Overswarm
is laughing at you
- Joined
- May 4, 2005
- Messages
- 21,181
A goal of every competitive smasher is to improve. To know that one month from now, you will be better, and a year from now even better than that. But very few people know exactly how to improve, and they hurt themselves by using poor training techniques.
Every good player plays using his sub-conscious mind.
"Don't think, feel. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon."
But how can they do that and succeed so consistently, when you can't? Easy. They already did their thinking ahead of time.
Training your unconscious
There are three steps:
1. Thinking about what you want to do
2. Perfecting the motion
3. Repeating the motion
It is as simple as that.
This isn't anything new. People have known about this for ages, and people have suggested to play against level 1 CPUs to practice (step 3), and smashers have read guides (step 1), but they never know why except that it is to "get better".
Step 1: Thinking about what you want to do
You can accomplish this by talking to someone with more experience, asking questions, or reading a guide. Fill your head with knowledge about your character.
The first questions you should ask yourself about your character are ones relating to offense.
Do you know the hitboxes of your character?
Do you know the chain grabs?
Do you know the % in which you can do a powerful attack from a grab? (Falcon players, check out g-regulates thread of awesomeness)
Do you know who your character does good against? Does bad against? Do you know why?
Shortly after answering those questions, you should ask yourself questions relating to defense.
Who is counter-picked against your character most often in tournaments? Why?
Who is your most feared character to play against? Why? Is this someone that most players of your character are afraid of playing, or is this just something with your playstyle?
How is your character killed most often? Off the top? From edgeguarding? From chain grabs?
Who can chain grab your character? At what %'s, and what DI is used to get out of it?
You ask yourself questions like this because if you can't answer them using your brain right now, sitting in front of a computer screen, how are you possibly going to be able to think objectively in the middle of a fast-paced tournament game? If all smashers asked themselves simple questions like this, they would know what they need to work on, and what they should do.
Step 2: Perfecting the motion
Once you know what your weaknesses are, what your strengths are, and what is expected of you, then you can practice.
This is where your knowledge should be put to use. Pick your character, and then play against level 1 CPUs. Don't just learn combos; perfect them. Go until you can't get it wrong, not until you get it right.
This isn't just limited to chain grabs though. Everyone takes this line of thinking with chain grabbing (learn what character to do it on, what % to end it with a killing move, etc.), but they don't do it with normal gameplay!
Let's look at an example. Let's say a Fox player really hates playing against Peach (**** that downsmash). He's done the research, and he's looked at the guides, and he's learned a few things that can make his game against peach much more solid.
He's learned that, in terms of offense...
1. At low %, a nair can be followed with a shine, then a wavedash to grab.
2. At low %, u-throw to uair can be extremely deadly
3. At any %, you can shine, wavedash, grab (which sets up nicely for #2!)
4. At 80%, you can drillshine to u-smash a peach and kill them on most stages.
He knows that if he could always pull these things off, the game wouldn't be so hard. He can start off every game with a nair/drillkick to shine, which then leads to a grab, which then leads to a u-air or two, and Peach is suddenly dangerously close to 80%. Once she hits 80%, it's just a simple drillkick, waveshine, u-smash, and the peach is dead.
But if he just plays a level 1 computer for 5 minutes and feebly attempts to do it by double jumping over a level 1 Peach, missing his l-cancel, and wavedashing slowly out of his shine and then following with an u-smash, he's going to get into trouble.
He has to learn to do the move as perfectly as it can be. Then, and only then, can he attempt to integrate this technique into his unconscious. He has to be able to do this on his own speed until he gets it, and then speed it up until is is near perfect.
Once he's gotten these techniques down (against a lvl 1 CPU or bad opponent), he can follow step 3.
Step 3: Repeating the motion
If you've played a musical instrument, you know what I'm talking about. You have thought about what you want to do, you've done it perfect a few times, and now you need to repeat this motion until your brain is numb.
Going back to the example of Fox vs. Peach, that Fox player needs to start up a game and just nair, shine, wavedash, grab, u-throw, u-air, u-air, laser that Peach until she hits the ground, then drillkick, shine, wavedash, u-smash.
He needs to do it over and over and over again, as fast as possible, with as little empty space as possible.
Technically, there is a Step 4. "Incorporating it into your game". But, you've already done that. By thinking critically about what you need to do in particular matchups and situations, perfecting the motion in a comfortable, controlled environment, and then repeating that motion until it is flawless and simple, you are now "magically" able to do this in an actual game.
Just remember that this is NOT limited to chain grabs or combos. You can learn to hit someone with a tippered Marth forward smash like this. You can learn to hit someone diagonally with Captain Falcon's dair (hit them with his chest). You can learn to hit someone with the very edge of Jiggly's backair (priority is HUGE).
You can learn anything like this.
Think about what you need to do, think about why, then think about how.
After knowing what to do, do it, and do it perfectly, at your own pace, until you cannot do it better.
After you can do it perfectly once, do it again and again and again until you cannot mess up.
Suddenly, you're 10x better than before.
Now that you've got all that technical skill and some strategy tucked away in your brain, you might want to think about how you want to go about actually playing the game, and when to use all these wonderful new tricks.
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=70759
That's a good place to start.
Every good player plays using his sub-conscious mind.
"Don't think, feel. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon."
But how can they do that and succeed so consistently, when you can't? Easy. They already did their thinking ahead of time.
Training your unconscious
There are three steps:
1. Thinking about what you want to do
2. Perfecting the motion
3. Repeating the motion
It is as simple as that.
This isn't anything new. People have known about this for ages, and people have suggested to play against level 1 CPUs to practice (step 3), and smashers have read guides (step 1), but they never know why except that it is to "get better".
Step 1: Thinking about what you want to do
You can accomplish this by talking to someone with more experience, asking questions, or reading a guide. Fill your head with knowledge about your character.
The first questions you should ask yourself about your character are ones relating to offense.
Do you know the hitboxes of your character?
Do you know the chain grabs?
Do you know the % in which you can do a powerful attack from a grab? (Falcon players, check out g-regulates thread of awesomeness)
Do you know who your character does good against? Does bad against? Do you know why?
Shortly after answering those questions, you should ask yourself questions relating to defense.
Who is counter-picked against your character most often in tournaments? Why?
Who is your most feared character to play against? Why? Is this someone that most players of your character are afraid of playing, or is this just something with your playstyle?
How is your character killed most often? Off the top? From edgeguarding? From chain grabs?
Who can chain grab your character? At what %'s, and what DI is used to get out of it?
You ask yourself questions like this because if you can't answer them using your brain right now, sitting in front of a computer screen, how are you possibly going to be able to think objectively in the middle of a fast-paced tournament game? If all smashers asked themselves simple questions like this, they would know what they need to work on, and what they should do.
Step 2: Perfecting the motion
Once you know what your weaknesses are, what your strengths are, and what is expected of you, then you can practice.
This is where your knowledge should be put to use. Pick your character, and then play against level 1 CPUs. Don't just learn combos; perfect them. Go until you can't get it wrong, not until you get it right.
This isn't just limited to chain grabs though. Everyone takes this line of thinking with chain grabbing (learn what character to do it on, what % to end it with a killing move, etc.), but they don't do it with normal gameplay!
Let's look at an example. Let's say a Fox player really hates playing against Peach (**** that downsmash). He's done the research, and he's looked at the guides, and he's learned a few things that can make his game against peach much more solid.
He's learned that, in terms of offense...
1. At low %, a nair can be followed with a shine, then a wavedash to grab.
2. At low %, u-throw to uair can be extremely deadly
3. At any %, you can shine, wavedash, grab (which sets up nicely for #2!)
4. At 80%, you can drillshine to u-smash a peach and kill them on most stages.
He knows that if he could always pull these things off, the game wouldn't be so hard. He can start off every game with a nair/drillkick to shine, which then leads to a grab, which then leads to a u-air or two, and Peach is suddenly dangerously close to 80%. Once she hits 80%, it's just a simple drillkick, waveshine, u-smash, and the peach is dead.
But if he just plays a level 1 computer for 5 minutes and feebly attempts to do it by double jumping over a level 1 Peach, missing his l-cancel, and wavedashing slowly out of his shine and then following with an u-smash, he's going to get into trouble.
He has to learn to do the move as perfectly as it can be. Then, and only then, can he attempt to integrate this technique into his unconscious. He has to be able to do this on his own speed until he gets it, and then speed it up until is is near perfect.
Once he's gotten these techniques down (against a lvl 1 CPU or bad opponent), he can follow step 3.
Step 3: Repeating the motion
If you've played a musical instrument, you know what I'm talking about. You have thought about what you want to do, you've done it perfect a few times, and now you need to repeat this motion until your brain is numb.
Going back to the example of Fox vs. Peach, that Fox player needs to start up a game and just nair, shine, wavedash, grab, u-throw, u-air, u-air, laser that Peach until she hits the ground, then drillkick, shine, wavedash, u-smash.
He needs to do it over and over and over again, as fast as possible, with as little empty space as possible.
Technically, there is a Step 4. "Incorporating it into your game". But, you've already done that. By thinking critically about what you need to do in particular matchups and situations, perfecting the motion in a comfortable, controlled environment, and then repeating that motion until it is flawless and simple, you are now "magically" able to do this in an actual game.
Just remember that this is NOT limited to chain grabs or combos. You can learn to hit someone with a tippered Marth forward smash like this. You can learn to hit someone diagonally with Captain Falcon's dair (hit them with his chest). You can learn to hit someone with the very edge of Jiggly's backair (priority is HUGE).
You can learn anything like this.
Think about what you need to do, think about why, then think about how.
After knowing what to do, do it, and do it perfectly, at your own pace, until you cannot do it better.
After you can do it perfectly once, do it again and again and again until you cannot mess up.
Suddenly, you're 10x better than before.
Now that you've got all that technical skill and some strategy tucked away in your brain, you might want to think about how you want to go about actually playing the game, and when to use all these wonderful new tricks.
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=70759
That's a good place to start.
