TinyChan

Everybody sucks at first. As bad as you or worse. For a long time. The trick to getting better is to stop playing to win, but to play to learn, to enjoy hitting very small self-set goals one at a time, to enjoy all the losses along the way, and to recognize that not winning does not mean you are not improving.

We are conditioned by other video games to be used to winning all the time and being told how great we are that it becomes the assumed value of the experience every time we pick up a controller. But in fighting games the goal is not to win, the goal is to try to win, fail, and do your best to understand/remember why, and just try it again. Ask questions, share replays, watch others play your character, take notes, try stuff. Set small goals and FOCUS on them one at a time, recognize that you cannot practice one little thing and try to win the game at the same time, therefore you lose more and lose harder when you are actively improving. Sounds weird but it's the truth.

And it's not a fast process; many of those small goals will take hundreds or thousands of attempts. But that's why it feels so good to pull it off, and why it's so cool to watch others do it. It's supposed to be hard. Failing is not bad, it is necessary to eventually succeed. If achieving a small goal is leveling up, then failing is racking up experience points. It gains you familiarity, you recognize the mistake faster, you get quicker and quicker at realizing the mistake, closer and closer to your hands doing what your brain is telling them to do. There are dozens of little steps for every little thing and situation between not knowing what to do at all and doing that thing consistently. It's not yes/no, it's a matter of invisible measures. And it's all about that familiarity, feeling the situation in your hands and seeing/hearing it on the screen. So every single failure is actually good. When you turn the game off, pat yourself on the back for putting the time in - that time is always contributing to your improvement in small ways even if you can't see it. It's like losing weight, you're not gonna notice every pound dropped. If you need proof, save your replays, go back once in a while and watch a replay from 1-3 months ago depending on how frequently you play. It's always so easy to keep looking at the top of the mountain that we forget to stop, turn around, and look back at how far we've climbed.

Find a game that's fun to lose at. Find a character you love to just move around and hit people with. Enjoy the vibes, the music. Put on your own music if it helps (it helps me). Find people to play with who will chat with you and help you and tell you when you're improving, and take their word for it. Playing fighting games alone will only make you miserable and get you trapped in your own head.

The vast majority of us lose more than we win, and go on thinking we suck no matter how good we get. Odds are you are better than you think you are too. But nobody cares how good you are. They are on their own journey. Enjoy yours because there is no final destination.

And even keeping all this in mind is easier said than done. These games force us to practice presence, positivity, patience, and self-compassion. Even improving your mindset in one of these ways can be its own goal. Remind yourself before/after/during every session as often as you have to.

Hope this helps. It might all be stuff you already know but we all have to be reminded from time to time. Just keep having fun and you will be there before you know it, stop caring about "being good" and you will ironically start improving a lot faster.