Important Carefully Ask PPMD about the Tiara Guy

[Dr Peepee]

LOL I SAY I LIKE EVERYTHING BAGELS FROM SOME HOTEL IN A LSL DOCUMENTARY AND NOW I AM BAGEL GURU??? IDK MAN BUT IF IT'S NOT EVERYTHING IT'S DONE!!

also, cream cheese

 

[capusa27]

Dr Peepee

Over the course of playing Marth, one thing that stands out to me about my style of play is that my Marth's punish game is an extension to my neutral game.

What I mean is that my punish game is very conservative. I focus on not overextending and am very conscientious about the spacing and options that my opponent has. I won't focus on comboing my opponent to death, but instead I focus on tech chasing, juggling, and putting them into positions that pressure the opponent such as on the platform, in the corner, or in the air.

What do you think about my pressure-focused Marth? Do you think that inexperienced players could focus on this style and have success across the board, or do you think I should skip the pressure and controlling style and focus more on comboing my opponents to death?

Thanks!

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee

Over the course of playing Marth, one thing that stands out to me about my style of play is that my Marth's punish game is an extension to my neutral game.

What I mean is that my punish game is very conservative. I focus on not overextending and am very conscientious about the spacing and options that my opponent has. I won't focus on comboing my opponent to death, but instead I focus on tech chasing, juggling, and putting them into positions that pressure the opponent such as on the platform, in the corner, or in the air.

What do you think about my pressure-focused Marth? Do you think that inexperienced players could focus on this style and have success across the board, or do you think I should skip the pressure and controlling style and focus more on comboing my opponents to death?

Thanks!

If that's what feels most natural to you, then it's not my place to say if you should change entirely. However, you should probably learn as many exceptions to your reserved play as possible. So learning when small risks can have bigger rewards and learning even to take big ones since you usually don't, as well as learning everything that's guaranteed so you can be conservative but effective. These sorts of things bring balance and they help make your natural strengths stronger.

 

[lokt]

What is the best way for marth to cover fox/falco doing roll->shine after you hit them with a close dtilt?

 

[Bl@ckChris]

Hey PP.

just popping in to say i miss ya, and i'm glad you're actively giving out tips here rather often. no direct questions i can think of, but i'm trying to get active again for about the 40th time, but i'm just glad i can scroll through here a bit and see some of the lessons i learned pieces of ages ago.

Keep it up killer, hope to see you soon.

 

[maclo4]

Is it worth trying to dash dance around dtilt in the marth ditto? The range is so long that you basically have to be halfway across the stage to not get hit by a wd forward dtilt. I usually get more success out of sh nairing it anyways but it feels too committal sometimes. I guess that's kinda the name of the game tho cause the other marth is probably thinking the same thing so if I can get him to commit to a nair or something then I can punish him. Right?
Sorry that turned into pretty much just stream of thought right there

 

[Dr Peepee]

What is the best way for marth to cover fox/falco doing roll->shine after you hit them with a close dtilt?

grab/turnaround grab? especially if you're tippering them with dtilt you should be able to grab pretty easily.

Is it worth trying to dash dance around dtilt in the marth ditto? The range is so long that you basically have to be halfway across the stage to not get hit by a wd forward dtilt. I usually get more success out of sh nairing it anyways but it feels too committal sometimes. I guess that's kinda the name of the game tho cause the other marth is probably thinking the same thing so if I can get him to commit to a nair or something then I can punish him. Right?
Sorry that turned into pretty much just stream of thought right there

You can dash around Dtilt, but you must be spaced pretty far away(around max wd dtilt distance) to do it. You might be too close. Even so, Dtilt is really good at cutting into DD, so it's often easier to jump over it like you do or just move in and CC it and Dtilt them back. If you're not sure it'll work you can always just jump in place instead of jump in and cover most approaches and be safe from Dtilt.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee I'm currently reading The Inner Game of Tennis, and I have a ton of questions about how they translate to Melee lol. But maybe I'll space out asking them in this thread as I take some time to think on my own.

One of the questions that I've thought a lot about lately is if there are differences between "natural learning" as described in the book, and the idea of "playing to learn" in Melee? And what those are if they exist? Until now I've understood playing to learn as trying to actively learn from each interaction as I'm playing the game, but this engages my conscious mind ("Self 1") a lot. Because of this I find myself overfocusing and not ever playing particularly well when doing so. Is this the proper methodology despite my poor performance when playing the game? Like, between the three aspects of improvement, practice, set analysis, and friendlies, how much would you say the conscious mind should be engaged in each? Should I be thinking actively about the relationships between character threat zones and stuff when playing with others, or just let my body do its thing? What about with practice?

I admittedly have a hard time trusting I shouldn't be thinking much in friendlies because it's difficult to take that leap of faith and believe I'll truly understand what I'm learning if I don't think about it. I mean, I know I play much better when I'm relaxed and focused and not thinking too hard, but that's the state I've understood as "playing to win." Is that in itself part of my problem?

Thanks so much for keeping this thread alive so long PP, btw. Just wanted to mention how much I appreciate you being so willing to help us out, because I've improved dramatically in the past year when I started and I'm always getting closer to my dream of being the best <3

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee I'm currently reading The Inner Game of Tennis, and I have a ton of questions about how they translate to Melee lol. But maybe I'll space out asking them in this thread as I take some time to think on my own.

One of the questions that I've thought a lot about lately is if there are differences between "natural learning" as described in the book, and the idea of "playing to learn" in Melee? And what those are if they exist? Until now I've understood playing to learn as trying to actively learn from each interaction as I'm playing the game, but this engages my conscious mind ("Self 1") a lot. Because of this I find myself overfocusing and not ever playing particularly well when doing so. Is this the proper methodology despite my poor performance when playing the game? Like, between the three aspects of improvement, practice, set analysis, and friendlies, how much would you say the conscious mind should be engaged in each? Should I be thinking actively about the relationships between character threat zones and stuff when playing with others, or just let my body do its thing? What about with practice?

I admittedly have a hard time trusting I shouldn't be thinking much in friendlies because it's difficult to take that leap of faith and believe I'll truly understand what I'm learning if I don't think about it. I mean, I know I play much better when I'm relaxed and focused and not thinking too hard, but that's the state I've understood as "playing to win." Is that in itself part of my problem?

Thanks so much for keeping this thread alive so long PP, btw. Just wanted to mention how much I appreciate you being so willing to help us out, because I've improved dramatically in the past year when I started and I'm always getting closer to my dream of being the best <3

Good questions!

So the book spends a lot of time primarily talking about practice, and I think that's what the natural learning part is about too. This just means stop overthinking your inputs when you're practicing and visualize the correct output on the screen. For playing to learn, you may want to engage your conscious mind as you said. You also need to learn when to let it go and just let your training play out too.

Glad I could help with your improvement! It's very important to me to see people getting better since it means I'm doing a good enough job teaching as well. Good luck and keep going!

 

[maclo4]

So you would say that when trying to quiet the conscious mind, it's more about not overthinking the inputs, but still consciously picturing the outcome that you want on the screen?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yep pretty much

 

[maclo4]

So in a real game tho, not practice, you should be consciously thinking about what the other player is doing, but you should have your reactions to what they are doing internalized so that you can rely on self 2 to execute properly without needing to be told what to do by self 1? So self 1's role is basically just gathering info for self 2 to work with. At least thats what I gathered when I read Inner game

 

[Dr Peepee]

Self 1 is basically how you focus yourself. You think really simple thoughts like "watch how they respond to moving in" shortened to "watch" and that self 1 focus is good enough to allow self 2 to take over.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee I just finished a play session that I came into really angry because of some personal stuff, but through it I started out in a very relaxed, focused state, because my emotions had made me decide to let go and play to win for a change. I noticed this state ebb and flow a lot while playing proportional to my emotions, and also to how much I wanted to win and "not to lose." Being cognizant of what was going on in my mind this time, I have a whole bunch of questions.

When I was mad and just focused on winning, it almost felt like I wasn't even trying to win per se, I was just playing the game however came naturally to me at that moment. This caused both my accuracy and reaction times to get better, and I found myself utilizing techniques/making decisions that never would have occurred to me otherwise, but I knew how to do them and they worked.

But after playing awhile and cooling a bit, I started falling back into a habit of trying really hard not to get hit and trying to take in as much information at once as possible because I didn't want to lose neutral/drop punishes. It's a feeling of fear, for whatever reason, and because of this feeling I ironically found myself losing neutral/dropping punishes wayyy more than when I was angry and fearless. And instead of coming up with new things sporadically, I had my usual friendlies problem of not being able to perform even the sequences I had practiced in training a lot of the time.

Given Gallwey's theory, these seem like Self 2 and Self 1 styles, respectively. Relating this to my previous question, you said in response that in friendlies I may want to engage my conscious mind when playing to learn more, but when I do so it's this second state I've described that manifests. Is that okay? Why was it that I was finding myself so effortlessly implementing creativity when I was playing to win instead of to learn, and when I was trying to actively learn I couldn't even do what I practiced?

I also want to ask for an analysis on what you think the difference is between "playing to win" and playing "not to lose," and why one is so positive and the other so negative a mindset? (I feel like the difference between these two is also why middling players do better against better players than worse ones lol, but I think that comes to the same question.) I mean, for me personally, I think when I'm playing to win I'm trying to implement all my training to overcome the challenge of my opponent; whereas when I'm playing not to lose I'm looking for the answers to my opponent's options so I won't lose to those options. But there's something dissatisfying about the latter, because even if I figure out what to do it's not often I can implement it successfully in the same session, and because of that I never come away from the game feeling very happy.

Omg sorry for the text wall. I'll give a question tl;dr
- Is playing to win when training useful (because of the creativity and focus it gives)? How often should a player be playing to win?
- Is fear okay when playing to learn? If not, how do I get rid of it?
- Should both Self 1 and Self 2 focused mindsets be used in training?
- What's the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose?
- Why does playing to learn always leave me frustrated/dissatisfied/unhappy even tho I'm taking notes/learning new things about mus/etc?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Well first of all, anger can be really great because of things like what you described. You finally took off your restraints and were able to let your expressiveness flow. However, it would be a bad leap of logic to then assume that anger is the best or only way to achieve this. Anger is very risky and I've found it's not worth messing with unless absolutely necessary because it can also distract you and then cause you to further be angered by those results. That said, it was great you got to see that creative side of yourself to know you could do it.

In your state of "trying not to get hit" you aren't lucid or thinking consciously. You are being fearful. I had this problem for a very long time where I would overfocus my conscious mind due to fear of being hit and losing. This caused me to be rigid and not very adaptive since I couldn't really observe what was happening in a match, and instead had to rely entirely on my analysis and preparation. This is not a problem unique to you and me, but many high level players, and many Marth mains in general I notice, seem to have this problem. It can be beaten though.

The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is enormous and I suppose also very small. It's a change in thinking from "I don't want to get hit, to fail" to "if I get hit it doesn't matter, I will achieve my goal regardless." You know what you want and are not afraid of what it will take to get it. It takes certainty and acceptance that you might fail. There is a lot I can say about this, but I'll let you read this description and ask questions from there if need be.

To your other questions:

-playing to win when training is absolutely useful and should probably be done more than playing to learn if you're seriously training as a competitor.

-acceptance of fear is okay, and by this you get rid of fear. I wish it wasn't so paradoxical, but oh well I don't make the rules.

-you pretty much don't want to overdo self 1 ever. more engagement can be okay and then you continue playing things out.

 

[Timtheguy]

Related to the ideas of playing to win and playing to learn, I find myself performing much worse in tournament than in friendlies. I don't really find myself nervous anymore but I still cant adapt like I do in friendlies. I feel like I play to learn in friendlies, but play to win in tournament. Has anyone here had this problem? I'm almost certain its mentality but I can't really determine what the reason behind it is.

 

[Kopaka]

Dr Peepee got a question/statement on my mind now that I'd love to hear your insight on.

I've realized that when I focus my mind on punish or edgeguard, its easier to see what works and what doesn't. But after realizing this do I actually feel how crazy difficult neutral game is to focus on. It feels like there's tons of stuff to focus on and that it's not as black and white as comboing or edgeguarding. I know I can't focus on dash dancing when I'm chain grabbing, I focus on chain grabbing to make chain grabs work. But neutral...? No idea. When I watch a set of mine now I can see what I think I was focusing on at the time and that's usually right now escape, or try to hit them. I don't want to be always running away and I know not to hit them. Just feels to me right now that this is the category of the game that has the largest amount of smallest things to learn, it's just now hitting me.

Actually, i think the answers im looking for are in here...

Well first of all, anger can be really great because of things like what you described. You finally took off your restraints and were able to let your expressiveness flow. However, it would be a bad leap of logic to then assume that anger is the best or only way to achieve this. Anger is very risky and I've found it's not worth messing with unless absolutely necessary because it can also distract you and then cause you to further be angered by those results. That said, it was great you got to see that creative side of yourself to know you could do it.

In your state of "trying not to get hit" you aren't lucid or thinking consciously. You are being fearful. I had this problem for a very long time where I would overfocus my conscious mind due to fear of being hit and losing. This caused me to be rigid and not very adaptive since I couldn't really observe what was happening in a match, and instead had to rely entirely on my analysis and preparation. This is not a problem unique to you and me, but many high level players, and many Marth mains in general I notice, seem to have this problem. It can be beaten though.

The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is enormous and I suppose also very small. It's a change in thinking from "I don't want to get hit, to fail" to "if I get hit it doesn't matter, I will achieve my goal regardless." You know what you want and are not afraid of what it will take to get it. It takes certainty and acceptance that you might fail. There is a lot I can say about this, but I'll let you read this description and ask questions from there if need be.

To your other questions:

-playing to win when training is absolutely useful and should probably be done more than playing to learn if you're seriously training as a competitor.

-acceptance of fear is okay, and by this you get rid of fear. I wish it wasn't so paradoxical, but oh well I don't make the rules.

-you pretty much don't want to overdo self 1 ever. more engagement can be okay and then you continue playing things out.

Thanks for this post too. No really, thanks. I can't name a price high enough for that post..and thanks Zorcey for asking some really really important questions. This is some real stuff. "The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is enormous and I suppose also very small. It's a change in thinking from "I don't want to get hit, to fail" to "if I get hit it doesn't matter, I will achieve my goal regardless." You know what you want and are not afraid of what it will take to get it. It takes certainty and acceptance that you might fail. There is a lot I can say about this, but I'll let you read this description and ask questions from there if need be." Like, **** that's some real stuff right there.

Would you say that practicing (I say practicing because none of this is "Magical" and works instantly, it's something I believe must be practiced and worked on) this sort of thinking, plus practicing a lot of other true stuff you've said in the past, would direct me to getting my neutral game from looking like this...

https://gfycat.com/GlumThisAmmonite

To more like this...

https://gfycat.com/TangibleConcernedDavidstiger

I want to follow more, to lead to direct, to "run away" when necessary of course. I understand this won't happen tomorrow but if there's anything that can even give me a 1% chance at understanding it deeper, what would it be? I really really don't like feeling I'm playing scared, and I've felt what it's like to accept failure and play with that, and it feels really powerful, though I've only felt it 6 times or so and I need to build on it. But at the end of the day my "real skill" still tells me that this is the norm for me.

 

[Zorcey]

Well first of all, anger can be really great because of things like what you described. You finally took off your restraints and were able to let your expressiveness flow. However, it would be a bad leap of logic to then assume that anger is the best or only way to achieve this. Anger is very risky and I've found it's not worth messing with unless absolutely necessary because it can also distract you and then cause you to further be angered by those results. That said, it was great you got to see that creative side of yourself to know you could do it.

In your state of "trying not to get hit" you aren't lucid or thinking consciously. You are being fearful. I had this problem for a very long time where I would overfocus my conscious mind due to fear of being hit and losing. This caused me to be rigid and not very adaptive since I couldn't really observe what was happening in a match, and instead had to rely entirely on my analysis and preparation. This is not a problem unique to you and me, but many high level players, and many Marth mains in general I notice, seem to have this problem. It can be beaten though.

The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is enormous and I suppose also very small. It's a change in thinking from "I don't want to get hit, to fail" to "if I get hit it doesn't matter, I will achieve my goal regardless." You know what you want and are not afraid of what it will take to get it. It takes certainty and acceptance that you might fail. There is a lot I can say about this, but I'll let you read this description and ask questions from there if need be.

To your other questions:

-playing to win when training is absolutely useful and should probably be done more than playing to learn if you're seriously training as a competitor.

-acceptance of fear is okay, and by this you get rid of fear. I wish it wasn't so paradoxical, but oh well I don't make the rules.

-you pretty much don't want to overdo self 1 ever. more engagement can be okay and then you continue playing things out.

When given the chance to ask more questions, I'll take it lol. ...What would you say is the most telling sign of playing not to lose instead of to win? I feel like in the moment, it can be hard to distinguish between the two. (I mean, it's easy to tell when something is off in your gameplay and/or mentality, but diagnosing what is really hard.) Is it fear? And how one manages that fear? Like, what I want to be able to do is tell early on when I'm playing not to lose, and then be able to pull myself back into the more positive playing to win, but I struggle with the latter a lot. And then I become afraid of an impending loss, and frustrated with not being able to get myself together, and you probably know how that turns out lol. A good mentality is such an elusive thing, because as soon as I have it I begin to question it and analyze it and then lose it. I'm not sure how to go about building the trust in myself that will allow me to play and learn at my peak consistently. Is it embracing my fears and failures? How do I do that?

What do you do/think to make yourself play to win? Is it a different process when you're playing someone worse than you versus someone at your level like Armada or Mango? I find the phenomenon of many players' performances being dictated by their opponent's skill level instead of their own really fascinating, and I often wonder how much of it has to do with mindset and how much has to do with knowledge of the game. What do you think?

Oh, and I also want to ask ultimately what you think the key differences are between playing to win and playing to learn, and how to not mix up playing to learn and playing not to lose (so many terms here). I understand there are lots of paradoxes and gray areas and overlaps, but what makes each of these three states of mind unique?

 

[Bob Money]

I want to follow more, to lead to direct, to "run away" when necessary of course. I understand this won't happen tomorrow but if there's anything that can even give me a 1% chance at understanding it deeper, what would it be? I really really don't like feeling I'm playing scared, and I've felt what it's like to accept failure and play with that, and it feels really powerful, though I've only felt it 6 times or so and I need to build on it. But at the end of the day my "real skill" still tells me that this is the norm for me.[/QUOTE]

Hi can you talk more about this "real skill" thing and what that means to you? I have ideas but I'm not exactly sure. Also what is the norm for you? I might be bad at reading comprehension but if you could be a little clearer that would be really helpful for me. I feel like you made a great thoughtful post that really spoke to me. Would love to be able to understand a bit more where you;re coming from.

Thanks

 

[Dr Peepee]

Related to the ideas of playing to win and playing to learn, I find myself performing much worse in tournament than in friendlies. I don't really find myself nervous anymore but I still cant adapt like I do in friendlies. I feel like I play to learn in friendlies, but play to win in tournament. Has anyone here had this problem? I'm almost certain its mentality but I can't really determine what the reason behind it is.

You need to practice like you play. If you don't play your friendlies sometimes seriously, then your association to the game will not be serious. This will block you from playing how you want in tournament.

Dr Peepee got a question/statement on my mind now that I'd love to hear your insight on.

I've realized that when I focus my mind on punish or edgeguard, its easier to see what works and what doesn't. But after realizing this do I actually feel how crazy difficult neutral game is to focus on. It feels like there's tons of stuff to focus on and that it's not as black and white as comboing or edgeguarding. I know I can't focus on dash dancing when I'm chain grabbing, I focus on chain grabbing to make chain grabs work. But neutral...? No idea. When I watch a set of mine now I can see what I think I was focusing on at the time and that's usually right now escape, or try to hit them. I don't want to be always running away and I know not to hit them. Just feels to me right now that this is the category of the game that has the largest amount of smallest things to learn, it's just now hitting me.

Actually, i think the answers im looking for are in here...


Thanks for this post too. No really, thanks. I can't name a price high enough for that post..and thanks Zorcey for asking some really really important questions. This is some real stuff. "The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is enormous and I suppose also very small. It's a change in thinking from "I don't want to get hit, to fail" to "if I get hit it doesn't matter, I will achieve my goal regardless." You know what you want and are not afraid of what it will take to get it. It takes certainty and acceptance that you might fail. There is a lot I can say about this, but I'll let you read this description and ask questions from there if need be." Like, **** that's some real stuff right there.

Would you say that practicing (I say practicing because none of this is "Magical" and works instantly, it's something I believe must be practiced and worked on) this sort of thinking, plus practicing a lot of other true stuff you've said in the past, would direct me to getting my neutral game from looking like this...

https://gfycat.com/GlumThisAmmonite

To more like this...

https://gfycat.com/TangibleConcernedDavidstiger

I want to follow more, to lead to direct, to "run away" when necessary of course. I understand this won't happen tomorrow but if there's anything that can even give me a 1% chance at understanding it deeper, what would it be? I really really don't like feeling I'm playing scared, and I've felt what it's like to accept failure and play with that, and it feels really powerful, though I've only felt it 6 times or so and I need to build on it. But at the end of the day my "real skill" still tells me that this is the norm for me.

Ah, well the thing with your question on neutral is you think of neutral as ONE thing, whereas it is many very hard things. If you looked at CG'ing and edgeguarding and comboing and juggling all the same I imagine you'd be similarly confused. Dividing neutral into as many relevant divisions as possible, then dissecting those is the key. Or you could initially learn it like I did and just look at every little neutral interaction and try to understand it as a part of a greater whole. Either way should work.

I will admit that while we in the Melee community at large pretty much only discuss the game and its elements, while the human side is grossly overlooked. However, in the human side of the equation, pain and life situations are almost never talked about. I never talk about it either. But, when I was learning this neutral process I was, simultaneously, undergoing a very difficult and serious change in my thinking. I was unblocking many things I thought about myself or significant people in my life such as my parents. This freedom in thinking, I believe, allowed me to "see" much more clearly. For this reason, even if you can learn these ways of thinking without directly challenging your own pain and preconceived notions, then I don't have the experience to know how it would be done. Maybe it's impossible, or maybe it takes another approach or other knowledge or more time. Aside from this, the most important thing is practice and slogging very diligently through the confusion of everything. In my time learning neutral with Cactuar or learning about myself, I was very very slow because I was so confused. Cactus would always be ahead of my understanding, and I found some old AIM logs of us where I sounded like a complete noob asking about things I easily understand now. This was as a top player! So, I guess what I'm saying is be kind to yourself and give yourself a chance.

When given the chance to ask more questions, I'll take it lol. ...What would you say is the most telling sign of playing not to lose instead of to win? I feel like in the moment, it can be hard to distinguish between the two. (I mean, it's easy to tell when something is off in your gameplay and/or mentality, but diagnosing what is really hard.) Is it fear? And how one manages that fear? Like, what I want to be able to do is tell early on when I'm playing not to lose, and then be able to pull myself back into the more positive playing to win, but I struggle with the latter a lot. And then I become afraid of an impending loss, and frustrated with not being able to get myself together, and you probably know how that turns out lol. A good mentality is such an elusive thing, because as soon as I have it I begin to question it and analyze it and then lose it. I'm not sure how to go about building the trust in myself that will allow me to play and learn at my peak consistently. Is it embracing my fears and failures? How do I do that?

What do you do/think to make yourself play to win? Is it a different process when you're playing someone worse than you versus someone at your level like Armada or Mango? I find the phenomenon of many players' performances being dictated by their opponent's skill level instead of their own really fascinating, and I often wonder how much of it has to do with mindset and how much has to do with knowledge of the game. What do you think?

Oh, and I also want to ask ultimately what you think the key differences are between playing to win and playing to learn, and how to not mix up playing to learn and playing not to lose (so many terms here). I understand there are lots of paradoxes and gray areas and overlaps, but what makes each of these three states of mind unique?

The most telling sign of playing to lose is tenseness. In the moment maybe you won't know, but between stocks if you can't remember a single thing that happened or you notice tension in your body you didn't realize was there, then that's important. Based on your description of everything, it is quite clear you have a lot of tension since your instinct in situations of potential loss of control is to increase tension/fear more. Generally when you're not playing like you want to it's because of something like not taking care of your body, your mind, or you're playing for the wrong reasons. Anyway, to manage the fear you should accept the fear. Okay, it's there, but you can pull yourself together. YOU CANNOT BLOCK A BLOCK. The more you fight against the fear the stronger it will be, just like trying not to think of something only makes you think of something. Seriously, try it. Focusing instead on what you can or should do is always best. For me personally I just go back to focusing on the game since I trust my training and then the feelings will dissipate.

I'm afraid I'm not qualified to tell you exactly how YOU should embrace your fears and failures, but I know of one way that I recommend to others that's very hard but seems to work when people stick to it. I may have mentioned it before. It's called investing in loss, and it means repeatedly, daily, putting yourself in situations where you want to tense up and worry about what will happen and that causes you to fail. After a while your body and mind learn that the danger is manageable and it won't affect you, but getting there is very very hard. There are other ways to overcome these problems of course, but this is the most catch-all one I can recommend.

There are two main things I think to make myself play to win:

1. I want to test my abilities to their fullest against my opponents' best abilities for the exhilaration of that experience, and

2. I am playing to spread my philosophy about the game, or in other words I'm playing to influence people like yourself and hopefully change lives.

I am not suggesting these are the only two things you can think to win, but the first is something that is probably more likely to work for more people.

It is different when I play weaker players instead of top players. I am usually more focused on honing my abilities(though still going all-out) and still going all out but with a small hint of testing a couple things to make sure they're working vs weaker players. For top players, it's what I said above. Being lazy vs weaker players does a disservice to my second motivation, so I will not do that.

Playing to learn and investing in loss can actually be one in the same! This is because when you're not trying as hard you're more likely to play weaker and lose more. This can be difficult and impede learning.

Anyway, playing to win is much more driven and self-assured than playing not to lose, which is more fearful. Playing to learn differs from playing to win by not exerting so much effort and instead focusing your attention on specific situations/areas of the game you want to practice.

 

[capusa27]

Hi Dr Peepee

What do you look for in a solid neutral game, and what do you think are the most important factors? Are there certain playstyles that better translate to a solid neutral game, or is it something that every playstyle must learn?

Since I really don't have anybody to really play Melee with, I have been trying to learn matchups through video study. What do you think are the limits of video study in contrast to actually playing a matchup? Do you recommend any type of practice that would be beneficial in terms of ingraining certain beneficial habits when trying to practice matchups? Thanks

 

[Dr Peepee]

It's mostly just about understanding things like threatening range, in fighting and out fighting, skewed neutral by % or stage position or stock count, and so on. Every playstyle can only be enhanced with neutral, same as punish.

Use 20XX to practice beating options you see in videos. They can be randomized apparently so you must find a way to be playing your own neutral and adapting to which options you see. Beyond that, shadowboxing where you can freely mentally transition between each neutral attack you and your opponent do is really good. Keep everything simple.

 

[Kopaka]

Dr Peepee For the posts above, thank you.

I want to follow more, to lead to direct, to "run away" when necessary of course. I understand this won't happen tomorrow but if there's anything that can even give me a 1% chance at understanding it deeper, what would it be? I really really don't like feeling I'm playing scared, and I've felt what it's like to accept failure and play with that, and it feels really powerful, though I've only felt it 6 times or so and I need to build on it. But at the end of the day my "real skill" still tells me that this is the norm for me.

Hi can you talk more about this "real skill" thing and what that means to you? I have ideas but I'm not exactly sure. Also what is the norm for you? I might be bad at reading comprehension but if you could be a little clearer that would be really helpful for me. I feel like you made a great thoughtful post that really spoke to me. Would love to be able to understand a bit more where you;re coming from.

Thanks[/QUOTE]

B Bob Money Hey sorry man, I totally didn't see you were quoting me earlier!! It's challenging for me to answer while I'm currently questioning, but what the "real skill" thing comes up to is how I play while I'm in a more resourceful state to win. My goal right now is really to work toward a deeper understanding, to keep watching and practicing and doing, and not settling. Maybe giving more insight to where I'm at right now will help. For me it's like "Great, we're getting 5th at locals now, that doesn't mean we should stop now though". When you win once, it's not over. Who's saying it's over besides you? That's when you stop the process. The process of improvement doesn't stop when you win, there's always going to be the next tournament, there's just always something for you there always UNLESS you call it quits. (Which is fine if that's what you want! It's just that many people call it quits after they've said they want to improve). Also what I've found myself doing a lot of is comparing and contrasting what I've been doing to other Marth players that are making things work.

SO... for "The norm" thing I wrote, it's basically just looking back at recent tournament sets and reflecting on practice and seeing what I usually do and where my focus is in specific situations, why my focus is here instead of there, why I'd be playing fearful here and there. Like really, I look at that gfycat I posted above of myself playing neutral for however many seconds that was and I just want to figure out why, how I can more often than not understand what I'm doing, throw my training out the window (trust in it) and compete, have trust in my training and myself. Just doing! Watching myself beat weaker players and still seeing holes that could show up still no matter what state I'm in. A friend of mine pointed out to me that when I gain a lot of focus, I become more predictable, and while a lot of my "stats" increase a bunch, my execution, other aspects, specifically decision making, remain low!

 

[VMPR]

Hey pp are you willing to look over peoples matches at all or just answer questions? Ive been struggling with peach alot and Im having a hard time figuring out why. Theres a strong possibility im over complicating it to hell but im having so much trouble. I Keep finding my self in a corner or dealing with a wall of turnips or constantly in a position that favors them. I have a hard time zoning her out without constantly being stuck in a corner. Ive gotten a little better sense ive played this set and understand it a little more but any help would be appreciated. If you wanna watch it its there if not any advice would be helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-jDeJaGDAk&list=PLGafbXXk9ToPP7MqEuH3bzNFyamQslPi5&index=1

 

[maclo4]

Can you explain what you mean by in vs out fighting?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Hey pp are you willing to look over peoples matches at all or just answer questions? Ive been struggling with peach alot and Im having a hard time figuring out why. Theres a strong possibility im over complicating it to hell but im having so much trouble. I Keep finding my self in a corner or dealing with a wall of turnips or constantly in a position that favors them. I have a hard time zoning her out without constantly being stuck in a corner. Ive gotten a little better sense ive played this set and understand it a little more but any help would be appreciated. If you wanna watch it its there if not any advice would be helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-jDeJaGDAk&list=PLGafbXXk9ToPP7MqEuH3bzNFyamQslPi5&index=1

I don't do video analysis right now because if I did I would get swamped with it.

Getting backed up generally means your only response to them getting closer to you is backing up and you're also probably not threatening in front of you too much. Learning how to threaten your Dtilt vs her ground game and Fair vs her jump game will help you a lot. You outrange her considerably.

Can you explain what you mean by in vs out fighting?

In fighting is when you fight inside threatening range(the most neutral range you both can react at). Out fighting is fighting farther than that range.

 

[Kopaka]

Dr Peepee Do you believe that there are people who try to imitate what you do, or other top players, without the knowledge (or the knowing) to back it up? It feels I've reached a point in my practice where I'm being shown that my fighting is, for some amount, preconceived notions of how I think things "should" be, based on watching you. I think this when I watch vods of myself in bracket. To put it more simply, often times it does feel I'm dash dancing and down tilting just because "you do it". Which at the same time I think does such a huge disservice to what you actually do and know about the game! BUT at the same time however, there's nothing inherently wrong with watching you play for the sake of learning. Could it be that I have to do deeper analysis? Also doing a lot of rethinking the labels I attach to the reasons why I compete and practice as well, which has been very challenging!

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee Do you believe that there are people who try to imitate what you do, or other top players, without the knowledge (or the knowing) to back it up? It feels I've reached a point in my practice where I'm being shown that my fighting is, for some amount, preconceived notions of how I think things "should" be, based on watching you. I think this when I watch vods of myself in bracket. To put it more simply, often times it does feel I'm dash dancing and down tilting just because "you do it". Which at the same time I think does such a huge disservice to what you actually do and know about the game! BUT at the same time however, there's nothing inherently wrong with watching you play for the sake of learning. Could it be that I have to do deeper analysis? Also doing a lot of rethinking the labels I attach to the reasons why I compete and practice as well, which has been very challenging!

[Insert "not PPMD" disclaimer] I like this question. When doing analysis, I've always thought players too commonly look at only the "what"s and never the "why"s of what's happening in a match. As an example, if one were watching PPMD intercept a dash forward with dtilt, without considering context and asking themselves why PPMD chose dtilt at that particular moment, and why he was able to predict the dash forward, and why his opponent chose to do a dash forward to begin with, one can condition themselves to blindly dtilt forward dashes without considering context in their own matches. Then when your opponent starts dashing early and SHFFLing your dtilt you may have a hard time figuring out what's wrong. I struggle with this sort of thing a lot, because I have a tendency to overthink and implement what "should" work instead of trusting myself to be able to tap into my internal knowledge and adapt to all the exceptions and nuances.

Imo, once you've opened a vod you should forget who's playing and just consider the options selected, why they were selected, and what/why the outcome was as you analyze. You should also consider the broader context like what happened before and if/how each player adapted, and what the alternatives were and what might have happened if those were selected instead (and why the player didn't opt for them). You shouldn't watch top players with the idea you're being told what you're "supposed" to do, but that you're being provided with new information that helps you to make more informed decisions yourself. (Tbh I think the reason we tend toward the former is because we're lazy and want instant results instead of steadily increasing our knowledge foundation.) As you internalize more and more knowledge through analysis like this, you start coming to points where several options may not be clearly "better" than one another, and you start to make decisions based on what you prioritize as important, and your unique playstyle really starts to emerge. I feel like this is the point where one's self-expression becomes realized, and it's one of the most beautiful things about this stupid game.

This is all my understanding of things, anyway. I hope Dr Peepee will correct anything here that's incorrect or misleading when he gives his advice lol.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee Do you believe that there are people who try to imitate what you do, or other top players, without the knowledge (or the knowing) to back it up? It feels I've reached a point in my practice where I'm being shown that my fighting is, for some amount, preconceived notions of how I think things "should" be, based on watching you. I think this when I watch vods of myself in bracket. To put it more simply, often times it does feel I'm dash dancing and down tilting just because "you do it". Which at the same time I think does such a huge disservice to what you actually do and know about the game! BUT at the same time however, there's nothing inherently wrong with watching you play for the sake of learning. Could it be that I have to do deeper analysis? Also doing a lot of rethinking the labels I attach to the reasons why I compete and practice as well, which has been very challenging!

Yes yes yes to your question. It happens all the time. My goal is not to create people who are exactly like me, but to bring out their own styles through the foundation I try to lay. Moving like me can be great to learn or if you're a lot like me, but it probably isn't the right way to play exactly for most people. You're pretty much on the right track though, you need to be asking more of why I'm doing what I'm doing and then, most crucially, decide what YOU think is best. If your foundation is good, then trying things out will only lead to new ideas and better expression, even if you're wrong. I was wrong many times in developing what I have. If I Dtilt a certain way out of a certain motion, what does that mean for each individual movement(as affecting the opponent) and for the Dtilt? How does it connect to Marth as a whole? Maybe you decide that you like a subset of a sequence I did, so you take that but repurpose it for heavier zoning or defense or shield pressure. Take what you want and discard the rest. As you continue trying to figure things out and really ask yourself what's best for you and makes you most comfortable in the game, you can begin using tools to aid you. Or you can go the other way and decide your best way to meet the goals of the game and you'll naturally gravitate towards the tool usage that allows that. Anyway that probably covers it but if I'm unclear or there are other questions let me know.

 

[Uma]

I beat Harriet with pivot fmash in neutral cheese, it's actually just pretty good. Alot of the time where you would read an approaching nair and dd grab you can just land a pivot fsmash. For some reason it's really easy to tipper doing this too. Game ended with a reverse fsmash that really epitomized all of the jank that just happened.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

Dr Peepee
How would you take notes? I feel like I am forgetting and relearning a lot of stuff again and again so I think a few notes to go through before a practice session depending on what I want to work on could be a good idea.
I'd like to put concrete knowledge (like a situation, what options are how good there and why) there because it is easiest to forget and general guidelines can be somewhat blurry if they aren't attached to an example demonstrating it. The biggest issues is describing the situation in a precise and concise way. I'm not sure if I will get anything from it if every note will be something like "Marth vs Fox at a range where tipper f-smash barely whiffs and Marth just dashed back and then in again and Fox just landed with a drill and dashed away; both are close to transitioning into run animation; the percentages are _% for Marth and _% for Fox".
Maybe every note should be attached to a very short video clip, but I will still need some description to search through them effectively if the amount of notes increases.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

Dr Peepee An issue I've been having is when to and when not to dashdance. Is it better to just walk or stand still if you don't feel like you want to dashdance? I like the idea of a pretty stationary Marth, walling out with the appropiate tilts/fairs and making minor adjustments occasionally with walk/dash forward and WD back. But always being told about the strength of his dashdance grabs/dtilts makes me kind of fish for those and get punished a lot for them. Is this an appropriate style for Marth? And what would be good things to focus on if it is/isn't a good way to play/interpret Marth?

 

[Kopaka]

Yes yes yes to your question. It happens all the time. My goal is not to create people who are exactly like me, but to bring out their own styles through the foundation I try to lay. Moving like me can be great to learn or if you're a lot like me, but it probably isn't the right way to play exactly for most people. You're pretty much on the right track though, you need to be asking more of why I'm doing what I'm doing and then, most crucially, decide what YOU think is best. If your foundation is good, then trying things out will only lead to new ideas and better expression, even if you're wrong. I was wrong many times in developing what I have. If I Dtilt a certain way out of a certain motion, what does that mean for each individual movement(as affecting the opponent) and for the Dtilt? How does it connect to Marth as a whole? Maybe you decide that you like a subset of a sequence I did, so you take that but repurpose it for heavier zoning or defense or shield pressure. Take what you want and discard the rest. As you continue trying to figure things out and really ask yourself what's best for you and makes you most comfortable in the game, you can begin using tools to aid you. Or you can go the other way and decide your best way to meet the goals of the game and you'll naturally gravitate towards the tool usage that allows that. Anyway that probably covers it but if I'm unclear or there are other questions let me know.

Eye opening. Thank you. I've got no immediate questions right now since what you wrote has struck me profoundly, just that, besides foundation, my expression of myself in the game up until now really has felt very limiting. Like, in a way where I was always asking for justification from certain peers that what I was doing was 'right' , but not asking MYSELF questions that would lead to more free self expression (After a solid foundation of the game has been built). But the more I started to feel this way, the more I wanted to burst through and figure out what was really causing me to feel this way, and now I see why, and now I see what work needs to be done.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I beat Harriet with pivot fmash in neutral cheese, it's actually just pretty good. Alot of the time where you would read an approaching nair and dd grab you can just land a pivot fsmash. For some reason it's really easy to tipper doing this too. Game ended with a reverse fsmash that really epitomized all of the jank that just happened.

Underrated I'm with you. It's something I want to use as well.

Dr Peepee
How would you take notes? I feel like I am forgetting and relearning a lot of stuff again and again so I think a few notes to go through before a practice session depending on what I want to work on could be a good idea.
I'd like to put concrete knowledge (like a situation, what options are how good there and why) there because it is easiest to forget and general guidelines can be somewhat blurry if they aren't attached to an example demonstrating it. The biggest issues is describing the situation in a precise and concise way. I'm not sure if I will get anything from it if every note will be something like "Marth vs Fox at a range where tipper f-smash barely whiffs and Marth just dashed back and then in again and Fox just landed with a drill and dashed away; both are close to transitioning into run animation; the percentages are _% for Marth and _% for Fox".
Maybe every note should be attached to a very short video clip, but I will still need some description to search through them effectively if the amount of notes increases.

In your example, I would divide it into two notes, one for "just outside tipper range" as a situation and one for general percents(I'm high he's low, etc). In a given situation you will only get so much, but you can take better notes as you see patterns. Early game or initial notes are more to establish guesses and not be overly descriptive.

Dr Peepee An issue I've been having is when to and when not to dashdance. Is it better to just walk or stand still if you don't feel like you want to dashdance? I like the idea of a pretty stationary Marth, walling out with the appropiate tilts/fairs and making minor adjustments occasionally with walk/dash forward and WD back. But always being told about the strength of his dashdance grabs/dtilts makes me kind of fish for those and get punished a lot for them. Is this an appropriate style for Marth? And what would be good things to focus on if it is/isn't a good way to play/interpret Marth?

Yes!!! You absolutely can zone more and move less, and in fact this will let you see more often than just mindlessly DD'ing anyway. Go watch Azen he's a clear example of this. Now in some matchups, like Falco, you can't really zone too much but you can't DD much either. Knowing when to dash counts much more than how much you do it.

 

[RaptorJesus]

Pp, I've been trying to do what you've said to do about breaking the game down into as small of parts as possible and was wondering if you could lmk if I'm on the right track.

One of the things I've tried to break down is the situation where fox is cornered with his back to the ledge. I basically just made a list of every option he could do from that position (nair/dair moving forward, jump to plat, go to ledge, shield, dash thru me, plus maybe a couple more). Then I went through each option and wrote the different things that would beat that specific option. So for nair/dair forward there would be stuff like 'dash back->whiff punish with grab or fair' or 'outspace it with sh fair or nair'. And I did this for every option and noted where some options of mine overlap and can cover multiple of foxes option, and how some of my options could be punished.

I feel like I've got a lot of success so far looking at the game this way but jw if you have any tips for things I could do better or things most mid/low level players often overlook that I should include

 

[Dr Peepee]

Yeah that's a great strategy and is a lot of what I do. Varying it further by spacing or percent and stage are also really good. Finally, adding in how decisions will change based on what happened in that situation before and how to control/counter the new decisions can also be done. So there's plenty to do for an individual situation even a more lopsided one like corner pressure.

 

[Zorcey]

Dr Peepee Do you recommend anything in particular for building consistency with inputs? This feels like kind of a dumb question to ask, because I can think of things like "don't think too hard" and "practice what you're having trouble with," and do my best to do both of these (I think I have more trouble with former tho since I practice a lot but struggle with mentality), but I'm just a very sloppy player whenever I'm not training and it's frustrating. Idk if you've ever struggled with sloppiness, but your insight is always good, so.

 

[RaptorJesus]

Yeah that's a great strategy and is a lot of what I do. Varying it further by spacing or percent and stage are also really good. Finally, adding in how decisions will change based on what happened in that situation before and how to control/counter the new decisions can also be done. So there's plenty to do for an individual situation even a more lopsided one like corner pressure.

That's actually so smart. I had thought of adding in percent and more specific spacing, but never thought to plan with past situations in mind. Would an example of that be like if the fox nairs over my dtilt a few times so I crouch as if I'm gonna dtilt but just wd back instead to bait the nair?

 

[Dr Peepee]

Dr Peepee Do you recommend anything in particular for building consistency with inputs? This feels like kind of a dumb question to ask, because I can think of things like "don't think too hard" and "practice what you're having trouble with," and do my best to do both of these (I think I have more trouble with former tho since I practice a lot but struggle with mentality), but I'm just a very sloppy player whenever I'm not training and it's frustrating. Idk if you've ever struggled with sloppiness, but your insight is always good, so.

First of all, keep things as simple as possible. If you do overcomplicated movements it won't translate to matches. Second, do things only as you'd do them in matches. If you practice DD'ing faster than light into double Fair in practice and never do it in matches, then it's time for a change. Finally, it's all about trusting yourself and allowing yourself to train to build that consistency. It can help to visualize how the tech or actions should look and then keep that picture for yourself to aid your subconscious in making it happen.

That's actually so smart. I had thought of adding in percent and more specific spacing, but never thought to plan with past situations in mind. Would an example of that be like if the fox nairs over my dtilt a few times so I crouch as if I'm gonna dtilt but just wd back instead to bait the nair?

Really if he Nairs over it once you should adapt next time, but if you try it twice and see he doesn't change then definitely change the third time. But anyway yeah that's the basic idea.

 

[Zorcey]

First of all, keep things as simple as possible. If you do overcomplicated movements it won't translate to matches. Second, do things only as you'd do them in matches. If you practice DD'ing faster than light into double Fair in practice and never do it in matches, then it's time for a change. Finally, it's all about trusting yourself and allowing yourself to train to build that consistency. It can help to visualize how the tech or actions should look and then keep that picture for yourself to aid your subconscious in making it happen.

Alright, this makes a lot of sense. I think I do overcomplicate my sequences in practice, which I think might be a result of not knowing what I should be practicing when it comes to Marth's fundamentals. (More specific things like CGs and techchases I'm actually much better at because it's easy to apply practice with those.) I don't feel nearly as in control of my character as I want, but I'm conflicted over whether that's because I'm trying to exercise too much control or not. Would the best way to overcome this be to practice the very basics of the game?

I also want to add another question here. A while ago I asked you a question about whether you thought changing up gameplans/playstyles between games was a good strategy, and you said you thought it was powerful in other fighting games and have explored it a little in Melee. Something I try to do to alleviate my mentality struggles is to change Marth's costume when I'm getting tense - as a little mental reset. But I've noticed that when I do this certain tendencies in my gameplay change, which I assume is the result of the players I've analyze vods of and associate with that color. So what I was thinking about is to combine these two ideas, and use those style associations to direct my subconscious. What do you think of this idea?