Any tips for improving my mental game?

[InternetSandman]

I play Ganondorf and Jigglypuff, and every time I play someone in friendlies, or in tournament, I'm always told that I'm too aggressive, and that I'm easy to punish because of it. I can't figure out how to play patiently though. On the rare occasion that I do, it's just for a few moments and then I'm back to being the aggressor. I don't know how to play patiently and look for openings to punish, and most of the time if I try to play patiently, my brain interprets it as "shield everything" and then I get grabbed easily. My fundamentals are absolutely crap, and anyone else I play seems to pick up on my playstyle within a few games and proceeds to body me

Another problem I have is that I get frustrated really easily, at which point my play gets even worse still, and I'm not learning at all, even in friendlies. I can't pay attention to my own play, and I just get more and more frustrated when I get punished for doing stupid stuff. Outside of the match, I know damn well everything I'm doing wrong, but inside a match, none of it clicks in my brain at all.

Does anyone have any advice for improving these aspects of my mental game? I absolutely love this game but I hate feeling like I just can't learn or improve, and I don't want it to start killing my drive.

 

[leesinger]

It sounds like you are paying too much attention to your own play and not enough to your opponents. I play this game at a very high level and can tell you that 95% of the time my eyes are focused on my opponent and guaging what they are doing. This is the only way you will ever be able to actually "read" someone and punish them accordingly. Your movement and attacks should be ingrained in your mind so that you dont have to watch yourself perform the attack to know it happened, just by pressing the buttons on the controller, you know it happened.

Its fine to be aggressive, but your aggression should be measured and applied safely. Certain attacks are "safe on shield" these attacks are great tools in the neutral game and should always be used. In contrast, smash attacks and other laggy moves should only be used when you are going for a read and the oppoent is actually at a percent where landing an upsmash means anything.

 

[InternetSandman]

It sounds like you are paying too much attention to your own play and not enough to your opponents. I play this game at a very high level and can tell you that 95% of the time my eyes are focused on my opponent and guaging what they are doing. This is the only way you will ever be able to actually "read" someone and punish them accordingly. Your movement and attacks should be ingrained in your mind so that you dont have to watch yourself perform the attack to know it happened, just by pressing the buttons on the controller, you know it happened.

Its fine to be aggressive, but your aggression should be measured and applied safely. Certain attacks are "safe on shield" these attacks are great tools in the neutral game and should always be used. In contrast, smash attacks and other laggy moves should only be used when you are going for a read and the oppoent is actually at a percent where landing an upsmash means anything.

my eyes are on my opponent, and I'm watching them and paying attention to what I do. I know my own characters well enough that the only time I watch myself is if I'm offstage and gauging my recovery, and even then I pay attention to how they're gonna edgeguard me. The problem is that I can't play patiently or smart enough that paying attention to them means enough.

heres a good match to kinda demonstrate what I mean. It's not that I just have blind aggression, I try to be metered and smart with it, but it's still not enough, and I can't adapt to things nearly as fast as others seem to be able to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iWAmkUnRgA

 

[Dastardly Ridleylash]

One thing I've learned from playing Smash for so long is that it's a very bad idea to play hyperaggressively, even with rushdown fighters and especially with the Manon. Being hyperaggressive makes it easy to figure out how you'll operate, and once you've been figured out, not even Wizard's Dropkick and it's immense benefits can save you.

What I find helps is actually doing things outside of the game itself as a countermeasure. Meditation and other such methods are great at relieving stress and also help you become more patient. It also helps to study your matches thouroughly and understand what you are doing wrong so you can make an effort to correct the mistakes; you learn by doing, after all, and if you don't study what you do wrong, you'll keep doing it.

Ganon himself does not do well hyperagressively, either. He relies more on a Little Mac like approach of baiting and punishing the opponent's attacks, and playing too aggressively makes him vulnurable.

 

[Simperheve]

my eyes are on my opponent, and I'm watching them and paying attention to what I do. I know my own characters well enough that the only time I watch myself is if I'm offstage and gauging my recovery, and even then I pay attention to how they're gonna edgeguard me. The problem is that I can't play patiently or smart enough that paying attention to them means enough.

heres a good match to kinda demonstrate what I mean. It's not that I just have blind aggression, I try to be metered and smart with it, but it's still not enough, and I can't adapt to things nearly as fast as others seem to be able to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iWAmkUnRgA

I can definitely see what they mean about you being very aggressive. I noticed that you seem to chase the opponent off stage most of the time, which resulted in your untimely demise on the first life of the first match. The KO back was good. Maybe you should try guarding the edge more?

Also, it looks like your opponent was keeping the pace over the course of the match. Playing a character like Ganondorf means you shouldn't be charging in, but rather baiting your opponent into attacking and devastating them with a powerful punish. Slow them down to your pace, because if you try to keep pace with them your doomed to fail.

 

[leesinger]

What the above posters said is correct. I'm gonna be a little more hard though. You are playing Ganondorf wrong. Flat out. Ganon is not meant to be an all out, in your face, swarm style character like sheik. Ganon relies heavily on baiting out options and then punishing with tilts and his other strong attacks. Ganon also has one of the worst off-stage games out of the entire cast, so you really shouldn't be sticking your neck way out there. Going for d-airs off stage against characters with gimpable recoveries is just fine, but mario is not one of those characters who is easily gimped and by putting yourself off-stage against him you give up stage control and ganon needs that to be successful. You are also rolling too much in the neutral. Rolling is a good tool for fast characters because they can act quickly out of them. Ganon doesnt have very many fast options, (fastest option is jab?) so I would instead just focus on spotdodging and then hitting them with ftilt/dtilt. All of that being said, your ganon really isnt that bad and the truth is that the matchup of mario and ganon is extremely in marios favor. If both you and the mario play correct the mario should be able to two stock you, just because of how many of mario's moves outright beat yours.