Last night I was getting a little upset that I wasn't able to convert what I do in practice, like dash dancing, to an actual match and I was venting a bit in the netplay chat. Ended up talking to this guy who told me that I should be dash dancing to bait out moves and to be patient about it, that way I can punish and take stage control and go into edgeguarding. The chat log @
Umbreon posted also helped reinforced this but in a different way: by waiting the opponent out I can choose when and how I want to punish them. I woke up today and started playing friendlies, trying to keep their advice in mind and I think it helped a lot, I was still losing a bunch but I felt like when I got a grab off I was able to keep control, even for a little bit.
One thing that bothered me in the friendlies however was that I was losing to people who weren't trying to bait me out necessarily, rather they just went in charging guns ablazing with attacks that come out fast. It made me think of some of my ranked matches, where I would get bodied by people who just charged in and get me off stage immediately, and by the time I got on the stage again I would be at like 80%. Some of this is due to me just not knowing what I'm capable of vs what they are, for example I'll see Ike throwing out and fsmash and I instinctively shield it when I know full well I can just run out of range and then because because zss is fast like that. There was one person in particular who had me absolutely confused on what to do against his pit/metaknight. He was literally mashing buttons and would walk up to me and forward tilt and he was wrecking me because I couldn't get out of his "combos". I guess this is maybe an experience thing, but how do you deal with people who go all in immediately from the start of the game? Should I still be trying to bait out their moves, which come out faster than mine? I've tried matching their aggression with my own but almost always it doesn't work out for me.