’m the best Lucas in the world, and I don’t care about tiers, or anyone.
When we arrived at the venue, I had almost forgotten that it was Chu Dat’s Tourney. It was his because mostly everyone was there to see him, and every match he played at, people gathered round to analyze and enjoy. His Kirby is spectacular. It’s precise and elegant and with his phenomenal spacing, there was a deliberate and determined pattern to his movements. Chu Dat was worthy of the 2 Good Grant that brought him to West Coast.
I started off the day playing friendlies with my teammate, Fierce. It had been a whole month or so since my previous tournament, and probably the first month in a very long while that I felt like I actually wanted to be at. I made a conscious effort to attend and put a lot of my other priorities on the backburner. While I originally intended to play friendlies to warm-up my Lucas (yes, I am still a Lucas main), I was also warming-up every other part of me that had laid dormant. I began to ****-talk.
For those of you that haven’t heard me ****-talk, you should go back in time to mid-to-late 2008, and attend a big SoCal Tourney or a Chula Vista, and just listen to me ramble on. Go on, this blog will be here for you when you come back.
The same rush that had started my morning and blasted our party off on the highway to Los Angeles, had stayed with me through friendlies, and through lunch with Fierce. At Pick-up Stix I was beaming, and the server was responding to my energy with a smile and great service. This was not just your usual rush. I was confident, and I was in the ****ing zone. I told Fabian that I could feel that we were going to do well that day. We were going to ****ing ****.
And we didn’t. We got 2-0’d in doubles. That was fine though. My personal high didn’t go away. Are you familiar with the butterflies? These are the kind that leave you feeling hollow and weak. These are the kind that would lift your stomach depending on the situation and take you somewhere you don’t want to be. These butterflies flew south for the spring. There were no butterflies after those pathetic losses. I was not weak and I was not empty. I was still very much full, and what’s better is that I was still very much hungry.
Time had passed and I asked Champ about my singles matches and if they were going to come up. They hadn’t up until that time. He tells me I was not added to the bracket because of a mistake, and I was fine with that. I was not mad and I was still in the most amazing mood. I tell him to put me where there is free space, and in Mid-Tiers he puts me in first round against Chu Dat.
I stopped. And I thought for a moment. But that moment was gone in an even faster moment, as I was not going to doubt myself. I was not going to think. I was going to feel and flow. I called over Havok and told him I was going to play Chu Dat, I told him I could win it.
I have Kirby experience. Well, that was a year ago, but that didn’t matter. I still had knowledge of what to avoid and even though I was rusty, that was not an excuse. It was not going to hold me back. I travelled the distance, so I could definitely do it. There was prep work that I wanted to make though so that I could be that much better. More knowledge never hurts. At that point nothing would satiate me.
Looking for an empty TV was easy. I sat down on a chair, called MogX and asked him to play me.
“Oh, Oats! You’re going to play Chu Dat? Ok.” He said.
As we were playing, my mind was focusing on everything he did and I was able to keep up. For those of you that don’t know who MogX is, I’ll let you go back in time to August 2008, at Axis, and watch MogX, play BarDulL, at his first big West Coast Tournament. Go on, the blog will still be here when you come back.
MogX and I were almost even, and he was pulling ahead. I was still pumped, and I thought I was focusing hard on everything he did. I was even thinking of what to predict and what to watch out for. I needed to avoid the grab, down-air-to-forward-smash, etc. He started to take the lead. But after he took off my first stock, something just clicked. Everything just clicked. Clicked like clockwork. Cogs located deep within the recesses of mind began to spin and move other cogs and move other spridgets and gidgets and gadgets. I was a Dr. Seuss contraption, operating at weird angles and breaking through to parallel worlds where thoughts are realized in full 720 degrees. It was weird.
I gained momentum in our friendly. And soon enough on that second stock, I was poking Mog, out-smarting Mog, and definitely getting him with some new mix-ups I’ve never even done before. It was spectacular. This was Oats, circa February 2009. This was the Oats that Tyrant feared back in December of 2008. This was Oats that beat Meep’s Snake and Meta-Knight in pools. This was Oats as people hopefully remembered him. I had found him again.
We didn’t finish the match because Chu Dat had just arrived, and I was ready for him. The butterflies actually flew back though. I could feel them flapping their wings along my insides, trying to distract me through their innocent tickling of all my inner-tracts. They were trying to sabotage me; I was trying to sabotage myself. It was all that doubt that wanted to creep up my throat and regurgitate itself all over my controller and gameplay. It wanted to tell me that I was a low-tier main, about to play one of the smartest players in the nation, and I was going to lose miserably. It wanted to tell me that I couldn’t keep up with MogX. It wanted to tell me that I was rusty and that I would not be ready. But I told that ***** to shut the **** up, and tied those butterflies to a motor, and had all that pent up energy work for me.
I respectfully shook Chu’s hand and tried my best to understand him as a player entering the game. And once he picked his character and took me to Smashville, I tried my best to respect him and understand him as a player playing the game. I was not doing as well as I thought I would. I was getting ***** that first match. He was spacing perfectly. He was doing the Chu. My thoughts were focused on surviving, and learning. I wanted to learn. I wanted to find out why this man is so good and what was making him tick. I went into that first match defeated because I was not going in to win. I was doing the Rickety. I was doing the Batman.
Second match starts and my mindset changes. Every single fiber of my core focuses on two things: I want to beat Chu and I want to show everyone I can still compete. And with the change in the mindset, I start approaching my Nirvana again. F-tilt, to d-tilt, to grab, to grab-release, to wait for the roll, punish with d-smash, and then kill with baited f-smash. I was at mid-percent range, and I just took off Chu’s first stock. I can see him smiling from the corner of my eye.
His second stock was better in the sense that he took a stock off me, but I still smashed through every wall he put up like a train powered by unholy momentum. He thought he could swallowcide me, but I broke out immediately and jumped to spike. His second stock lost, and I was still on my second, mid-to-high percents.
As I was winning I could feel the train slow down. My thoughts no longer focused on thinking of beating Chu because I could slowly feel my hunger being tamed. I could do it, if I felt like it. I was a stock ahead and I hadn’t even broken a sweat. I was already able to do it, hell. And so, instead of focusing on beating Chu and impressing others, I really only thought about impressing others. I died twice to stupid things and greedy mistakes and I lost the set to Chu.
Now, mind you, that is a bit of a let-down story, but there is an amazing ending to it. I tapped into a part of my brain I thought I could never reach. I could do it command. I can do it command. To prove to myself that I could and that it wasn’t a fluke, I money match Chu, and the first match was close, and I take the second one. The third one, I lost again, and he became five dollars richer, but he still took the time to talk to me and respect me. Respect me because of my mindset, and respect me because I respected him.
Usually when people hit walls in their gameplay and can’t seem to break through they are usually told to keep playing and that they’ll eventually reach it. The keep playing is usually super frustrating, but the next plateau in their skill is meant to be the reward for all that hard work and frustration. Like hitting a wall again and again, you’re supposed to keep making the same mistakes over and over again until you learn to avoid them and open your mind. Some people hit this plateau from extensive breaks. Others are naturally gifted at avoiding these walls by understanding the process of keeping their mind in the zone 24/7.
I’m working on keeping my mind in the zone 24/7. Here are some tips for that.
1) Break habits. Hide your wants every step of the match.
Habits are horrible and predictable. Do whatever you can to break all of the ones you have and just work like a blank, empty slate. Habits basically tell your opponent what you’re going to do at every step of the match, and if they know this, they can punish you. If you’re blank, empty slate, with no habits, you’re unreadable, and you just react and flow.
2) Be aware. Know what your opponent wants every step of the match.
Know match-ups, know true combos, know stage lay-out, and know your opponent. If they habits, you can punish them because you’ll know what they want to do every step of the match.
Basic right? But we always need a little reminder.
Oh, and by-the-way. I’m back. The people I played that day can vouch for that.
(Oh and RARE, you only get one match reset per lifetime. Next time, you better have a working controller, or I will personally **** you in the face with my big-fat rope-snake.)
I’m the best Lucas in the world, and I don’t care about tiers, or anyone.
