The neutral isn't a thing that you can necessarily grind out on your own like tech skill. It is something that comes only from experience which requires a lot of play time. And when I say a lot, I mean that at every tournament you go to, you should be playing dozens of friendlies every time with the mindset to improve. Doing this will drastically improve your overall performance and get you more comfortable with the game itself which removes the fear factor from tournaments which can hurt your performance. Friendlies are the perfect time for you to check up on your overall ability and where you go to experiment options and to find what is the best at a given time. As of right now, you will do some action and get punished for it or put you in a bad situation that you don't know how to react to; this is a mistake. As you play more and more, you will learn what mistakes you're making and know when to make the right choice (or at the very least a better choice) which would be a variety of things: a much safer option, put you in a better position, or even to punish correctly. As the punish game comes after the neutral game, your 'correct choice' should usually lead to a follow up for even more damage or even a stock. Keep in mind, an option or play you make
should and always be beneficial. There's absolutely no reason to make a choice that yields nothing or puts you in a worse position. Not one. As HugS said on one of his streams (paraphrased), you must have a reason for every thing you do. Even if you just move forward. If every single time you did ANYTHING, the game would be paused and you would be asked "Why did you do that?" you better have a good reason. This will improve your neutral game by giant leaps and bounds.
Having a reason and a thought process for everything you do is a necessity, and when you make a mistake you should learn what happened that wasn't good for you and how to improve on it or what else you can do. Armada talks about having more than one option for every situation. This is because, say, the other player knows how to get around your one and only option, you can get punished. Thinking like this will keep you from playing autopilot (meaning that you aren't thinking and your hands are moving by themselves pretty much).
With your problem of not being on your toes, playing more people as said before should keep you up to the speed you should be playing at. The first few games you play may go by really fast and you're lost in thought or are too slow, but that should go away over time. Learning your character's frame data is also important as you learn how fast a move is, its lag and when the hitbox is active. Say for Jigglypuff in Melee, there are IASA (Interruptible As Soon As) frames in which any action you do can cut the animation of an attack short. You should always be moving but also move for a reason; not to just move for the sake of it. Keeping up with L-canceling and other tech will make your overall movement faster and give you an easier time to follow up or put yourself in a better position.
If you want to be a better player overall, read this thread
https://smashboards.com/threads/drastic-improvement.311129/
Honestly, the advice given is really helpful and gave me modivation to keep playing and altered my mindset to focus on improving.
