« How to Get Better At Street Fighter, by Juicebox Abel. Part One: Intro and Setting Goals »

ABOUT JUICEBOX ABEL AND THE HOW TO GET BETTER AT STREET FIGHTER ARTICLE SERIES

Eric "Juicebox" Albino is widely recognized in the Super Street Fighter 4 community as among the best Abel players in North America.  He has earned himself a professional sponsorship with Borderland Gaming.  He is not only a top player, but he also gives back to the community.

One of those community efforts is a series of podcasts he has recorded in which he shares some of his vast knowledge of the game.  One of those is "How to Get Better at Street Fighter". Juicebox and Iplaywinner have transcribed the podcast into a series of articles broken down by topic, where it will be added to a new IPW Player's Guide.

HOW TO GET BETTER AT STREET FIGHTER: INTRODUCTION

Hey there street fighters. Today’s topic is probably the most complicated one that I’ve tackled so far, and that is how you should go about getting better. That’s right. How to get better at Street Fighter.  Listen up. The most important thing you need to realize going into this is that it’s going to take time; lots of time.  You need patience. Not only do you need patience in game, but you need the patience to realize that you are not going to get good right away. It’s going to take a little time, but if you remain persistent, if you keep practicing, and if you keep learning (this is the important part, the learning part), then you will eventually improve your game.

SETTING GOALS

Now the first thing you have to do, just like any other goal you might have in real life, is you have to set the goal.  It needs to be a simple goal and it also needs to be achievable.  An example of a simple goal that you might want to try pursuing is “I’m going to try to win one of my local tournaments”.  If you’re not an incredibly confident person, or if you’re just starting out, you might want to say something like “I want to win a casual game with Alex Valle”.  Or, “I want to place top eight semi-consistently at my local tournaments”.  As you learn about the game and as your skills improve, these goals should seem easier to achieve over time.  If they don’t, you’re not improving.  Also, if you don’t meet those goals, you’re not improving.  It’s important to set goals that are achievable, so that when you do achieve them, you can set a new goal.  If you fail to achieve them, you have an understanding of why.

As you achieve each goal, you should set new ones, with the idea being that you should be able to set higher and higher goals until you achieve the main competitive goal of your choice, which for me is to win EVO, but for you it may be different.