It's about time you started losing.

"I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career.  I've lost almost 300 games.  Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.  I've failed over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed." -- Michael Jordan

I don't like making mistakes.  Anybody who plays with me on a regular basis will tell you that.  I miss a short hop or an L-cancel, I have to go into mental damage control mode.

I'm a perfectionist.  I hate screwing up.  I hate losing.  I hate the thought that people watching me will think I'm anything but a great player.  This applies in friendlies, money-matches, and tournament.  I've mellowed out a lot over time, but this is still very much true of me, regardless of what I'm doing, regardless of whether I've even done it before.

Have you ever worked a dish-washing shift in a restaurant?  I hadn't, until about a week ago, when they stuck me in front of a sink during lunch rush and said "go get 'em tiger."  I panicked.  I could spray shit with water, but that was about it.  I didn't know where things went, or which detergents to use on which type of dishes.  What I can just rinse off, and what has to go in the industrial torrential bacteria annihilator we call a dishwasher.  And every time I got something wrong or fell behind or put something in the wrong place or someone corrected me, I got irritated.  Over something I had NO REASON to expect myself to do well at.  Ridiculous?  Yeah, I'd say so.

You can tell where I'm going with this.  Losing a friendly kind of sucks, but who cares?  What matters is that you learn from it.  The example I give to people is this: you and a friend play 100 matches.  98 of them are friendlies, and you lose all of them.  You spend them trying new stuff, practicing new techniques, figuring out what works, what doesn't, and your friend just plays the same the entire time.  The other two are tournament matches, and you 2-0 him.  That's 1 in 50 wins, but you advance in the bracket.  Which matches matter more?  Which matches do people care about?

"Oh, but I beat him in friendlies."  People say it all the time, friendlies don't matter.  Or rather, they do matter, but only because of what they teach you.  People remember the tournament results.  They remember who took first.

Here's an interesting flip side; people get mad about other people camping in friendlies, even though it's a strategy that you should learn to deal with if you want to be a top player.  Friendlies are the optimal environment for testing new strategies and counter-strategies, but people don't want to practice against camping.  Why?  It's boring.  You shouldn't try so hard to win in friendlies, etc.

Yet the very reason that those people are pissed off about camping is because they are losing to it!  "You shouldn't try so hard to win in friendlies!  Let ME win instead!"

Here's the point: friendlies are for practicing and trying new things, not for keeping score.  You try to win them, but not because winning the friendly matters.  It's because honing a skill properly so that it becomes a winning technique matters.  And if you have to lose a lot so that you can actually win when it counts, so be it.

One Thing

"I'll post more," he said.  Takes him two weeks to post something, and it's not even smash related.  What a noob.

Anyhow, I felt like posting something I was thinking about that applies everywhere.  It's about self-improvement, learning, and achievement.  It goes according to a rather significant quote:

"Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't."  -- Jerry Rice

I'm a fan of the "one thing" methodology, which is pick a single isolated skill, technique, or habit, and ingrain it within yourself until it becomes your instinct.  Then pick something else, and repeat until you're done.  Don't try everything at once.

So here's your homework, readers.  Pick something today.  It can be in Smash or school or work or whatever, doesn't matter what.  Pick one thing, just ONE, that you don't normally do, or you think "I really ought to," and do it.  No excuses, no johns, it's just one thing.  You can manage it.  It's that one thing you CAN do, but don't.  Go do it.

And if you have to, be ready to do it again.  That's it.  You're identical to your old self except for this one thing, which you do a bit better.  Now, overall, YOU are a bit better.

Now do it again.

Peace.