Recommended Training Regimens

[GhostUrsa]

Hello, smashboarders! There have been a large amount of questions on the boards like "how do I learn to foxtrot?" and "how do I pivot grab?", which ends with the thread having a posted video with how the mechanic is performed. What hasn't been addressed is how to condition the muscles and the mind to perform these actions on command without thinking on it (We just say to practice, but never give instructions on how to), and I figured it maybe time to start gathering data on training regimens used to develop muscle memory/improve muscle reaction time/etc.

Other physical sports out there have them, types of exercise and activities that may seem like they are unrelated but actually benefit their athlete's performance. Athlete's will run to improve their cardio-vascular performance as a warm-up, we see football players running through tires to practice how to maneuver a grappling opponent, stretches/yoga/ballet is used to keep the body limber to maximize reaction speed, scenes from movies like Karate Kid (the 80's one) where the main character does menial house tasks that work up the body's muscles to actively perform the actions required for self-defense. Competitive gaming still has a physical component, so it makes sense to have our own developed to use for new and veterans alike to keep themselves sharp.

My long tangent moves to the question on what have you done to help learn a new technique, limber up your hands/minds before practicing against opponents. What kind of drills do you make up to work things through, like foxtrotting and pivot grabs?

 

[GhostUrsa]

I'll start with a set of hand exercises I use to strengthen my hands and wrists, as well as stretch the tendons in my hands to improve flexibility. I have been working this into my smash training to improve things, and also to reduce swelling from riding on the Scooter I got for transportation. (For those interested in buying one but never driven such a thing, one hidden truth about it is that it is physically more demanding than other driving so hands, back and shoulders can become sore!) The link here shows a video used by physical therapists to improve motor skills in the hand.

 

[Big-Cat]

The simplest thing is to establish a mind-body connection. Feel the joints and muscles as you're doing the technique. I speak from experience that this applies to physical activities.

You also need to learn the exact sequence for doing something. For example, take pivot grab. You run, press grab, and then immediately hold the stick in the opposite direction. Do the last two the opposite way gets you a pivot FTilt.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Big-Cat Do you have any recommendations as a exercise to improve pivot grabs? Do you recommend hitting the lab, setting the cpu to run and try to use this technique?

Here is an example of a exercise to practice so this thread makes more sense as to the format I was thinking. I saw a recommendation on another thread to use the bumper item to practice spacing with disjointed attacks. You put the item somewhere, then 'attack' the item to practice your attack animation without getting bumper-ed. Running drills with this for a bit will get muscle memory down for aiming your swings (if you're Ike for example) so you can focus more on your opponent.

 

[Big-Cat]

I'm the type of person that prefers to practice by playing the game. I'm not one for training mode unless it's to practice timing or to test something.

 

[GhostUrsa]

I'm the type of person that prefers to practice by playing the game. I'm not one for training mode unless it's to practice timing or to test something.

The practicing timing and getting things down is exactly why I'm trying to get this thread going, have a spot on the forum that people can come together and post what they know has worked for them. Practice like what you describe is something that will be mixed into the regimen, much like you see in other sports after their warm-up and other activities performed. Erratic practice against live people will help develop the adaptability and attention to detail a player needs but will be slower when trying to get the muscle memory going. The brain has to condition the body to work as expected, and this can be harder for newer player to do when they are also trying to learn MU knowledge, player reads and other fundamentals. My hope is to have this be a place to better catch up newer players (or those like myself that need to tweak our execution on techniques so the mind is free to focus) on the physical skills required to play.

If you can, think about what you've done to perfect some of the techniques that have given you trouble in the past and post it here. As a fellow heavy player, I'd like to see how similar our training has developed.

Edit: I found one recommendation that came from @Exor at the Captain Falcon boards, which is to practice the rhythm of the foxtrot for your character in a large area by using audio cues. The link here mentions an audio file created to the rhythm to Falcon specifically, but every character would technically have a similar rhythm to follow.

 

[Rango the Mercenary]

When I practice on the sandbag before an online match, I try to max-range my attacks. DTilt, Bair, and Fair to see how far I can go and accurately hit at max range.

 

[mimgrim]

Ok sooooo.

The biggest and most effective thing you can do when training by yourself is to get yourself, and keep yourself, consistent mechanically.

You can't really practice neutral game and punish game and the like by yourself (at least not effectively, you could do some theory crafting by yourself over neutral but you will need to eventually put the theory into action). For this kind of stuff you have to lay against other people, anything else just won't cut it.

But there are other things you can get out of training mode. This is where what I said about getting yourself and keeping yourself consistent mechanically comes into play. You can do things like preforming ATs (be it character unique ones or universal ones), certain character mechanics (not applicable to every character), learning max spacing of moves (and then trying to learn to actually apply that max spacing against another person), getting a feel down for the mobility of the game, ect...

Then once you start getting these things down consistently you need to keep on doing them almost everyday (if not everyday) so as to not get rusty with any of them.

But the true meat you need to actually learn to truly git gud is really only truly learnable by playing against other people (and watch top level players play, to see a general idea of how you should be playing, but to a lesser extent).

 

[Wintropy]

I tend to practice by playing an opponent I know is better than me, then working on correcting the mistakes I make. I will inevitably make a ton in the first few games, but by the end of the matchup session, I know what I've improved on and what I need to improve on in future.

It helps if the opponent can play several characters to a competent degree. The top player in my scene plays about six characters with near-pro efficacy and about a dozen others to a decent extent, it's very good to challenge him because the efficiency and depth of matchup experience has forced me to discern my weaknesses and do my best to fix them.

 

[Still~Wolf]

To train, I always watch high level play of the character I am interested in. Then I head over to lab to practice the techniques and such I may see the players use. Typically I move to For Glory so I can try these in actual action, then I fight pretty solid players I usually have difficulty fighting. Rinse/Repeat.

When it comes to learning technical things, I get the mechanic down in training, then again practice it on For Glory. Typically if you can do it consistently offline and on, you got it down.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Wintropy Sparring and analyzing the results for ways to improve is a sound tactic and a good example of practicing against live players.

I fear that the purpose of this thread is getting lost, as some of the answers are no different than what has come before. "Learn AT" and "Practice what I just saw" don't really help with this topic, because what I'd like to get recorded here is what you did to 'Learn that AT" and "Practice what I just saw". The 'just do it' isn't what this thread is for, but actually documenting what mental/physical exercises were performed to get that technique down.

When you are practicing Perfect Pivot, do you use Windy Hills Omega to measure your distances and train to maximize your speed for the pivot much like the tutorial video that was posted a while back? When practicing teching against a wall/floor/ceiling do you practice by spawning bomb-ombs on the floor and try to practice when launched from the explosion at higher %? I want to record 'what' people do for practice ATs and condition inputs, and not just the average 'just practice' responses you'll find in every "How do I get better?" thread that gets created every week.

Edit: Think of this as the "Developing Coaching techniques" thread, as developing ways to improve accuracy and consistency of techs/AT/spacing and others is what I'd ultimately like to do here. Most other sports have coaching available (Help developing strategy, training activities to work on execution, etc. We have the first down well, but not the second.), and some eSports are developing such practices already. With the size of Smash currently, it is impossible for good players to sit down with new ones to drill in different things but my hope is that with some documentation we can have a digital coaching available.

 

[GhostUrsa]

I'm currently practicing my pivot grabs to improve my punish games, and what I've been doing currently is in the lab is setting the AI to walk and practicing my spacing on the pivot grabbing. I start here to practice my retreating pivot grabs on a slower target. Then I set the AI to run and practice pivot grabbing on a defensive target, since the AI will try to avoid you when it's set to run (meaning also jumping/rolling and such) which requires more precision with Ike to pull off.

I've been finding that this is helping to improve my muscle memory for the action, so when I'm up against live targets I can worry about reading them than remembering my motions.

Edit: I just found this in the Q&A thread from Wintropy on a good exercise for practicing dodging/evading.

Try playing a stamina match with the timer on against a CPU, with the aim being to see how much you can evade or block damage by the time the clock runs out. Don't fight back, just try to keep your stamina as high as you can. Keep doing it until you can survive the entire duration. Increase the timer and decreasing stamina if you so desire. If you have a training partner, do it with them and see if you can hone your skills together!

 

[grapestory]

I think I understand what you're going for here OP.

Here's something I do to train: I play pikachu so edgeguarding is very important. I tend to SD every once in a while by trying to go too far for the kill. To practice this is I go into training mode, pick an opponent I want to gimp (usually Mario or fox) and set them to 70-80% then then back throw them if I want to practice dair kills or dtilt them if I want to practice killing with FF bair.

This is a rather simple and obvious way to train but it is very useful, especially for falcons.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I get myself warmed up by absolutely demolishing a lvl 3 sheik for about 5 mins so I feel my character. I work on not over-extending myself so It doesn't go into habit.

 

[Jeronado]

I've been practicing my Out of Shield Options. What I do is I go to Boxing Ring and go into the ring, then I spawn a Green Shell and throw it so it bounces against the sides (just a note, I'm not sure why but it seems the shell loses it's hitbox for a time after it touches your shield so you'll have to wait for it to bounce a bit more before you can shield it again). I practice Perfect Shielding it while walking and running towards it, away from it, and while standing still and then immediately performing an OoS option, like Up b.

You can also practice dealing with items (like Mecha Koopas) this way because if you press 'A' just before the shell hits you you'll pick it up, just like a Mecha Koopa, and you can throw the shell at different speeds.

I think you could also mix up the timing by spawning multiple Green Shells, although you might need some sort of custom stage to make it work. I haven't tried this yet.

 

[Raijinken]

Just play as usual with a bit of extra focus on using specific techniques. Helps if you have a noticeable skill gap against your opponents.

 

[wizrad]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but a good way to practice perfect shield timing is by going into training with a level 9 Samus set to attack. Try to perfect shield all her projectiles, roll away if she tries to approach (which shouldn't be often). Hit the shield button right before you think the projectile will hit you. Personally, I like doing this with Ryu because the sound difference between perfect shield and regular shield is more pronounced.

Taking it a step further, you can practice your OoS options by adding them in after the perfect shield. Press X to start jumping, then up B or up smash the air.

 

[Pazx]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but a good way to practice perfect shield timing is by going into training with a level 9 Samus set to attack. Try to perfect shield all her projectiles, roll away if she tries to approach (which shouldn't be often). Hit the shield button right before you think the projectile will hit you. Personally, I like doing this with Ryu because the sound difference between perfect shield and regular shield is more pronounced.

Taking it a step further, you can practice your OoS options by adding them in after the perfect shield. Press X to start jumping, then up B or up smash the air.

If you powershield you don't need to jump cancel your OoS options, so you shouldn't get in the habit of limiting yourself to only up b, up smash, grab and SH aerials.

 

[Zonderion]

I've created custom stages to help train certain aspects.

One stage has a low ceiling with lava on the bottom side. It's low enough to where you cannot double jump w/o hitting the lava. This stage will teach you the timing of techs. You can't just spam your shield button to tech when you are constantly bouncing off the floor and lava, it has to be timed just right.

Another stage has walls to prevent deaths from the side and top blast zones. The only way to get a death is to edge guard or gimp your opponent. The stage is small so it forces off stage play.

One last one is a stage in the shape of a triangle, like normal with the point of it facing down. There are small platforms to either side for a friend. The idea here is to learn to tech stage spikes. Set the damage around 100% and have your friend wait on one of the small platforms. Jump down and let him stage spike and you try and tech.

Edit: Also, use various characters to learn different aspects. Here are just a couple of examples.

Ryu = Learn to Power Shield
Marth = Learn to Space
Falcon = Learn to Read

Anyone use specific characters to learn stuff?

 

[wizrad]

I wouldn't use a character other than one I'm intending to learn. You should learn spacing and reads/punishes for your character, not Marth and Falcon.

 

[Zonderion]

I wouldn't use a character other than one I'm intending to learn. You should learn spacing and reads/punishes for your character, not Marth and Falcon.

Then you're limiting yourself. I believe each character has something to teach.

In order to be successful with Marth, you have to learn to Space. This will directly correlate with your main, however it will require tweaks.

In order to be successful with Falcon, reads are a great way. This will directly correlate with your main, however tweaks will have to be made.

You're missing the point if you are trying to learn the exact spacing requirements for Marth and then try and use those same ones for your main. Or if you are trying to punish with the same moves that Falcon would with a hard read. They will differ based on your main.

The purpose is to understand how important spacing is, and it is exemplified by using Marth. Or how important learning to read is, which is exemplified by Falcon.