Grmo
Smash Champion
I've told a lot of you already, but for those of you who don't know and care at all, I'm going to stop playing Smash for good. There are a number of personal reasons, the most important of which is that my hands are suffering and I can not play in a tournament without being in a great deal of pain, often to the point where I get headaches and can't think of anything. I'll admit, I lied a lot, to everyone. Mostly about how it never hurt or it was healing, when in fact it was almost always the opposite. I'm sorry for doing that. Regardless of this, I was gonna have to leave soon anyway; I've been at it for three and a half years. If you're interested in my background in smash at all, feel free to read the next paragraph. If not, skip to the last one.
I started playing with Jeffman back in first year of high school, in 2005 (the summer after it I guess, since we started school in 2004). Soon after, we developed a rivalry that led to us learning all sorts of different things in an attempt to beat eachother. It was all in good fun, of course, and we had a lot of fun with it. It was later on in that year that we heard about a smash tournament. Knowing nothing about it aside from a trailer for this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euHUAbmkyAY), we went in, and upon entry saw a technical Fox playing. For some unknown reason, we thought that guy was the one in the Adventure video. Past that tournaments, we swore to improve and stop getting owned by everything under the moon, and went to more tournaments. We met NNR after that, and made a few friends. One of the highlights of those times were the videos we made. Before our first tournament, we had been inspired by a best of 5 set between Isai and Ken, and decided to play and record our own. I played Marth back then, and I don't even remember who Jeff used, but I think it was Falco. We recorded a crappy set with terrible audio and called it jeff_grmo_1. That was the first of many to come. In February 2006, we formed the team Smashbound (we were/are still huge Earthbound fans), and made this video, called So Many Chaos:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2812287584727321045&ei=zm3-Sen1HImM-QH_o6XrBQ&q=so+many+chaos
The name came from a line that a friend of ours used while playing a free for all with many explosive items on. The video itself is amusing, especially somewhere in the middle where we do what we call the broom game, a game where the objective is to hold the broom above your head, spin around 20 times, and leap over it. In terms of videos, there was also this piece of gold by Jeff:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?do...=CW_-ScLYBZfi-QG_3oz9BQ&q=sandbag+combo+video
A sandbag combo video using Action Replay, something we were heavily in to back then (we ended up helping out with Perfect Control 2). The last video I want people to see is Grmzo of the Amazingness, a really stupid but amusing video I made a few months back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI3cQiIEKu8
In May 2007, we hosted The Battle of Caketown, the first in a series that was labelled as the biggest series of tournaments in the GTA. One event had over 100 people, breaking the fire code of the venue. These continued over the years, and while there were problems, each one maintains itself as being very memorable. I hope everyone else enjoyed them as much as I did.
I never felt that my role in the community was that of a smasher. I hosted tournaments for people, and if not that, then I acted as a teacher for others whenever I could. I liked feeling useful, so I always did stuff like that. I was the kind of guy that would **** you with 20 characters when you first started playing, then teach you some stuff if you spared the time with me, and then a few months later you would surpass me. I was more of a flag, I guess, but I just never had the motivation to be the best. I almost always had other things on my mind and didn't feel that I needed to accomplish that or that I would necessarily feel better that way. I don't think it was my playing that led me to get to know everyone.
I've made so many friends through this. A lot of people that I value a lot and will miss some day. I won't be gone right away; I still have three or so tournaments that I promised to help out with and I in no way intend to let those people down. Sauga Outbreak and Havoc at the Hammer are two, and another one that never got posted. Lone Wolf, the one credible for the huge increase in Smash activity in Mississauga back in 2007, has been a huge help to me, so you can expect to see me helping at all of his tournaments in the future. I may not stop that for a while. Anyway, I really want to thank everyone. I've learned so many valuable things from this community. You guys can be a bit rough around the edges, but you're some of the most memorable people I've ever met. I can't tell you how grateful I was to have a wide circle of friends like that. I know I may not be in the position to ask favours, but I will ask that if you see me in the future, if I come to visit or something, that you still treat me as you would if I was still playing. I don't necessarily want to do this, but I've become physically incapable of playing any longer.
Thanks so much. I'll never forget all the fun I had playing with everyone. If I can offer a last word of advice, it's to play to win for yourself, not for the money or for the ranking.
Play for you. Don't ever lose sight of what's most important. Take it easy...you don't want to end up like me. Oh yeah, Bernard...thanks for the name!
Grmzo out.
I started playing with Jeffman back in first year of high school, in 2005 (the summer after it I guess, since we started school in 2004). Soon after, we developed a rivalry that led to us learning all sorts of different things in an attempt to beat eachother. It was all in good fun, of course, and we had a lot of fun with it. It was later on in that year that we heard about a smash tournament. Knowing nothing about it aside from a trailer for this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euHUAbmkyAY), we went in, and upon entry saw a technical Fox playing. For some unknown reason, we thought that guy was the one in the Adventure video. Past that tournaments, we swore to improve and stop getting owned by everything under the moon, and went to more tournaments. We met NNR after that, and made a few friends. One of the highlights of those times were the videos we made. Before our first tournament, we had been inspired by a best of 5 set between Isai and Ken, and decided to play and record our own. I played Marth back then, and I don't even remember who Jeff used, but I think it was Falco. We recorded a crappy set with terrible audio and called it jeff_grmo_1. That was the first of many to come. In February 2006, we formed the team Smashbound (we were/are still huge Earthbound fans), and made this video, called So Many Chaos:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2812287584727321045&ei=zm3-Sen1HImM-QH_o6XrBQ&q=so+many+chaos
The name came from a line that a friend of ours used while playing a free for all with many explosive items on. The video itself is amusing, especially somewhere in the middle where we do what we call the broom game, a game where the objective is to hold the broom above your head, spin around 20 times, and leap over it. In terms of videos, there was also this piece of gold by Jeff:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?do...=CW_-ScLYBZfi-QG_3oz9BQ&q=sandbag+combo+video
A sandbag combo video using Action Replay, something we were heavily in to back then (we ended up helping out with Perfect Control 2). The last video I want people to see is Grmzo of the Amazingness, a really stupid but amusing video I made a few months back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI3cQiIEKu8
In May 2007, we hosted The Battle of Caketown, the first in a series that was labelled as the biggest series of tournaments in the GTA. One event had over 100 people, breaking the fire code of the venue. These continued over the years, and while there were problems, each one maintains itself as being very memorable. I hope everyone else enjoyed them as much as I did.
I never felt that my role in the community was that of a smasher. I hosted tournaments for people, and if not that, then I acted as a teacher for others whenever I could. I liked feeling useful, so I always did stuff like that. I was the kind of guy that would **** you with 20 characters when you first started playing, then teach you some stuff if you spared the time with me, and then a few months later you would surpass me. I was more of a flag, I guess, but I just never had the motivation to be the best. I almost always had other things on my mind and didn't feel that I needed to accomplish that or that I would necessarily feel better that way. I don't think it was my playing that led me to get to know everyone.
I've made so many friends through this. A lot of people that I value a lot and will miss some day. I won't be gone right away; I still have three or so tournaments that I promised to help out with and I in no way intend to let those people down. Sauga Outbreak and Havoc at the Hammer are two, and another one that never got posted. Lone Wolf, the one credible for the huge increase in Smash activity in Mississauga back in 2007, has been a huge help to me, so you can expect to see me helping at all of his tournaments in the future. I may not stop that for a while. Anyway, I really want to thank everyone. I've learned so many valuable things from this community. You guys can be a bit rough around the edges, but you're some of the most memorable people I've ever met. I can't tell you how grateful I was to have a wide circle of friends like that. I know I may not be in the position to ask favours, but I will ask that if you see me in the future, if I come to visit or something, that you still treat me as you would if I was still playing. I don't necessarily want to do this, but I've become physically incapable of playing any longer.
Thanks so much. I'll never forget all the fun I had playing with everyone. If I can offer a last word of advice, it's to play to win for yourself, not for the money or for the ranking.
Play for you. Don't ever lose sight of what's most important. Take it easy...you don't want to end up like me. Oh yeah, Bernard...thanks for the name!
Grmzo out.
I've always wanted to do that =D
