Acryte
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 986
Being in the Navy, I've constantly moved away from friends and fellow smashers. I have spent lots of time training new smashers and am quite experienced in mentoring and fostering their development in melee. I've also seen an increase in threads where people are trying to bring up other players and this is a reply to those people.
Having a "Mentor" when it comes to learning how to play Melee competetively can greatly accelerate the pace at which the "Student" is able to learn and become skillful at the game. This long *** but insightful post is for anyone who is currently (or thinking about becoming) a mentor in the smash community or becoming mentored by another smasher:
The Mentor is the anchor. He is MUCH better than the student. The mentor is the knowledgeable player who knows ALL the technical details, tricks, nuances, etc about smash. He plays intelligently at all times and has tightened up his game. He allows you to accurately gauge your progress and shows you the weaknesses of 'poor strategies' and bad moves. If he capable of four stocking you every time, controlling the whole matchup, predicting all your moves, and it seems almost impossible to hit him... that's a good sign. The Anchor points out your bad habits, and let's you know what your options are; the depth of his ability is incredibly important. He teaches you spacing, your character's techs, and provides any information necessary about the game (frame data, hitboxes, matchup advise, etc). He exists so that you GET BETTER because "you only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent".
The Student is the pupil(s) who has a drive to get better at smash. It is important the student has both a desire to get better at smash and has a competetive spirit. If he is lacking in one of those attributes he may not have what it takes to progress. This is because playing a smasher who far exceeds you in skill can be one of two things:
1) Incredibly challenging (and fun). This drives you to excel.
2) Incredibly frustrating and discouraging. This hinders the student.
The difference between feeling one way vs the other lies almost entirely on the student's mindset and can drastically change the speed at which they are able to learn. The mentor must also understand the student's mood and do what he can to keep him hungry for improvement. The player who has a negative mindset will quickly find himself getting angry, sandbagging, or quitting matches. Players of this mindset stop getting better, and progress slows.
With this kind of negative mindset, the student has (at least temporarily) lost the drive to win (whether that match, that day, or all together). Also, Becoming angry, unless it further fuels your desire to win, is a hindrance to the student. Oftentimes, anger is a secondary emotion that arises because its easier to "get angry" than it is to figure out why you are losing. It becomes something that is done INSTEAD of fixing the problem. It is the biggest john in all of smash; it's a cop-out tactic, and a personal excuse.
It can be disappointing sometimes when you work your *** off for a stock advantage, only to suicide, and make the match tied up again... or when you drop a combo that could have been their stock, only to get killed yourself; Sometimes things like that can make you feel like not trying anymore. The student must try his hardest to always combat this feeling. The easiest way to do so is acceptance. Just as Mango nods his head, and then makes sure not to make that mistake again, this should be the student's outlook. Respect what happened but also learn from it and concentrate on fixing the problem. Try setting cues even, and go hard in your next stock. When you take that stock you should have snatched already, after dropping the combo and getting killed, allow it to right your mood again. Tell yourself things like "Alright, lets get back in this!". Thoughts like those will help bring you back to a winning mindset.
Another issue that can frustrate the student is when he thinks both too highly of himself and too little of his opponent. This is not a problem when he is winning, but when the match become a lot closer than he feels it should be, or he starts losing, he will quickly become frustrated. YOU MUST RESPECT YOUR OPPONENTS ABILITIES. If he is winning, its because you need to play smarter. If you feel he is poor because he predictably spams the same moves, you need to recognize and correct your largest defect: YOU STILL AREN'T ACTUALLY PREDICTING IT OR USING THAT PREDICTABILITY TO POSITION YOUSELF IN AN ADVANTAGEOUS POSITION.
You're still playing against the character, and not against the player.
This is the most important thing that the mentor must stress to a developing player. Once he has become moderately comfortable in using his character and learning his general options, he should first and foremost start to concentrate on what the opponent is doing. "Learn his patterns. Learn what his habits and his options are." These are mantras to which the student must occupy himself if he is to improve. He must start with the intent of reading his opponent, otherwise he is attacking blindly and without purpose; he is not spacing, he is throwing out attacks at the correct ranges but at the wrong times. Worse, it is a double folly for he plays predictably by not predicting.
In order to keep up a competetive spirit when the student is playing against someone much better than him, he must try his hardest, and view it as a challenge. Too many players start up and are quickly discouraged that they don't win ANY matches... and that its not even close. They should not be of the mindset that because they are still losing, that they haven't improved. This is nonsense. As the student progresses, the percentages creep higher, and the stocks get closer; seeing this should help drive the student to become even hungrier to succeed. However, this kind of progress can also be deceiving to the student, because when he first starts playing, the teacher will not be playing him as tightly as he could be.
The teacher doesn't doesn't need his 'A-game' mixups and reads to constantly 4-stock you, nor is it appropriate to use them yet. Once playing on auto-pilot is getting consistantly read by the student, that is when the teacher should concentrate on using solid reads and bringing out his 'A-game'. This may discourage the student because where he thought he saw progress, he now feels like he is doing much worse. He doesn't realize however that he has gotten much better and that you are simply playing much harder than before. He needs to know that if you aren't applying reads, he's good enough now to cause trouble and has the tools to take advantage of you if you play predictably. This is because he has started to build a solid fundamental game and basic reads. He knows how to combat the "automatic" players. The mentor needs to let him know that, so he doesn't feel like he took a step backwards, but instead sees that he has actually gotten better; that he has become competent enough at the matchup to where you feel its appropriate to go all out; that you can't just allow him to beat himself anymore or just apply mindless automatic pressure to win because now he is smart enough to take advantage of it.
He has grown as a player and should feel pride in that he's ready to play against your 'A-game' at all. It is at this point the mentor will read and control his every move, and this is the new standard he will be forced to fight against. If he is not concentrating on reading you yet but has only been concentrating on spacing and what move HE WANTS TO DO, stress the difference in effectiveness between when you are actually reading and controlling him the whole match vs when you are on auto-pilot. Make sure to stress this difference in effectiveness because its similar to how he is currently playing vs how effectively he could be playing if he was reading the opponent.
At the beginning of the training the mentor should seek to bait and condition the student as often as possible (while keeping him aware of each bait and the ways that you have been conditioning him). This will allow the student to break bad habits and learn to refrain at times when it is wise to do so. Only later should the mentor solidly apply his reads to "hold down the pillow", stopping the student's strikes before they can start because he knows what the student will do; and using both his reads and his mixups to always stay a few steps ahead of the student, so that the student can never pin him down.
I Previously stated that the mentor must not start out looking to dominate them as brutally as possible. That is because doing so is not the fastest path to improvement. The teacher must choose matchups that will benefit the student and play in ways that will allow him to grow as a player. This is because when the student first starts, the teacher should space intelligently but should focus on letting them get comfortable with not only being on the defense, but also in pressing the attack sometimes. The teacher knows that he could just suffocate them with pressure and be overly aggressive; something that would get him punished against a better player... but he also knows that they won't take advantage of it and therefore it would be quite effective.
Doing so would not help them however. Students need to grow into their character and learn their character's options and spacing. Don't start them against Falco and lock them down with lasers. They will not get better playing against that when you haven't given them first the weapons with which to combat such tactics. If anything, it restricts their movement and spacing options, which will hamper the development of their dash-dance game for example, as well as other things.
Even though when they first start, you aren't taking advantage of every opportunity to attack, ALWAYS USE OPTIMAL SPACING AND EDGEGUARDS. They must learn by example. They must face a trial by fire from the moment they start the game, when it comes to spacing and recovering. They must understand that if you space correctly, you won't get hit. They must understand that every time they get off the edge, that they are dead, until they learn their options. They must learn how pivotal it is that they get back. They must understand how effective a gimp can be, and that a few well placed moves are a thousand times more effective than a bunch of poorly placed ones. In doing so, they will also learn how to effectively space and edgeguard by watching you. After being edguarded however, always let them know what they could have done, or what you did if it was not obvious. Such as: "You should have sweetspotted there" or "I threw out the laser over your head so you couldn't jump and forced you to recover low."
When you first start training, apply reads and combos in a relaxed manner. Use them here and there but don't try to be in control of the fight the whole time; they need to learn how to approach as well as how to play defensively. They also need to learn to change up their timings as well; how to pause sometimes and let the enemy put their self in a poor position. When a player first starts, they will often be overwhelmed by the speed and precision of the mentor's character, and after witnessing that speed, they try to learn to attack as quickly as possible and to reduce the gaps in their attacks. The problem they often face (especially with early Marth players) is that they WILL attack as soon as they are ABLE to attack in close quarter situations. This makes their timing absolutely predictable and is why the mentor is so easily able to spotdodge and shieldgrab their every attack after a short amount of time. They must become knowledgeable of this fact so that they are aware of it, and can learn to vary their timings. Once they make this adjustment they can start to bait/condition the opposing player to act incorrectly at times, and also make it harder for them to be read. The mentor should focus on slowly starting to tighten up the offensive game he brings to the student, applying more pressure, more reads, more effective evasion (learn his timings), and by adding in brick walls (things they must learn to get around).
First let them experiment with their options, but if they aren't catching the solution, tell them what their options are. If it's pivotal that they don't get grabbed by Marth, start grabbing all day so he can learn to avoid it. Start doing combos and tell him what kinds of moves he himself can use to combo or set up for KOs effectively. If shieldgrabbing is extremely effective for his character in a matchup, start shield grabbing him quite often and each time you do let him know by saying "shield-grab".
Monitor the student's morale and keep his mood up. If he is getting frustrated about losing, play some infinite stock matches. Other than not seeing the losing screen and constantly being behind stocks, he can practice higher percent combos and situations much more often. This will help him gain confidence when trying to get that finishing hit on you after he's gotten you to high percents (which against a more experienced player can be quite difficult).
Practice "scenarios" like things he can do when fox is jumping in with a shorthop, or mixups, ledgeguarding options, options from ledge, CC, how to edgetech, or tech chase options. Teach him the importance of DI. Show him scenarios like SDI out of fox's upair, or DIing Jiggs upthrow rest on fastfallers. Show him that not DIing or poor DI can easily cost you your stock. Practice differences between survival DI and DIing away from combos, teach him chaingrabs, and even jab resets. Executing these sorts of "scenarios" are a reinforcement tool. It's a very important learning experience, but its also an enjoyable break from getting beat down. Each time they do it successfully they feel like they just won. Its a positive feeling. You can even teach them fun things like how to luigi ladder, superjump with link, use pikachu and samus's super wavedashes, or do the black hole glitch. Melee has many cool and quirky glitches that will add to their enjoyment of the game. Sometimes things like these can be the breath of fresh air they need to keep from frustration on a bad day.
Another way that players can keep their morale up is if they have another person/student around their level to play against. They can play each other and try out ideas; or learn to get things like their edgeguards down. They may not be able to pull certain things off against the mentor just yet, because he's too good at knowing what to do and outspaces them, but its good practice to boost confidence in their abilities. Since their Anchor is always around to keep them out of terrible habits that wouldn't really work against smarter players, there is really no harm in it. Playing someone who has lots of weaknesses also provides them with easier opportunities to analyze and exploit the opponent's weaknesses, which is a trait and a habit which they should concentrate on developing. The mentor is always there to direct them and can coach both players during the match so that they both continue to progress.
You can also have what I call one-way money matches. A OWMM is when there is a prize for beating the mentor but not for if the mentor beats them. Sometimes I devise a "smash incentive program" where I give them say a timeframe of X months from the start of training with certain bounties available like:
1) If you beat me and you chose my character for me $60
2) If you beat me and I chose my own character $100
3) Plus each additional stock you had left is another $30
An incentive system can provide a goal for them. This means that even though they will be losing when they start out, it doesn't bother them as much when they are losing often. They are interested in improving, and at a fast rate, so that they can try to beat you at least once in that time frame. They will not only be willing to practice, but will often want to practice as often as possible. This helps foster a positive mindset early on in the student.
Remember, that being their mentor, you need to commend them for proper spacing, or finally implementing something correctly. You need to let them know that they have been improving, and how. When the mentor sees behaviors that should be done more often, he should tell them. If Marth's playing all ground and needs to start implementing his aerials more... or needs to combo into his smashes more instead of just throwing them out, and then he does some bair-fair fsmash combo or something, tell him: "Good ****. You should do that more often man". The more you give him props for doing something effective, the more likely he is to start trying to use it more often.
Also, let them know what the most important aspects and holes in their current game are. Are they using their double jump too often and its costing them stocks? Is their L-Cancelling inconsistent, or are they getting caught standing around in shield too much? Help them to correct their bad habits, but don't overwhelm them. Let them know what they should do, but have them really focus on one or two of the biggest problems, and concentrate on fixing those. Also make sure they aren't playing too predictably or playing against all characters as if they were the same. The student must learn that each matchup must be treated differently. The mentor must stay focused on his student's improvement if he is to keep tightening their game up.
When the student makes a mistake, the best way to correct this is to point it out at the time, AND tape your matches and review them. If you do so while the match is fresh in his mind, you will also be able to explain what was going through your head at different spots. Explain how you were trying to control him, and how you knew he was going to do "attack A" at "moment B" and destroyed him by doing "move C". Let him know what he could have done in those situations, or how he could have avoided those certain situations. This is where he will make the most progress; after he sees what he was doing in the match from an outside perspective and says "wow, why the hell did I do that. That was way too predictable", or "That was way too risky and it wouldn't have really done much if it landed". This alone will help him become conscious of his bad habits or his lack of certain good ones. Remember he must not only focus on his offensive, defensive and movement habits in a match, but also his mental habits as well.
Remember, as the mentor it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to punish their weaknesses if it has become a problem. If they Fsmash way too often and it gets them shield grabbed all day, NEVER LET THAT FSMASH HIT YOU. It's like when a child cries and cries until they get their way. If you give in a single time, from now on they think that they can cry and it will work eventually. IF YOU AREN'T PUNISHING IT THEN THERE IS NO REASON THEY SHOULDN'T BE DOING IT; EVEN IF IT IS UNSMART. THEREFORE, IF YOU AREN'T PUNISHING IT PROPERLY, YOU NEED TO WORK AT BEING A MORE EFFECTIVE MENTOR.
Get them interested in watching pro matches and turn them on to really good matches of top players who play characters they like. Sometimes just watching people play who are smarter than you can help you unconsciously start to play smarter as well. It also helps draw them into the community aspects of the game.
Once the student has gotten a solid grasp on the character matchup and is playing it competently, the mentor should mix in another character. If you can play a character well, then give him experience in that matchup. Try to have him learn at least 4 or 5 different matchups that you play solidly but let him focus on only one or two at a time. This helps the player from simply learning how YOU SPECIFICALLY PLAY THAT ONE CHARACTER (your habits, and reading you) vs simply getting better at the game OVERALL. If he has been learning to look for openings and holes, and he reads and conditions his opponent, then he will play well even when facing players who he has never played.
This is huge concerning players that play well against really good but familiar opponents, and then lose to "scrubs". They got good against playing that one person but didn't get that good at some of the necessary things they needed to concentrate on to be good at the game regardless of the player. They should be looking for weaknesses to exploit. The ****tier the player, the easier and easier it is to destroy them. Suddenly they play the other person and try to just go auto-mode. They try to instantly apply all habitual data they've collected and play them as if they were playing the good player. They overthink AND underthink by trying to play as if one size fits all. Once the opponent starts doing seemingly random stuff or spacing in a ****ed up way, the student's spacing, timing, reads and strategy just go out the window and they have no Idea what to do. They also pass up opportunities to punish the other player because it wouldn't have worked on the better player. You can't do that. This is where they have to have a base game and then feel it out and start learning the new player; learning what you can get away with, and what is effective versus that player in particular. Learning what habits they have that you can exploit, or brick walls you can put up that they have to figure out how to get around, which could be used to your advantage until they adapt.
Once the student has made it this far, having somewhat honed their basic technical skills, and implemented all the important tools available to them into their game, they now have a solid foundation with which to start effectively playing against more and more skilled players. They can and should go out and play many different players, and with the proper foundation, they will continue to steadily progress.
It is important to note that when the student is good enough to give the teacher a challenge, the teacher may become tempted not to reveal to them the few key weaknesses that they find and are exploiting. The teacher shouldn't choose to keep those things to himself however because his goal SHOULD be for the student to improve to a point that it forces the teacher to tighten up, refine, and improve upon his own game. If the student gets to this point or is coming close, as a teacher you shouldn't become frustrated or start sandbagging. You shouldn't expect to dominate and control them as often as you used to. When your student can hold even with you and capitalize on mistakes and weaknesses in your game, this is the fruit of your labor; you now have someone that can help you refine your own game so that you can become better too, and the learning becomes a two-way process because you can both force each other to play smarter.
The teacher may feel drawn to play the student as if he were an opponent, because now his competitive spirit wants to utilize any advantage to win. If, as the teacher, you can't bring yourself to instruct him during the match, at least correct him afterward. If you continue manipulating, conditioning and taking advantage of weaknesses in his game without letting him know what they are, then you are not only limiting the student's progress, but your own as well. If you want to continue improving at smash, get it in your head to instruct each other and don't keep secrets.
Having a "Mentor" when it comes to learning how to play Melee competetively can greatly accelerate the pace at which the "Student" is able to learn and become skillful at the game. This long *** but insightful post is for anyone who is currently (or thinking about becoming) a mentor in the smash community or becoming mentored by another smasher:
The Mentor is the anchor. He is MUCH better than the student. The mentor is the knowledgeable player who knows ALL the technical details, tricks, nuances, etc about smash. He plays intelligently at all times and has tightened up his game. He allows you to accurately gauge your progress and shows you the weaknesses of 'poor strategies' and bad moves. If he capable of four stocking you every time, controlling the whole matchup, predicting all your moves, and it seems almost impossible to hit him... that's a good sign. The Anchor points out your bad habits, and let's you know what your options are; the depth of his ability is incredibly important. He teaches you spacing, your character's techs, and provides any information necessary about the game (frame data, hitboxes, matchup advise, etc). He exists so that you GET BETTER because "you only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent".
The Student is the pupil(s) who has a drive to get better at smash. It is important the student has both a desire to get better at smash and has a competetive spirit. If he is lacking in one of those attributes he may not have what it takes to progress. This is because playing a smasher who far exceeds you in skill can be one of two things:
1) Incredibly challenging (and fun). This drives you to excel.
2) Incredibly frustrating and discouraging. This hinders the student.
The difference between feeling one way vs the other lies almost entirely on the student's mindset and can drastically change the speed at which they are able to learn. The mentor must also understand the student's mood and do what he can to keep him hungry for improvement. The player who has a negative mindset will quickly find himself getting angry, sandbagging, or quitting matches. Players of this mindset stop getting better, and progress slows.
With this kind of negative mindset, the student has (at least temporarily) lost the drive to win (whether that match, that day, or all together). Also, Becoming angry, unless it further fuels your desire to win, is a hindrance to the student. Oftentimes, anger is a secondary emotion that arises because its easier to "get angry" than it is to figure out why you are losing. It becomes something that is done INSTEAD of fixing the problem. It is the biggest john in all of smash; it's a cop-out tactic, and a personal excuse.
It can be disappointing sometimes when you work your *** off for a stock advantage, only to suicide, and make the match tied up again... or when you drop a combo that could have been their stock, only to get killed yourself; Sometimes things like that can make you feel like not trying anymore. The student must try his hardest to always combat this feeling. The easiest way to do so is acceptance. Just as Mango nods his head, and then makes sure not to make that mistake again, this should be the student's outlook. Respect what happened but also learn from it and concentrate on fixing the problem. Try setting cues even, and go hard in your next stock. When you take that stock you should have snatched already, after dropping the combo and getting killed, allow it to right your mood again. Tell yourself things like "Alright, lets get back in this!". Thoughts like those will help bring you back to a winning mindset.
Another issue that can frustrate the student is when he thinks both too highly of himself and too little of his opponent. This is not a problem when he is winning, but when the match become a lot closer than he feels it should be, or he starts losing, he will quickly become frustrated. YOU MUST RESPECT YOUR OPPONENTS ABILITIES. If he is winning, its because you need to play smarter. If you feel he is poor because he predictably spams the same moves, you need to recognize and correct your largest defect: YOU STILL AREN'T ACTUALLY PREDICTING IT OR USING THAT PREDICTABILITY TO POSITION YOUSELF IN AN ADVANTAGEOUS POSITION.
You're still playing against the character, and not against the player.
This is the most important thing that the mentor must stress to a developing player. Once he has become moderately comfortable in using his character and learning his general options, he should first and foremost start to concentrate on what the opponent is doing. "Learn his patterns. Learn what his habits and his options are." These are mantras to which the student must occupy himself if he is to improve. He must start with the intent of reading his opponent, otherwise he is attacking blindly and without purpose; he is not spacing, he is throwing out attacks at the correct ranges but at the wrong times. Worse, it is a double folly for he plays predictably by not predicting.
In order to keep up a competetive spirit when the student is playing against someone much better than him, he must try his hardest, and view it as a challenge. Too many players start up and are quickly discouraged that they don't win ANY matches... and that its not even close. They should not be of the mindset that because they are still losing, that they haven't improved. This is nonsense. As the student progresses, the percentages creep higher, and the stocks get closer; seeing this should help drive the student to become even hungrier to succeed. However, this kind of progress can also be deceiving to the student, because when he first starts playing, the teacher will not be playing him as tightly as he could be.
The teacher doesn't doesn't need his 'A-game' mixups and reads to constantly 4-stock you, nor is it appropriate to use them yet. Once playing on auto-pilot is getting consistantly read by the student, that is when the teacher should concentrate on using solid reads and bringing out his 'A-game'. This may discourage the student because where he thought he saw progress, he now feels like he is doing much worse. He doesn't realize however that he has gotten much better and that you are simply playing much harder than before. He needs to know that if you aren't applying reads, he's good enough now to cause trouble and has the tools to take advantage of you if you play predictably. This is because he has started to build a solid fundamental game and basic reads. He knows how to combat the "automatic" players. The mentor needs to let him know that, so he doesn't feel like he took a step backwards, but instead sees that he has actually gotten better; that he has become competent enough at the matchup to where you feel its appropriate to go all out; that you can't just allow him to beat himself anymore or just apply mindless automatic pressure to win because now he is smart enough to take advantage of it.
He has grown as a player and should feel pride in that he's ready to play against your 'A-game' at all. It is at this point the mentor will read and control his every move, and this is the new standard he will be forced to fight against. If he is not concentrating on reading you yet but has only been concentrating on spacing and what move HE WANTS TO DO, stress the difference in effectiveness between when you are actually reading and controlling him the whole match vs when you are on auto-pilot. Make sure to stress this difference in effectiveness because its similar to how he is currently playing vs how effectively he could be playing if he was reading the opponent.
At the beginning of the training the mentor should seek to bait and condition the student as often as possible (while keeping him aware of each bait and the ways that you have been conditioning him). This will allow the student to break bad habits and learn to refrain at times when it is wise to do so. Only later should the mentor solidly apply his reads to "hold down the pillow", stopping the student's strikes before they can start because he knows what the student will do; and using both his reads and his mixups to always stay a few steps ahead of the student, so that the student can never pin him down.
I Previously stated that the mentor must not start out looking to dominate them as brutally as possible. That is because doing so is not the fastest path to improvement. The teacher must choose matchups that will benefit the student and play in ways that will allow him to grow as a player. This is because when the student first starts, the teacher should space intelligently but should focus on letting them get comfortable with not only being on the defense, but also in pressing the attack sometimes. The teacher knows that he could just suffocate them with pressure and be overly aggressive; something that would get him punished against a better player... but he also knows that they won't take advantage of it and therefore it would be quite effective.
Doing so would not help them however. Students need to grow into their character and learn their character's options and spacing. Don't start them against Falco and lock them down with lasers. They will not get better playing against that when you haven't given them first the weapons with which to combat such tactics. If anything, it restricts their movement and spacing options, which will hamper the development of their dash-dance game for example, as well as other things.
Even though when they first start, you aren't taking advantage of every opportunity to attack, ALWAYS USE OPTIMAL SPACING AND EDGEGUARDS. They must learn by example. They must face a trial by fire from the moment they start the game, when it comes to spacing and recovering. They must understand that if you space correctly, you won't get hit. They must understand that every time they get off the edge, that they are dead, until they learn their options. They must learn how pivotal it is that they get back. They must understand how effective a gimp can be, and that a few well placed moves are a thousand times more effective than a bunch of poorly placed ones. In doing so, they will also learn how to effectively space and edgeguard by watching you. After being edguarded however, always let them know what they could have done, or what you did if it was not obvious. Such as: "You should have sweetspotted there" or "I threw out the laser over your head so you couldn't jump and forced you to recover low."
When you first start training, apply reads and combos in a relaxed manner. Use them here and there but don't try to be in control of the fight the whole time; they need to learn how to approach as well as how to play defensively. They also need to learn to change up their timings as well; how to pause sometimes and let the enemy put their self in a poor position. When a player first starts, they will often be overwhelmed by the speed and precision of the mentor's character, and after witnessing that speed, they try to learn to attack as quickly as possible and to reduce the gaps in their attacks. The problem they often face (especially with early Marth players) is that they WILL attack as soon as they are ABLE to attack in close quarter situations. This makes their timing absolutely predictable and is why the mentor is so easily able to spotdodge and shieldgrab their every attack after a short amount of time. They must become knowledgeable of this fact so that they are aware of it, and can learn to vary their timings. Once they make this adjustment they can start to bait/condition the opposing player to act incorrectly at times, and also make it harder for them to be read. The mentor should focus on slowly starting to tighten up the offensive game he brings to the student, applying more pressure, more reads, more effective evasion (learn his timings), and by adding in brick walls (things they must learn to get around).
First let them experiment with their options, but if they aren't catching the solution, tell them what their options are. If it's pivotal that they don't get grabbed by Marth, start grabbing all day so he can learn to avoid it. Start doing combos and tell him what kinds of moves he himself can use to combo or set up for KOs effectively. If shieldgrabbing is extremely effective for his character in a matchup, start shield grabbing him quite often and each time you do let him know by saying "shield-grab".
Monitor the student's morale and keep his mood up. If he is getting frustrated about losing, play some infinite stock matches. Other than not seeing the losing screen and constantly being behind stocks, he can practice higher percent combos and situations much more often. This will help him gain confidence when trying to get that finishing hit on you after he's gotten you to high percents (which against a more experienced player can be quite difficult).
Practice "scenarios" like things he can do when fox is jumping in with a shorthop, or mixups, ledgeguarding options, options from ledge, CC, how to edgetech, or tech chase options. Teach him the importance of DI. Show him scenarios like SDI out of fox's upair, or DIing Jiggs upthrow rest on fastfallers. Show him that not DIing or poor DI can easily cost you your stock. Practice differences between survival DI and DIing away from combos, teach him chaingrabs, and even jab resets. Executing these sorts of "scenarios" are a reinforcement tool. It's a very important learning experience, but its also an enjoyable break from getting beat down. Each time they do it successfully they feel like they just won. Its a positive feeling. You can even teach them fun things like how to luigi ladder, superjump with link, use pikachu and samus's super wavedashes, or do the black hole glitch. Melee has many cool and quirky glitches that will add to their enjoyment of the game. Sometimes things like these can be the breath of fresh air they need to keep from frustration on a bad day.
Another way that players can keep their morale up is if they have another person/student around their level to play against. They can play each other and try out ideas; or learn to get things like their edgeguards down. They may not be able to pull certain things off against the mentor just yet, because he's too good at knowing what to do and outspaces them, but its good practice to boost confidence in their abilities. Since their Anchor is always around to keep them out of terrible habits that wouldn't really work against smarter players, there is really no harm in it. Playing someone who has lots of weaknesses also provides them with easier opportunities to analyze and exploit the opponent's weaknesses, which is a trait and a habit which they should concentrate on developing. The mentor is always there to direct them and can coach both players during the match so that they both continue to progress.
You can also have what I call one-way money matches. A OWMM is when there is a prize for beating the mentor but not for if the mentor beats them. Sometimes I devise a "smash incentive program" where I give them say a timeframe of X months from the start of training with certain bounties available like:
1) If you beat me and you chose my character for me $60
2) If you beat me and I chose my own character $100
3) Plus each additional stock you had left is another $30
An incentive system can provide a goal for them. This means that even though they will be losing when they start out, it doesn't bother them as much when they are losing often. They are interested in improving, and at a fast rate, so that they can try to beat you at least once in that time frame. They will not only be willing to practice, but will often want to practice as often as possible. This helps foster a positive mindset early on in the student.
Remember, that being their mentor, you need to commend them for proper spacing, or finally implementing something correctly. You need to let them know that they have been improving, and how. When the mentor sees behaviors that should be done more often, he should tell them. If Marth's playing all ground and needs to start implementing his aerials more... or needs to combo into his smashes more instead of just throwing them out, and then he does some bair-fair fsmash combo or something, tell him: "Good ****. You should do that more often man". The more you give him props for doing something effective, the more likely he is to start trying to use it more often.
Also, let them know what the most important aspects and holes in their current game are. Are they using their double jump too often and its costing them stocks? Is their L-Cancelling inconsistent, or are they getting caught standing around in shield too much? Help them to correct their bad habits, but don't overwhelm them. Let them know what they should do, but have them really focus on one or two of the biggest problems, and concentrate on fixing those. Also make sure they aren't playing too predictably or playing against all characters as if they were the same. The student must learn that each matchup must be treated differently. The mentor must stay focused on his student's improvement if he is to keep tightening their game up.
When the student makes a mistake, the best way to correct this is to point it out at the time, AND tape your matches and review them. If you do so while the match is fresh in his mind, you will also be able to explain what was going through your head at different spots. Explain how you were trying to control him, and how you knew he was going to do "attack A" at "moment B" and destroyed him by doing "move C". Let him know what he could have done in those situations, or how he could have avoided those certain situations. This is where he will make the most progress; after he sees what he was doing in the match from an outside perspective and says "wow, why the hell did I do that. That was way too predictable", or "That was way too risky and it wouldn't have really done much if it landed". This alone will help him become conscious of his bad habits or his lack of certain good ones. Remember he must not only focus on his offensive, defensive and movement habits in a match, but also his mental habits as well.
Remember, as the mentor it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to punish their weaknesses if it has become a problem. If they Fsmash way too often and it gets them shield grabbed all day, NEVER LET THAT FSMASH HIT YOU. It's like when a child cries and cries until they get their way. If you give in a single time, from now on they think that they can cry and it will work eventually. IF YOU AREN'T PUNISHING IT THEN THERE IS NO REASON THEY SHOULDN'T BE DOING IT; EVEN IF IT IS UNSMART. THEREFORE, IF YOU AREN'T PUNISHING IT PROPERLY, YOU NEED TO WORK AT BEING A MORE EFFECTIVE MENTOR.
Get them interested in watching pro matches and turn them on to really good matches of top players who play characters they like. Sometimes just watching people play who are smarter than you can help you unconsciously start to play smarter as well. It also helps draw them into the community aspects of the game.
Once the student has gotten a solid grasp on the character matchup and is playing it competently, the mentor should mix in another character. If you can play a character well, then give him experience in that matchup. Try to have him learn at least 4 or 5 different matchups that you play solidly but let him focus on only one or two at a time. This helps the player from simply learning how YOU SPECIFICALLY PLAY THAT ONE CHARACTER (your habits, and reading you) vs simply getting better at the game OVERALL. If he has been learning to look for openings and holes, and he reads and conditions his opponent, then he will play well even when facing players who he has never played.
This is huge concerning players that play well against really good but familiar opponents, and then lose to "scrubs". They got good against playing that one person but didn't get that good at some of the necessary things they needed to concentrate on to be good at the game regardless of the player. They should be looking for weaknesses to exploit. The ****tier the player, the easier and easier it is to destroy them. Suddenly they play the other person and try to just go auto-mode. They try to instantly apply all habitual data they've collected and play them as if they were playing the good player. They overthink AND underthink by trying to play as if one size fits all. Once the opponent starts doing seemingly random stuff or spacing in a ****ed up way, the student's spacing, timing, reads and strategy just go out the window and they have no Idea what to do. They also pass up opportunities to punish the other player because it wouldn't have worked on the better player. You can't do that. This is where they have to have a base game and then feel it out and start learning the new player; learning what you can get away with, and what is effective versus that player in particular. Learning what habits they have that you can exploit, or brick walls you can put up that they have to figure out how to get around, which could be used to your advantage until they adapt.
Once the student has made it this far, having somewhat honed their basic technical skills, and implemented all the important tools available to them into their game, they now have a solid foundation with which to start effectively playing against more and more skilled players. They can and should go out and play many different players, and with the proper foundation, they will continue to steadily progress.
It is important to note that when the student is good enough to give the teacher a challenge, the teacher may become tempted not to reveal to them the few key weaknesses that they find and are exploiting. The teacher shouldn't choose to keep those things to himself however because his goal SHOULD be for the student to improve to a point that it forces the teacher to tighten up, refine, and improve upon his own game. If the student gets to this point or is coming close, as a teacher you shouldn't become frustrated or start sandbagging. You shouldn't expect to dominate and control them as often as you used to. When your student can hold even with you and capitalize on mistakes and weaknesses in your game, this is the fruit of your labor; you now have someone that can help you refine your own game so that you can become better too, and the learning becomes a two-way process because you can both force each other to play smarter.
The teacher may feel drawn to play the student as if he were an opponent, because now his competitive spirit wants to utilize any advantage to win. If, as the teacher, you can't bring yourself to instruct him during the match, at least correct him afterward. If you continue manipulating, conditioning and taking advantage of weaknesses in his game without letting him know what they are, then you are not only limiting the student's progress, but your own as well. If you want to continue improving at smash, get it in your head to instruct each other and don't keep secrets.
