Best ways to practice?

Hello all,

I was given some great advice by Eiyu the other day while playing online, and have been putting in some decent time trying to practice the various combos and wake-up games he's suggested to me.

Part of the problem I'm encountering, however, is that I have a hard time recreating the conditions that I encounter during a regular player vs player match, against the AI or in the dojo.

Does anyone have any suggestions for practicing things like effective use of Brad's stances and wake-up games? I can practice combos using the dojo mode fairly easily - maybe I'm just missing some element for getting the wake-up straight.

What does everyone else use? Scrubs in the non-ranked vs mode? Low level AI to practice good attack phases?

Any advice and help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

--Adam

 

I think the best way is to get someone from this forum and make some sparring with him. This way you can organise everything through this forum and/or the shoutbox and practise under conditions you need.

 

Hmm, okay, that's a good start. I'll put this one out there - anyone from Canada looking to spar and practice? I play under the gamertag deathsushi, and am more than willing to spend time just running single move inputs back and forth to hone skills.

I'm still interested in hearing any other insights people may have!

--Adam

 

Having spent the last week working furiously to improve my Brad, I've come up with one particular observation that may be helpful to people working to improve.

Initially the entire field is better than you, and it can be very frustrating trying to put to use any of the skills that you are learning. The dojo is a great resource at this point (and throughout the process of improving). Once you reach a certain point though, it is important to play with people that are able to anticipate and punish repetitive and predictable play.

The biggest thing I've noticed recently is that not only is it important for me to play people that are better than me, but also to play people that are slightly worse.

Someone better than me will usually help me discover where I am leaving myself open. If I'm getting predictable, they will catch on quickly and punish me for that. At the other end of the spectrum, someone slightly worse than me will give me the opportunity to work on movement and my mix-up game, and will be less able to instantly recognize and break me out of that game once I've started.

So, some humble advice - look to play players of all variety of skill levels; you can learn something from both the very best and the very worst players out there!

--Adam

 

Since I've been able to start playing again lately we can spar or something if you like. Send me a FR. Tell you what though, if I would've seen this thread before I'd told you to play Shinn Akira. He's a great player which I'm sure is something you've seen spammed before. Seriously though he is great on giving rematches and letting you learn from his skills. Gotta give him his props, every time I play him I get better.

 

Roger that, I'll add you when I get home.

That's the other thing I've noticed is very helpful - if I get walloped by someone, I always always go for rematches. If I'm losing bad to someone, it's usually indicative that there's something I need to learn and improve on. Advice to newbies: Don't quit out and back away from someone just because they stomped you!