f
uck it, it's time.
I got the following excerpts from a book given to me by JesiahTEG. While they are generalized, I feel that their philosophy is particularly useful when applied more directly to any focal topic, smash included. I would like to use this as a transition into more serious theory about ascension and improvement, a sacred idea held by most players yet truly accessible by so few. I will simply post and accredit them directly.
Know Your Real Edge and Don't Fake It
It is honorable for a man to admit his fears, resistance, and edge of practice. It is simply true that each man has his limit, his capacity for growth, and his destiny. But it is dishonorable for him to lie to himself or others about his real place. He shouldn't pretend he is more enlightened than he is—nor should he stop short of his actual edge. The more a man is playing his real edge, the more valuable he is as good company for other men, the more he can be trusted to be authentic and fully present. Where a man's edge is located is less important than whether he is actually living his edge in truth, rather than being lazy or deluded.
Pick an area of your life: perhaps your intimate relationship, your career, your relationship with your children, or your spiritual practice. For instance, you are currently doing something to earn a living. Where do your fears stop you from making a larger contribution to mankind, from earning a higher income, or from earning money in a more creative and enjoyable way? If you were absolutely fearless, would you be earning a living in exactly the same way as you are now? Your edge is where you stop short, or where you compromise your fullest gift, and, instead, cater to your fears.
Have you lost touch with the fears that are limiting and shaping your income and style of livelihood? If you have deluded yourself and feel that you are not afraid, then you are lying to yourself. All men are afraid, unless they are perfectly free. If you cannot admit this, you are pretending to yourself, and to others. Your friends will feel your fear, even if you do not. Thus, they will lose trust in you, knowing you are deluding yourself, lying to yourself, and are therefore likely to lie to them, consciously or unconsciously.
Or, perhaps you are very aware of your fears: your fear to take risks, your fear of failing, or your fear of succeeding. Perhaps you are comfortable with your life, and you fear the lifestyle change that might accompany a change in career, even though the new career will be closer to what you really want to do with your life. Some men fear the feeling of fear and therefore don't even approach their edge. They choose a job they know they can do well and easily, and don't even approach the fullest giving of their gift. Their lives are relatively secure and comfortable, but dead. They lack the aliveness, the depth, and the inspirational energy that is the sign of a man living at his edge. If you are this kind of man who is hanging back, working hard perhaps, but not at your real edge, other men will not be able to trust that you can and will help them live at their edge and give their fullest gift.
As an experiment, describe your edge with respect to your career out loud to yourself. Say something like, "I know I could be earning more money, but I am too lazy to put in the extra hours it would take. I know that I could give more of my true gift, but I am afraid that I may not succeed, and then I will be a penniless failure. I've spent 15 years developing my career, and I'm afraid to let go of it and start fresh, even though I know that I spend most of my life doing things I have no real interest in doing. I could be making money in more creative ways, but I spend too much time watching TV rather than being creative."
Honor your edge. Honor your choices. Be honest with yourself about them. Be honest with your friends about them. A fearful man who knows he is fearful is far more trustable than a fearful man who isn't aware of his fear. And a fearful man who still leans into his fear, living at his edge and putting his gift out from there, is more trustworthy and more inspirational than a fearful man who hangs back in the comfort zone, unwilling to even experience his fear on a day to day level. A free man is free to acknowledge his fears, without hiding them, or hiding from them. Live with your lips pressed against your fears, kissing your fears, neither pulling back nor aggressively violating them.
Lean Just Beyond Your Edge
In any given moment, a man's growth is optimized if he leans just beyond his edge, his capacity, his fear. He should not be too lazy, happily stagnating in the zone of security and comfort. Nor should he push far beyond his edge, stressing himself unnecessarily, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just slightly beyond the edge of fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does.
Once you are honest with yourself about your real edge, it is best to lean just beyond it. Very few men have the guts for this practice. Most men either settle for the easy path or self-aggrandize themselves by taking the extreme hard path. Your insecurity may cause you to doubt yourself, and so you take the easy way, not even approaching your real edge or your real gift. Alternatively, your insecurity may lead you to push, push, push, seeking to become victorious over your own sense of lack.
Both approaches avoid your actual condition in the moment, which is often fear. If you are stressfully avoiding your fear, you cannot relax into the fearless.
Your fear is the sharpest definition of your self. You should know it. You should feel it virtually constantly. Fear needs to become your friend, so that you are no longer uncomfortable with it. Rather, primary fear shows you that you are at your edge. Staying with the fear, staying at your edge, allows real transformation to occur. Neither lazy nor aggressive, playing your edge allows you to perceive the moment with the least amount of distortion. You are willing to be with what is, rather than trying to escape it by pulling back from it, or trying to escape it by pushing beyond it into some future goal.
Fear of fear may lead you to hang back, living a lesser life than you are capable. Fear of fear may lead you to push ahead, living a false life, off-center, tense and missing the moment. But the capacity to feel this moment, including your fear, without trying to escape it, creates a state of alive and humble spontaneity. You are ready for the unknown as it unfolds, since you are not pulled back or pushed forward from the horizon of the moment. You are hanging right over the edge.
By leaning just beyond your fear, you challenge your limits compassionately, without trying to escape the feeling of fear itself. You step beyond the solid ground of security with an open heart. You stand in the space of unknowingness, raw and awake. Here, the gravity of deep being will attend you to the only place where fear is obsolete: the eternal free fall of home. Where you always are.
Own your fear, and lean just beyond it. In every aspect of your life. Starting now.
- From
The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, Chapters 4 and 8 respectively.
Move this now to smash theory. I truly feel that one's misinformation about his/her own true talent is the main reason that many smashers are simply unable to make any notable improvements. To be frank, smash is not a hard game. Smash is, in short, a very well developed version of "king of the hill" somewhat transitioned into a fighter.
Now, let's talk technical ability. While the technical talent for smash is increasingly high all the time, the large majority of technical prowess is unnecessary. Rather, the goal for your technical ability in smash should be consistency, as much as possible and all the time. Your technical ability should augment your mental ability to make decisions, to execute whatever strategy you may have, and generally just so you can do what you want. Regardless of how talented your opponent is, there is no greater opponent than defeating yourself with poor tech skill, either by a lack of practice or by exertion of unnecessary or inconsistent button mashing. Thus, we move to our first major definition for smash debate. If anyone doesn't know this, here it is, you get it from the source:
Technical Ability - Ability of input such that you (the player) are proficiently able to do whatever it is that you want to do.
That being said, if all you want to do as Falco is SHL, dair, and shine well, so long as you can do them when and how you want, you are technically proficient at your character. As your desire to expand your movement increases, so will your technical ability so long as you are consistently able to perform your desired motion, whatever it may be. In essence, the most technical players in the world are the most accurate and consistent ones. So next time you hear criticism of 2006 Azen having poor tech skill, you know that criticism is
wrong. 2006 Azen
wants to mash that C-stick all day, and is executing his decisions properly.
By this definition, I think the hardest part of expanding your arsenal is knowing what to learn. Let's break it down:
Basic Tech - this is the minimal amount of fluidity that every competent smasher should learn, regardless of character. There is really no excuse to avoid proficiency at these skills:
1. L-Canceling
2. Wavedashing
3. Crouch Canceling
4. Dash Dancing
5. Short Hopping
Character Specific - not much to say here. Understand your character!
1. Recovery Options - sweetspotting, the merits of various recoveries, and their limitations
2. Basic Combos - we're talking staples here. dair shine, laser grab, shine bair, the good stuff
3. Chaingrabbing - both how to perform and how to escape in every match-up
4. Limitations* - know what your character can and cannot do
Stages* - how your character performs on any given stage, know the full stage list prior to the tournament.
1. Stage Striking - know which 2/5 to ban against any given character (picks may be blind, be careful).
2. Stage Bans
3. Counterpick Choices
Opponent* - player, choice characters, tendencies, anything else helpful really.
This is kind of a dirty trick because half of this list [*] requires no technical ability at all, but instead requires the player to have extraneous knowledge. This is where technical ability meets fundamental decision-making, strategy, and execution. Because technical ability is rooted in your best judgment and strategy, your fingers must support your brain and not the other way around. Your mind must always be the focal point of your game play and of your improvement.
I'll continue this tomorrow. I'm looking specifically for feedback from the likes of my intellectual peers (PP, Cactus, KK, anyone in purple. You know who you are).
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