New to this forum, used to VF.

I've lurked around here a few times, and I thought it was finally time to make an account.

A long while back, a friend and I traded games for some time, as he was moving away. I don't remember what I traded him, but he traded me Virtua Fighter 4. At first, I thought the game was a clumsy Tekken ripoff. Didn't care for any of the characters very much, aside from Kage, and I was really turned off by the pretty bad voice-acting.

I played it once in a while, until eventually I discovered Aoi, then I started playing more and more and trying to get into the game. At this point, Aoi was my favorite character with Kage being a somewhat distant second, though I always felt he was really difficult to use.

I owned that for.. Years, it feels like. Eventually, I got a PS3, and sometime later I knew I wanted to get Virtua Fighter 5. I ended up with Final Showdown, which was what I really wanted, anyway. I main'd Aoi for the longest time, I experimented with some characters here and there but mostly tried to hone my Aoi abilities. After 1350 games, I've decided to stop messing around and try to improve my skills.

I'm actually pretty terrible with Aoi. I have a bad sense of fundamentals as it is, but I really forget them with Aoi since I tend to rely on reversals. A lot of players rely on one or two long strings. Aside from that, I'm about 60-70% familiar with her moveset.

I took the time to try to learn Kage, too. I don't know any combos with him, so it's just relying on spacing and timing.

I know a bit of Jean, but again, no combos.
For a while I was working some pretty good button-mashing magic with Lei-Fei. But I don't at all understand the character.

Currently, I'm practicing with Sarah. I only know like 40% of her moveset, but I developed a couple of combos in the dojo. This is the character I want to master. Although I love Aoi, I think Sarah comes a bit more natural to me. I think I'll go back to Aoi once I've become a decent player.

I'm aware of the fundamentals and that I should be practicing them and studying frame data. I was really kinda hoping to practice with some really good players to get inspired, and then I guess you can tell what my skills are, yourself. I'm really terrible at this game, I haven't approached it in the right way all these years, and it's a real shame.

For now I want to practice side-stepping, general basics and all the crazy shit you guys can recommend.
Sorry for the long post! First one's the longest, I think!

EDIT:
I neglected to mention my psn or where I live.
I'm a West Coast US player, my psn is Slabofiron. I don't have an xbox.

 

This place is infested with Sarah players. You'll get plenty of help.

Welcome...

 

Hm..

Maybe I could go over to a buddy's house one of these weekends and play some games with you since he's got a headset. I'll let you know if anything comes up. Thanks for the offer, I'll try to work something out.