One Step at a Time #1: Keep Calm at Tournaments
Kesa - April 29, 2017Hello and welcome to my first blog!
This blog is part of a new series that is going to be called “One Step at a Time”. I’m aiming to publish a new entry every Wednesday by 8PM PST. Please look forward to them!
This is my first blog so I want to use this opportunity to introduce my new blog series.
After that, I’ll talk about this week’s main topic: Ways to keep calm during tournament sets!
I’ll finish with a short Q&A section!
One Step at a Time Introduction
Philosophy & Goals
My goals with blogging are simple: to help as many players as I can, one step (blog) at a time!
Hence the name “One Step at a Time”. I want to do it because I like writing, and I feel doing this will help others, which is great. Moreover, writing this stuff helps me as well so everyone wins.
As much as I’d like to make a series that takes you through all the steps from zero to hero, the blogs order will not be important since the advice I’ll give you will be “random”. This means I might talk one day about a very basic topic, and another day of a topic that’s very in-depth.
Still, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time, jim or pro. I realize this is a difficult promise but I’ll try to make my blogs interesting for everyone!
I want to make the blogs a great introduction for people new to the concepts and ideas, and a great reviewing and more in-depth lesson for masters.
Method
My plan for now is that each blog will have at least one big or multiple smaller topics dealt with, and on top of that, a Q&A section where I answer the reader's questions about last week’s topic!
The topics will be about pretty much ranging from mental game to game analysis and many more. As I’m reading lots of books on mental game right now, the blogs will be heavily influenced by what things I am studying at the time of writing, and also what questions I am getting.
For exemple if I see I can’t focus at tournaments, I will think about it, study, and will make a blog about it! If I watch a tournament with shocking results, I might try to analyse and understand what happened.
That is basically it for my “One Step at a Time” introduction! I hope you forgive my long sentences and rambling.
Let’s move on to the real interesting stuff...
Focus of the Week: Ways to Keep Calm During Tournaments
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. “ -Nelson Mandela
I am sure that at one point of your tournament career, you will have problem staying calm and sharp during a tournament set. This is what we usually call the “tournament nerves” or “choking”. Bad tournament nerves can be seen at every level of competition, from someone who is just entering his first tournament to a pro competing for thousands of dollars during the final stage of a big tournament. And good tournament nerves management can also be seen, but usually when you look at the winners... For instance when you see someone winning a tournament after an insane loser’s bracket run. Great examples of this are TSM | ZeRo at Big House 5, Red Bull | Luffy at EVO 2013 SFIV tournament or Echo Fox | Leo at 2GGC: Zero Saga.
Being able to control your tournament nerves will be a very very important weapon to have in your arsenal. Heck, being able to stay calm during important and stressful situations, like talking to your crush or in front of a camera linked to thousands of people is a skill that can literally change your life.
- This is the face of someone who has no fear before walking down to play
Without the ability to stay calm and play confident, you will never know your true potential and realize how good you can play. Some people will tell you that confidence and a zen mind is only innate, some people have it and some will never do. But I assure you it is not. Controlling yourself is a skill. Like playing an instrument or learning how to drive, it can be learned!
I don’t promise my tips will erase all your nerves for every situation, but as self-control is a skill, here are some tips to follow improve drasticly your tournament nerves:
#1) Breathing Correctly
Breathing correctly is actually way more important than you might think. Long story short, the way you breathe heavily influences the way your heart beats. And the way your heart beats is directly linked to how good your brain will function when it is tested, like in a tournament set.
Here is a great video on the topic:
In the video, Alan Watkins explains that your actions are controlled by your physiology, i.e. your body machinery’s functionment. If you can control this machinery, you can control your actions better.
By breathing in a rhythmic fashion, lets say 10 seconds breathe in and 10 seconds breathe out (the numbers don’t matter, it just has to be constant), you obtain control over your heartbeat and thus control over your brain. Your body will instantly switch in a mode that will help you stay focus, and even maybe get you into the flow.
On the contrary, if you don’t do this, your heartbeat will go chaotic. When the rhythm gets chaotic, which happens subconsciously all the time and even more in stressful situations, your body switches to a mode where you become basically less intelligent.
To sum up: breathing is key to a concentrated and non-nervous state of mind. Practice breathing coherently (in a constant rythm) every day, during your class or at work, in front of computers, and especially when you're at a tournament. You will see pretty quickly you choke less and think more.
- Now you understand why breathing gives Wii Fit Trainer massive boosts.
#2) Warming Up Correctly
What you do before a tournament set is directly linked to how good you will perform during the set. You have to think of the time before a set as a warm up. Warm ups are primordial to any kind of competition. Just open the TV 5 minutes before any sporting events begins and you’ll see.
- They look more manly after they score a goal!
But why is warming up so important? When you play versus the best, they will not leave you the time to warm up during the set. They will make sure to utterly demolish you if you can’t match their pace quick enough. You don’t want to start a set by giving a player (and especially, a good player) the opportunity to get a lead and set the pace first.
Moreover, being warmed up will help tournament nerves. It’s simple, being warmed up means being ready to play. Being ready makes you less anxious.
Warm up is a really big topic, so I’m going only to scrape the surface here. I hope to go more in-depth another time.
1st warm up tip: Don’t get distracted. The first mistake I see a lot of people doing before a set is getting distracted. Because of the tension rising up, your brain wants to think about something else and you will probably find yourself scrolling through Twitter, Facebook or reddit before you even realize it. The problem, is that by doing that, you switch your brain to a passive mode. This really shoots up the probability that you will autopilot during a set. Instead of relaxing by distraction, you have to relax and still be focused about your upcoming set! This brings up to our second tip.
2nd warm up tip: Take a walk to an isolated place. A very good way to start warming up to walk to an isolated place and think about your upcoming set. Isolation makes you able to get into a focused state of mind much easier by getting rid of some distractions Moreover, It’s important to move your body because by doing so, your body releases chemicals that will reduce your stress and make you sharper.
Personally, I like to go to the bathroom and wash my hands while thinking about my next opponent. I look at myself in the mirror, make a big smile and think to myself things like "Let's do this!". By doing this, you are changing your physiology into a positive state of mind (exaclty like you do when you start breathing with a rythm.
3rd warm up tip: shadow boxing. Now that you are in an isolated place, not giving up to distractions, breathing correcly, smiling and thinking positive, try picturing your next opponent in you head. This is called "shadow boxing". Your opponents will throw moves at you in differents situations, try to picture those situations. What triggered your opponent to do that? How can you turn it all around on him? And once again, remember to breathe correctly while imagining the things he will do and continue doing it until the set begins. This is basically a cheat for your mind to start playing focused even before you're holding your controller. No need to warm up during the first game of the set if you already did an imaginary set vs. your next opponent in your head just before.
That's it for this week's ways to keep calm during tournaments! Of course this is not a complete guide to being a zen tournament killing machine. Also, practice makes perfect. Start applying and training everything above and I hope I'll write a new blog with more advice before you master the ones aboves!
Let's move on to the Q&A section!
Questions & Answers
I'm going to have a Q&A section every week! Here are some questions I got last week.
TaigeR_ @RadioW_ asks : How can I get into competitive Smash4 with only a 2DS?
Answer: I've never been in this situation but many people can't afford a WiiU. Here are a few advices for you guys:
- I don't think the 2DS is a viable controller. I'm not saying the 2DS is useless but don't use it as a controller at tournaments. It's not ergonomic, often banned at big tournaments and if not, wireless cause some real issues. You should invest in a 20$ new Smash4 controller to use at tournaments and training sessions at other peoples houses.
- Talking about training session, if possible, find a friend who owns a WiiU and train your gamecube controller skills at his place.
- You should focus your practice time at home studying the game. Look at your latest replays, latest tournament. Read some blogs about the mental game ;-). When you can't play, just study the game!
- Use your 2DS to test stuff in game, hitboxes length, how fast your character moves, visual cues and audio cues and more. Basically learn as much as possible about the game mechanics with your 2DS.
- Be the type of player that doesn't rely too much on tech skill and wins more with brains and mindgames. Since you can't train techskill as much as you want, focus on the basic strategies. You can defitely win without all the super fancy and hard to learn stuff, but it starts by really focusing on taking this path.
- That's basically it! If you feel like you can't do it without a WiiU, think again. Elexiao, ranked #1 in France and one of the best greninja in the world doesn't own the game. He feels it's not worth the money and he's ok with just playing at friends and tournaments. You even have an advantage over him since you have a 2DS. Better than nothing!
Silver @Silver_SSB asks: How would you play Falcon, a character that excels at whiff punishing, against a character like sheik who doesn't whiff often?
Answer: I'm not going to go in-depth on the matchup this time. But my "basic and lame" answer is: either don't focus too much at whiff punishing or excel at making everyone whiff and whiff punish the smallest opportunities. Those are the only two logical directions you can take.
Nathan Sovik @NathanSandwich asks: How to stay relaxed while facing heavily patient players or hyper aggressive players?
Answer: I think I know which players you're talking about ;-) (Nathan comes from NorCal where I've done a few tournaments). The reason you probably have this problem is that you are not enough prepared. This blog's advices will definitely help you stay relaxed in those situations. If you have specific problems with extreme types of players, I recommend thinking extensively about what you can and need to do. Every strategy has a counter! Maybe shadowbox vs. said opponents at home. Watching a slowmotion or sped up replay of those games and analyzing whats happening in the grand scheme of things will definitely help you. And if you can, try getting more experience against those types of players. I hope this helps.
This concludes today's blog.
Thank you for reading!
One Step at a Time #2: Next Thursday.
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About me :
My name is Liam and my gamer tag Kesa! I’m living between France and Socal, and at the time of writing I just moved to Socal. I've been playing Smash competitively since the release of Smash 4. I don't consider myself being a top player and knowing everything, far from that. But I think I've learned a few things in my journey to become a better smash player and also a better person! IRL, I am a Mathematics post-graduate and I now study biology and psychiatry. All of which can be helpful when it comes to Smash! I hope you will see this scientific point of view in my blogs.
My Twitter is: https://twitter.com/Kesadia . Follow me for updates about new blogs, tips and more! You can also talk to me on there, ask questions for the next Q&A and give me comments!
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Some relevent links and material I based this blog on:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOe9GNEDKZ8
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsVzKCk066g
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4SBLAKByoo
This blog post was written by a SSB World community member. Share your Smash 4 knowledge by creating your own blog post now.
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