Focus/Concentration

Focus/Concentration

Okay a little background information. I’m a bad player, but I’ve been improving a lot in the last month, almost all due to a conversation I had with Mew2King at Bio, and further cemented by rereading certain parts of Playing to Win again and reading two of HugS’ blogs.

Now I think that tech skill truly is everything. Because the more fluent you are at the game, by that I mean the more you’re able to focus on your opponent’s options, your options, buffering perfectly, your opponents options in comparison to your options, the more you subconsciously notice peoples habits (IE not wasting any conscious focus on seeing a habit of your opponent’s and how you’ll abuse it), and the more you can spend your conscious focus and concentration on making sure you, yourself, are unpredictable and zoning correctly.

The less you think about your hands, your controller, your character, your opponent’s habits, the more you can think about how to make sure your opponent doesn’t notice your habits.

If you’re spending any conscious thought on what you’re doing with your hands, or whether or not you’re buffering correctly, or thinking things out specifically like “When I get a grab, I’m going to Dthrow you and watch how you react to try and notice your habits, then depending on your habit, I’ll punish it like this” (just an example), you might be wasting precious concentration when the above could all be acknowledged as subconsciously (without using much thought at all, saving that resource for making your opponent unable to read you) as something simple such as standard character movement.

For an example of something somewhat similar, I’d like to mention the Rubik’s cube and attempting to solve it blindfolded. Recently I’ve started attempting to learn to solve the Rubik’s cube blindfolded (normally with actually looking at it gets boring quick, and doing it with eyes closed is such a better way to show off ), and I’ve found that this applies a LOT to Rubik’s cubing as well (actually it was noticing this that made me want to write about this, and get other people’s opinions on whether or not I may be correct (if I’m incorrect on this, which I may be since I’m bad, no worries for me, since it’ll just help me get better and learn more, anyways haha)).

With trying to solve the Rubik’s cube blindfolded, the less I was consciously thinking about the cube in my hand and the way that each piece moves when I turn a side, the more I could think about the specific positions of each piece, instead of where that piece will end up when I move it (and vice versa to a certain extent, depending on what I was focusing on specifically).

Not much more I can elaborate on than that, I think. I'm guessing you guys get what I'm saying (that the more fluent you are with the game itself (IE tech skill (which I think is why M2K practices on CPUs so much, so that he's fluent in the game and never has to think about his or his opponents options, just being unpredictable, zoning well, and followups, apparently)), the more you can focus on what needs to be focused on, and how I think that it makes a DRAAAASTIC difference)...

Idk I just thought that this made a lot of sense, and I really haven’t seen this discussed in depth by anyone (I’ve only ever seen it touched on subtly by people, never seen a thread about it specifically). I thought posting this might be a good idea for discussion, and would help me if it were untrue, since it could just be dismissed, and I could stop thinking about it (and if it were a good observation, it could help new players, as well).

Thanks for reading this mess, and please comment on it. I appreciate any input you can give.

I don't know about you, but I know with me, I don't think my problem was overthinking it (I had thought previously that that was one of my problems), it was that I was thinking/focusing on the wrong things. I really don't think you can "overthink" the whole of the game. I noticed with me, I thought I was overthinking things, but really I just wasn't thinking about the RIGHT things. If you're focusing on all the right things, I don't think most people have enough focus and thought to throw around to REALLY over think the game.

You know what I mean? Maybe it's just a personal experience and doesn't apply to you, though.

Your Rubik's cube analogy was totally appropriate. It makes me wonder if M2K could play Smash blindfolded.
Reading this makes me want to get out and practice.

^Exactly. I think thinking about the wrong thing is sometimes referred to as overthinking it, when simply you're focusing on the wrong things and it's proving detrimental.

To reiterate the main point of the OP, that's why I think being completely fluent in the game is soooo important. Because you're never wasting any concentration thinking about **** like "does their uair beat my dair?", you can instead already know all of your potential followups innately, and just concentrate on mixing up the followups so that they aren't blocked, instead of actually thinking about what your potential followups really are.

When I spoke to M2K at bio and asked him what he focuses on during the match, he said "when I get a hit I'm thinking about followups the whole time. When I haven't gotten a hit, I'm just thinking about mixing it up, and zoning well", and then I asked him how he applies his practice against CPUs and he basically said (not an exact quote, but the general idea is there) "I just make up my own stuff, and play. I never, ever think about the controller in my hand, I just... let my hands do what they do". Which got me thinking about it, and thinking about focus in general, along with what I've noticed on my own about reading habits, and what I've noticed top players (such as M2K for instance) tell me about habits.

As everyone else has already said, great read. The only time i think about what i should do next is if i'm not fimiliar with the current MU and i know what to do but i'm not doing it. I remind myself about things like, for example, ftilt is good against GaW instead of fair, or things like that. Most of the time i let my hands do their thing. Only thing that gets to me is when people watching my match either trash talk me or cheer me on, it really messes with my game because i start to think my MK isn't flashy enough or something so its a boring match.

I used to think to much while I play and it would mess me up. Now I just read and react and go on feeling.

Play a lot against a Snake main, you have to fully focus at all times. Enjoy.

Great read. Thanks for posting. I've been trying to figure out this stuff for myself too.

Luxor said:

Your Rubik's cube analogy was totally appropriate. It makes me wonder if M2K could play Smash blindfolded.
Reading this makes me want to get out and practice.

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ive literally talked to m2k mid match before, and he stopped looking at the screen and just looked at me but continued playing and gimped his opponent >_>. **** made me rage, pool blackwaltz

That's because M2K is a robot.