A Footsies Experiment

Howdy partners,

What are footsies and how does one get better at them? When I first started Street Fighter (wow, its been damn near a year) I heard the term footsies, but had only a very basic and abstract version of what the term actually meant. It's an abstraction with many different meanings in a way, and kind of hard to pin down with short definition, but recently, as Jeffrey Lebowski aka 'the dude' once said "New shit has come to light".

Street Fighter is like a game of paper, rock, scissors. We've heard this a lot, and most of the time this can be applied to the wake up game. You have to ask yourself often "What should I do now that I'm knocked down?" and, conversely, "What do I do now that I've knocked him down." Now combine this with "Simon" that old memory game that starts out really simple and then mindfucks you by level 3. If someone knocks you down, and then goes for a throw, you have to log that into memory banks, you then prepare for it next time, he either goes for a throw again, or he goes into a block string, or does nothing (there really is a plethora of options) and it becomes about remembering what your opponent did before and reacting to it or learning his pattern of lights and sounds if you will. If you played the memory game right your defense holds up and your opponent will either adjust to the game of 'Simon' or he will continue to fail.

Now take this school of thought and apply it to ground game. I'm talking fireballs and normals. This is really the secret of 'getting in'. Jumping rarely works. We've all discovered this yet some of us just can't stop doing it. It's because it's kind of a high risk/high reward maneuver that pays off on a lot of lower level players. It's also a very lazy way to play the game. Alex Valle talks about thinking of the stage as a soccer game. You have to push your opponent into his goal (the corner) and he is trying to do the same to you. Well, how do you do this? It's not easy! It's a lot easier to jump in on someone who doesn't anti-air well, but against someone who does you really have to be creative. I've really begun to ask myself 'what buttons does this guy like to press and from what ranges'. For instance, you are fighting Ken as Ryu. This Ken likes to use f.mk to c.mk. If you notice that happening you can answer back with a counter poke. For Ryu c.mp will stuff f.mk and c.lk will stuff Ken's c.mk more often than not. If you can predict what the Ken player is doing based on his pattern (essentially you are playing simon here again) you can use the proper counter poke to push him back. So, you really have to watch what pokes your opponent is using. Now to go a level beyond this, you can bait your opponent into using the pokes you want him to use and punish them. If you are two steps ahead, you are going to win.

Maj has some sick articles under the strategy section of shoryuken.com entitled "footsies 101". It's a highly recommended read that goes far more in depth on footsies than I do here.

So here is my gameplan... I'm going to play a month without using special moves. I'm going to master my normals as Ryu. I'm not only going to master them, but I'm going to master baiting people with them and I'm going to master what normal beats out what. I'm not going to care about winning and losing. Winning and losing to me will be something like this...I win if I land my poke or successfully bait something, and I lose if I do neither. SHGLBMX (top socal blanka and super cool guy) told me that is what he did to improve at the footsies game. This month I go back out to socal on a work trip, but the following month I will starting this venture. I'll see you all when I get back!

Some updates

Happy New Year!

I've been really binging on SF lately, more so than the usual. I stayed home for the holidays and had plenty of time on my hands to get down and dirty in training mode and get some matches in online as well as offline. I've read in more than a couple of places that to really get a combo down you have to practice it 100 times on both the 1 player and 2 player side. So I've been working this idea as best as my ADHD will allow and I've now found the ability to hit a crouching jab after a solar plexus strike which leads to all kinds of focus crumple opportunities for big damage with Ryu. So, its a small addition to my arsenal, but fighting games are about baby steps. I've also been fighting consecutive matches/sessions a lot more online. I feel like I'm starting to break through that 'losing' barrier that I talked about in one of my first blogs. I'm not getting down on myself after a loss, rather I'm shaking it off rather quickly, and learning from it. This has been my biggest hurdle as of yet playing street fighter. I think if someone already has the natural ability to not get angry or demoralized after losing multiple fights then they are one step ahead of probably the majority of us, but fact of the matter is, most of us are very competitive and they have to deal with this challenge. How have I done it? I had to shed the ego a bit. It's a tough thing to admit, and even though I knew I was bad, I guess I thought that I had a better aptitude for fighting games than most people. Where I got that notion I still don't really know for sure and while I do see the sky as the limit I know that I have to take my lumps like everyone else to get there.

I fought Chris Hu's Ryu online a few hours ago. That guy is a beast. I added him to MSN after a post he made at one point. He didn't have a whole lot to say when I told him that I can BnB consistently and FADC consistently into ultra (at least on the 2 player side, haha). He even went so far as to say I sounded too confident. That may be, I don't know, but anyone that knows me knows that I've been far from confident in my playing. We had a set of 5 in which he won all of them, all rounds, but I took heart in the fact that I was hanging in there. It didn't feel like total domination to me. It was, but it wasn't. There were some rounds that I could have clutched out had it not been for him clutching them out instead. In one instance he focus dashed through a close fireball and FADC'ed me into Ultra. It was awesome, not going to lie. I really appreciate Chris taking the time out to play me and hopefully when he gets some time he wouldn't mind breaking down for me some of the things I need to work on. After that I fought SHGLBMX in a first to five. SHGL has an awesome blanka and he kind of dicks around with some other characters as well. It was a good set that he could have ultimately won all matches off had he been playing blanka the whole time. It's very laggy when we play given that we are on opposite coasts, but I felt a did well, and I felt that I played better against his blanka than I have any other time I've fought him. I even picked up a round I think, so that was nice. Dude's a beast. So, I've been trying to up the level of competition online and only fight known players, or players that just blow me away in champ mode. I never really have played champ mode much until a couple of days ago, but honestly the level of competition there is better, and I can meet people to have player matches with later, so its win/win.

Offline I went to my first local gathering last night for casuals. It was really cool! I took a friend who is brand new into fighting games and we sat around on couches talking stick mods and watching fights for a few hours. It was nice to get my first real taste of fighting some of the local competition outside of the odd match here or there at a tournament. I beat a couple of people, and lost to a couple of people, but it was interesting getting advice while I was playing and it's just another rung in the ladder as far as experience playing in front of people as well as just meeting people to play with regularly. Everyone that I have met from the fighting game community thus far has been personable and willing to help. Only a little arrogance here and there, sometimes people take that approach when they are very good at something and someone is seeking out the free knowledge that they had to earn the hard way.

I'm in a quandry for SSFIV...do I stick with Ryu or move on? I actually really like Ryu, but it would nice to be a little more mobile. Time will tell eh? I read an interview with Kokujin and he said he kind of just picks his character based on how they feel. I might try that approach.

Until next time, keep at it.

A Visit To The Mecca

Hello All!

It's been a little while since I updated the blog. Street Fighter is a game that requires some space in between blogs for me to hash out what I'm thinking about and to see improvement in my own playing.

So I recently had to go on a work trip to El Centro, California. There isn't much in El Centro. It's painfully hot during summer months, and frigid at night. We can attribute this to the fact that it's in the middle of a barren desert near the California/Mexico border. El Centro is far from anything fun to do other than a couple of casinos on American indian reservations (which by the way I won $1000 dollars at) and Tiajuana, home of the 'Donkey Show'. As hard as it was to avoid the Donkey Show, I somehow managed to rise above and not let proximity be a factor in having fun. Sure, El Centro is boring, but if you're not afraid of travel, and sleeping at a rest stop before you have to get back to work the next morning you can rent a car and make the four hour pilgrimage to Los Angeles.

Now, I'm new to the Street Fighter series, but since before the console version was released I have been watching youtube videos of Street Fighter 4 recorded at a place called 'Arcade Infinity'. For me, this was my first exposure to high level Street Fighter play. I hadn't yet seen any Japanese vids, any old 3s vids, or SF2 vids... nothing but Street Fighter 4. I also knew that this was one of the handful of places in America that had the arcade version. Like many living in the midwest, south, north, or southern Atlantic seaboard I began to long for the opportunity to have an arcade with SF4 near to hone my skills in. The Arcade Infinity ranbats had entertaining commmentary, and amazing skill. I loved watching Ed Ma use Ken, Valle use Dictator, Gootecks use Rog. I was hooked even before I'd touched any iteration of the SF series. So to a fanboy like myself the off chance to go to California for the first time ever and play at this arcade was very exciting for me.

The drive to Rowland Heights was scenic and LA traffic is indeed all it's cracked up to be. After making a couple of pit stops to eat, and have a couple of drinks in San Diego, I arrived with my friend, Terry, to the Arcade. A.I. is nestled in the top corner of a double story strip mall that you would swear was broken down in Tokyo and reassembled in California. Nothing is in English on any of the well-lit signs, it really takes you somewhere else and I instantly fell in love with it. Being a fan of Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods), I ate a dinner of stinky tofu, pigs ears, and some kind of pig intestine concoction, I choked down half of it and made my way up the flight of stairs to the arcade. Bear in mind, I have not been in a REAL arcade since 1990 and back then it was all about 'Bad Dudes' and 'The Simpsons', so I had no idea what to expect. Once inside it was very dark, very loud, and very awesome. It was packed full of skill based specialized import games from Japan. Guitar Freaks, an insanely fast version of Guitar Hero seemed to be all the rage as well as some crazy game where you flail your arms widly underneath a miasma of sensors to a pattern similiar to DDR. I found the SF4 machines in the middle of the place, a huge HD screen duo, and a two smaller more traditional cabs catty corner. All surrounded by 10-15 people who were spectating and waiting to play. I remembered from a Gootecks podcast that I needed to put my quarter down on the machine if I wanted to play. I was actually nervous because there were quite a few people watching, I seemed to be the oldest person there (which is becoming the norm at SF events for me), and the people that were fighting as I was spectating looked very good. When it was my turn to step up I went up against an Abel who had a 5 win streak going, much to my own surprise I won! I think I surprised some of the people there because I could hear cheers and awe behind me when I pulled out a couple of my BnB combos for the win. The next guy on the machine sat down, turned to me, extended his hand for a high five and said "See, us white people can play this game too!". He picked Rog and beat me down pretty hard the first round, but in the second round I rushed him down, dizzied him and won, the third round he missed his ultra and I hit him with mine for the win! I couldn't believe that I won my first two fights at Arcade Infinity. I was on cloud nine... but the winning would stop there. I guess the good players were having a smoke break because I didn't win another fight in the next three hours, but I've never had more fun losing.

The following weekend I drove to Denjin Arcade in Simi Valley, Ca. I watched SBO quals this year, and it was surreal to sit down at the same machine that I saw Combofiend playing on when he won his trip to Japan. This place is jaw dropping. It's about an hour north of LA proper, but it really is worth the drive. If you are into fighting games even a little bit, this is the place to be. There are countless cabs with SF4, CvS2, Xmen Vs. SF, SF2, SF3 3S, KoF, and all of the crazy dance, guitar games are in their own small room away from the fighting games. The day that I went to Denjin there was a ranbat going on. It was to be live streamed over the internet. What luck right!? I got to be in LA, and off of work the day that this was going on. Sure, I knew that I was going to go two and out in this tournament, but I couldn't pass on the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of the world. I payed my five dollars to register and was informed that I would be fighting first. I sat down at the cab, a webcam pointed at my head, two guys on microphones next to me calling the play by play, and I couldn't help but think that somewhere some guy new to the game was watching and wishing he was in my shoes. I had no idea who I was fighting, but I was taken apart easily in four straight rounds by a C.Viper. I've never really fought a good C.Viper, so it was a learning experience to say the least. Come to find out the person I played was a well known SoCal Abel player by the name of Bustabust. I had, of course, seen him on countless streams and was just happy to get the opportunity to get my ass kicked by him. I knew that in my first fight I would be up against someone of note as the good players generally aren't put up against the other name players in the early rounds. In my second fight I fought an Abel. I don't know who he was, but I recognized him from some video where gootecks walked around talking to people at Denjin Arcade. When I sat down this time I was on the machine without the live stream. I had a deep sense of not wanting to go out without winning a round. I was a little more relaxed and really had nothing to lose. I had just had a blast playing KoF with Terry who had never touched a fighting game before in his life, I was also getting used to having 20 people behind me watching me play. I won two out of three in two straight matches, thus taking my first match in the losers bracket. I couldn't beleive it! I actually won a match at the mecca against an Abel player who could execute and definitely knew what he was doing. He hit me with a couple of really good block strings, but I had the discipline to wait it out and hit on my opportunites. Sure, I mashed a couple of times and interrupted his rekkas with EX dragon punches, but hey, a win is a win right? In my third match I lost to another Ryu player who just out-classed me. From there I went to a couple of bars...saw Rod Piazza (if you like blues you'll know this guy), and went to the Dresden Room (from the movie swingers) and had a couple of rum and cokes. It was 11:30 pm and I said to Terry that I kind of wanted to go back down to Arcade Infinity for one last run at it. Terry was totally cool with the idea and drove the hour back south to A.I. When I got upstairs I noticed a bunch of people from the tournament. I got on the machine, and was up against the Ryu player that had knocked me out earlier. I gave it five or so tries, but he beat me all five times. Each fight was better, but in the end someone put a token down and I had to give up my seat. This rufus player ended up scraping the Ryu that had beaten me at the tournament. I sat back down at the machine and fought the Rufus. He was very good, excellent execution and mixup... I fought him five times, each time analyzing and improving. Finally I had what I think was the greatest fight of my short SF career. I did everything right! He pressured me, I remained disciplined and blocked, I anti-aired where I needed to, I hit my combos, and mixed up my game...and I'll be damned if I didn't beat the guy in two straight rounds! I still get excited thinking about this breakthrough that I had. This was my first time really adjusting to and beating a highly skilled player without really making any major mistakes in the process. I'll never forget it. The guy got up and walked out of the arcade without even looking at me, and I went down to some Taiwanese bar and played a drinking game with some waitresses until last call.

I have to say to anyone that has played the game for a while, but hasn't had the chance to play it in an arcade setting...it's something you just have to do. I see the game in a different light now for some reason. I'm playing better than I have ever played, I'm not getting angry or dejected on loss anymore, and I'm calmly analyzing loss and trying to learn from it. There is something about throwing your token in and having 20 people watching you (not to mention 1000 people on live internet stream) that just makes you want to do your very best no matter how much of a beating you are taking or might have taken the 15 times prior. There is also something about getting up from the machine once you have lost and watching the person that beat you fight that is calming and not anger inducing like online play can be. I think playing without all of the emotion I've had in the time since I've started is starting up happen a little bit for me and it's been great. I feel myself improving and I'm starting to see some of the things that I need to work on. If you live anywhere near a real arcade be it Denjin, A.I., or Chinatown Fair... do yourself a favor and get there. Win or lose, you will have a good time.

A Conversation with Doug

I have this buddy Doug. He's really a very good SF'er, and we go way back to my days playing Jedi Knight II (about 8 years ago roughly). When Doug and I play he scrapes me. I get bodied by his Fei Long, and really sometimes it almost seems like he's not trying until he wants to just turn on the juice. Anyway, Doug is a very chill dude, and always has been really. I know that he gets angry or frustrated just like I do, but he always handles it much better than I do. Today I was in one of my moods on SF and when I get in these moods I just spam my friends with all of my negative thoughts. I throw out a "FUCK, I suck" and they think to themselves "I'll bite" and reply with "No, you don't suck", and then I'll throw out "Yeah, I can't even win against *insert name here* regularly. And they say "you can" and I say "I'm not smart enough to play this game" and an endless tirade of negativity on my part ensues while they continue to be encouraging. This happened today when I was playing Doug as he was beating me down with Gen and El Fuerte I just couldn't take the losing anymore. We had the following conversation, parts of it are missing, but I think there is still some good info here for those that might be running into similiar frustration. It helped give me some clarity as I focus way too much on winning and losing and not enough on improving as a player. I'm still going to struggle with not improving fast enough for my liking, but hopefully if I can take in some of what Doug was talking about I can not notice the time go by as I rise to become a skillful player.

Balmung (Doug): I liked your dhalsim.

Insahn (Me) : dhalsim just makes me angry, really

Insahn: because I wasn't improving with him

Insahn: I just want to see visible signs of improvement

Insahn: and for me those signs are winning more often

Insahn: and I'm not seeing it

Balmung: my signs for improvement are different i guess.

Balmung: winning is secondary to improvement in my positioning and mind games

Balmung: wins come with that

Balmung: i think

Insahn: well, when you win as much as you do, or as often it doesn't have to be a concern

Insahn: because you win enough to satisfy you

Insahn: but if you practiced all of the time and still lost to all of your friends

Insahn: it would start to bother you

Insahn: don't you think?

Balmung: nope, not really. i would get frusterated for sure

Balmung: but when i played third strike

Balmung: i only played on ggpo

Balmung: no training mode

Balmung: no nothing

Balmung: just played people who were dominant

Balmung: ggpo is a super niche community of all arcaders it seems

Balmung: and i would ask them questions and try and mimic other people when i spectated

Balmung: i would lose 30 games in a row

Balmung: to someone who was taunting me

Balmung: i got angry with losing

Balmung: but i also didnt let it effect me so long that i couldn't try again

Balmung: i would try new things

Balmung: every loss wasnt such a horrible thing, it was something i could learn from

Balmung: and thats how i started playing SF

Balmung: my work habit in it is based on that experience now

Balmung: i would love to get my ass beat by Justin Wong for a day straight

Balmung: or even nagger (another friend that plays who is very good)

Balmung: or someone who could teach me something

Balmung: nagger helps my game out a lot

Balmung: he has a good mix up

Balmung: i try and feel him out for the first 5 or so games

Balmung: then i start getting in a rythym]

Balmung: and then maybe he starts getting into one

Balmung: its very good.

Insahn: yeah, I just fight beginners for the most part, and I don't try much new because I don't really know what to try, ryu doesn't suprise many people. I can't take losing 30 in a row without it bothering me also.

Insahn: if I fought you 30 times a day I don't know if I would get better, because I don't think

Insahn: If I can just get over losing and feeling stupid I can improve I think.

Balmung: this

Balmung: you get off your throne

Balmung: its an ego thing

Balmung: you have to be willing to be a beginner

Balmung: a beginners mind set

Balmung: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin

Balmung: that

Balmung: it's your concept of better and worse is whats holding you back

Balmung: you think that for some reason

Balmung: you have to be better than this person

Balmung: that that person and you are even

Balmung: that this guy is good but random

Balmung: you just can't look at it like that, you need to approach each match completely differently

Balmung: "i have trouble with this guy"

Balmung: "i have trouble with that guy"

Balmung: but when i take the time to relax, assess what they are doing

Balmung: see what their bag of tricks consist of

Balmung: i learn

Balmung: i get beat by horrible people

Balmung: i don't let it get me down

Balmung: if i lose to someone from a gimick laggy thing

Balmung: im going to blame the lag and assume i did my best

Balmung: if i just am trying to lie to myself and say it was lag

Balmung: and they caught me with some scrubby shit that i wasnt looking for

Balmung: thats my fault

Balmung: and i need to think about how sometimes new players can catch you with things like that

Balmung: the concept of better and worse should be used very loosely. its like saying whos better, gootecks or mike ross

Balmung: or gootecks and keno

Balmung: or mike ross and moval

Balmung: its like... it doesnt matter

Balmung: mike ross is trying to win his match

Balmung: learning him his mistakes

Balmung: i think you need to train your brain in the middle of a fight to analyze quicker

Balmung: if you think your messing up

Balmung: back away

Balmung: and try and re-assess

Balmung: things like that

Balmung: you aren't an idiot

Balmung: you arn't even slow

Balmung: you just haven't trained your brain mid game yet

Insahn: but how do I do that

Insahn: what is an example you could give me?

Insahn: I don't really know what you mean by 'train my brain'

Balmung: well

Balmung: in the middle of a game

Balmung: try predicting your opponent

Balmung: not always by conditioning them to do things

Balmung: but just straight think about what they are doing

Balmung: just as much as you think about what you're doing

Balmung: think about what you think they will

Balmung: a lot of my psychic focus attacks are like that

Balmung: and i get into the habit of doing it at certain points because i know it catches people a lot

Balmung: and if it doesnt

Balmung: i back up re-assess

Balmung: think as fast as i can

Balmung: and try something new just for the sake of changing my game up

Insahn: I don't notice patterns in this game

Insahn: I used to in jk2

Balmung: there are many patterns

Insahn: but that kind of analysis just dissapeared

Balmung: you have to be thinking about what you would do if you were them

Balmung: how would you beat your ryu

Balmung: if your a gen

Balmung: i would try and catch you with my wall dive

Balmung: after a few hados

Balmung: thats what i would try to do

Insahn: ok, I see what you mean

Balmung: so you have to think about that

Insahn: but I guess when fighting fei long, or gen, I really don't know what those characters would do

Insahn: I know fei might chicken wing at me if I'm throwing fireballs

Insahn: and I try to prepare for it, sometimes I predict it

Balmung: Protip: you have to think about what your opponent is doing just as much as you think about what you're doing"

Insahn: but the shoryuken doesn't come out

Balmung: thats what gootecks said

Balmung: play as fei

Balmung: play as gen

Balmung: a little

Balmung: so you a hve a better idea

Insahn: yeah, but "thinking about what your opponent is doing" is defined differently by those that know how to think about what their opponent is doing.

Insahn: I don't think I would be good enough to do half of the shit those characters have to offer

Insahn: and it would take a lot of time

Insahn: and my ryu would get worse

Balmung: it doesnt matter if you're good or not with them

Balmung: understanding their movements

Balmung: helps greatly

Balmung: understanding some of the tools they have

Balmung: like.

Balmung: do fei and gen's normal trials

Balmung: get a feel for them

Balmung: don't need to practice combos and shit

Hope you guys enjoyed, until next time!

carpe ultra

Hey all,

I attended a tournament yesterday. I did fairly well considering I didn't expect to win at all. I actually pulled out two wins. One was against someone who clearly just started playing the game, and the other was against a decent Fei Long. I lost to the guy that ended up placing third (I did manage to steal a round from him) and another guy who placed 'I think' fifth. It was overall a very fun experience even if, once again, I didn't really say that much while I was there. I did have my ears and eyes open and tried to glean what I could from the matches I had. One of the things I took away from the tourney was that I really need to start capitalizing on opportunities I'm creating for myself. I noticed, even against better players, that I would manage to put them in undesirable situations that I just couldn't follow through on. Watching them play casuals, I noticed that they rarely missed a combo or ultra opportunity and watching the weaker players at the tournament I noticed that they usually always did. Doing big damage when I get the chance is important because those chances don't seem to come by very often. So this comes down to execution practice. A lot of it. My friend Doug, who has formidable Fei Long, says that he goes through Fei's hard trials once a day both sides of the screen for execution practice. He says he can get through them in about 10 minutes now. I would love to be able to do that with Ryu, and so I popped into Challenge Mode today with him and finally got through Hard Trial 2, which is actually easy for me now as opposed to when I tried to do it a few months ago. I can see rolling through these challenges in 10 minutes, and I can definitely see how working on them will strengthen my execution once I'm able to do them automatically. That's the kind of grind you have to go through I think if you really want to play at the high level. That kind of execution is one of the pieces of the puzzle that separates the average from the above average. Now once I get to above average it will be about a lot more than just execution, but for now this is certainly a hurdle that I can overcome and will overcome.

Homework... Part I

Hey guys,

This week I was given a little homework assignment by a Ryu player that I look up to as a mentor, Mickey D. We had a long talk about where I was headed with Ryu and also making sure that I was in the right frame of mind to improve and stick with the game. He wanted me to think about what he calls the 'five fundamentals of street fighter'. These five fundementals are: discipline, zoning, momentum, execution, and adaptation. He challenged me to "truly think about" what they mean to me as a player. Not only think of what they "mean" but think of how I use them as a player during my matches and while doing this, explain myself as a player, explain the weaknesses and strengths I have when thinking about the core fundamentals. I told him that I would chronicle my answer in my blog so that others may pose the same questions to themselves, but also maybe glean something from my own answer and self-analysis.

Discipline

I kind of see this fundamental as having multiple meanings. I practice as religiously as I possibly can. I can sit for hours in training mode working on links, combos, and counters and so in this sense I have an extreme amount of discipline when it comes to repetitive practice that others might find boring. I lack discipline when it comes to controlling my emotions before, during, and after a fight. This to me is something that I could probably work on the most as it could end up being detrimental to the longevity of my street fighter career. Meaning that if I'm getting angry about losing or I am embarrassed to fight my friends because they are above and beyond my skill level then I am more likely to want to quit playing the game all together at some point because I'm not enjoying it. Emotional control is a huge piece of the puzzle and having the discipline to have that control is huge for me. On the micro scale I also see "in-game" discipline as being important. Knowing when to NOT to go for that jump in or wake-up shoryuken is huge, but this goes hand in hand with emotional discipline before/after/during a match. If I can remain calm, then I can remain calculated. A clear mind is best for making the quick, smart decisions that Street Fighter requires.

Zoning

Having started out as a Dhalsim player I feel as though I have a pretty good grasp of what zoning is and also how important it is winning consistently. For me, this is Street Fighter at its very core. If I am controlling space better than my opponent then I am most likely winning. I try to focus on zoning with Ryu. I know that some people focus on combos and combo opportunities, but for me at least, this is secondary to zoning. Now, while I have a good grasp on what zoning is and how to zone this doesn't mean that I am necessarily that good at it. Controlling horizontal space can be done with Ryu's fireball and his pokes. I feel as though my horizontal pokes or "Ground Game" as its called, is average at best. I still use the fireball recklessly at times and get punished severely for it. I get caught poking on the ground a lot as well. I whiff a ton of pokes by either doing it when they are out of range or right as they jump in. This seems to be the biggest reason that I get dominated when I do get dominated by superior players. That feeling that I just can't do anything right sometimes isn't about luck or lucky guess from the opponent it comes from improper zoning on my part. Whiffing pokes, unsafe fireballs, and the big one... not anti-airing quickly enough or properly. This is a tough one for me though, how do I improve my ground game? How do I learn to not whiff crouching forward/crouching strong or when its ok to poke without getting jumped in on? It's something that I am sure there is no concrete answer to. It basically will come down to experience. Just being conscious that I am failing in those areas is a good first step to improving them.

Momentum

This was kind of tough for me to define. I touched on it briefly in another post, but controlling the momentum is controlling the perception of pressure for me. This is something I struggle with mightily. The reason for this is that I'm a beginner, for me, its that simple. When I first started playing street fighter I would get the momentum or 'control of the fight' and I would just hand it back over willingly. I was afraid to have the momentum because I really didn't know what to do with it and often times I still don't! I am getting better at recognizing when I have the momentum and trying to maintain it, but for a new player this is one of the hardest things to do because the more experienced player will be calmly thinking about how they can retake the momentum. Also knowing this, the less experienced player can be intimidated by this and give away the momentum prematurely because mentally he already has. This happened to me just today. I was fighting a Sakura with 14000+ GP and normally when I see that the first thought that comes into my mind is "great...here comes a loss." So even before the fight has began I am kind of letting them control the momentum in a sense. I ended up winning the first round, losing out in the second because I took a few too many risks, and in the third I took a commanding life lead early on with great zoning (I was using Dhalsim, which I rarely do anymore) but then I let the momentum slip from my grasp. I began to think that if anyone could come back it would probably be this guy, and that my lack of experience closing out fights like this could come back to haunt me, and sure enough, it did. Not because of my lack of experience directly, but because I let myself believe that. I gave up when I was in the lead. I essentially said "here take the momentum I had, I don't want it".

That is all for part one of my answer to Mickey's question, I hope it has been insightful and somewhat interesting to read. Stay tuned for Part II coming soon...

Rough Night

It's friday night. I work the night shift as a government contractor and my family is usually asleep when I get home. The nightly ritual is to sit down for a few matches which here for the past couple of days have been turning into frustration for me. I feel like I spend all of my time at work, I don't get to see the family much, and the one hobby that I enjoy for the time being, Street Fighter, I'm terrible at. Tonight, for instance, I couldn't even ultra... instead of ultra, ex shoryuken was coming out endlessly... nothing was going right. I would go for shoryuken and get super instead. I just couldn't execute! The controls felt horribly awkward. I thought things were going a little better for me execution-wise, but tonight it feels like I'm starting from scratch. I'm sure I can probably chalk this up to not getting to play as much as I would like. Lets face it, I'm 30 years old, with a family, and a job, and obligations and Street Fighter is a difficult game that requires a lot of time. Time isn't something I have much of. It's very hard for me to be satisfied with being mediocre due to time constraints. One cliche phrase that I have been trying to keep in mind for the past couple of days "slow and steady wins the race". If I keep playing, eventually my execution will improve even if I don't have 3-4 hours to work on it every night, my match-up knowledge will most likely improve too. If I continue to play over the course of the coming years, I should be better than I am now. How much better? A lot better I hope. If I'm not practicing the right way, or with the right mindset of "slow and steady wins the race" and with some sort of reluctant acceptance of where I am now as a player I don't think I will ever improve regardless of time. Why? Because my frustration at not improving quickly enough will most likely lead me to quit playing all together. I have to turn some of my desire to be good at SF4 into patience.

On a positive note, I watched a video of myself playing a fairly decent Guile and I noticed that I wasn't giving up ground nearly as much as I used to in older videos. This made me happy because it's a habit I've been forcing myself to get into and its starting to become a little more automatic. In older videos of myself (a few weeks ago) I would do a lot of needless distancing i.e. jumping back for no reason other than fear of having to react to a poke or react to a jump-in attack. In street fighter, I feel comfortable with space in between me and the opponent. If that space isn't there it forces me to make quick decisions and often times due to lack of experience those decisions might be the wrong ones. I have less time in those instances to think about what I am doing and so it feels unsafe to me. Well, lately, I've been trying to put myself in the opponents shoes and force them into that same unsafe feeling. I'm trying to give them that feeling as often as possible by simply not backing down from them. I'm not necessarily attacking, I might just be blocking a fireball and walking a half step forward back to where I was when I blocked it. This seems to create the illusion that I'm 'pushing' them into the corner. Basically what I'm getting at with this is that if there isn't a reason to give up space that I have earned, then I shouldn't be. The less space the opponent controls the fewer options they have and the less time they have to react to what is happening. I am trying to use that knowledge to my advantage by speeding up my decision making process in those instances while their's might be slowing down as they run out of options.

Back on a subject I've been hitting on in nearly every blog, the c.mk xxx hado while moving forward... the secret? Hold down back instead of down for the fireball and do basically a half circle motion on the stick. Simple. Now incorporating that into my pressure game is another matter, but the technique works.

Slow and steady wins the race.