OMG lyke i totly hav ???'s!
Watch out, wall of 64ths!!!
Because I stopped playing for so long (like two years?), I feel sort of new to this game and I am now able to make changes rather easily to my techniques, improvise on the way I used to read patterns and correct past mistakes. On top of that, I come with a different outlook on things.
I can honestly say that the biggest mistake I did was to start playing this game one-handed with my dominant hand (right hand). I did get pretty awesome at it, but not only did I hinder my progress that year, but I messed myself up. I feel like the movements and techniques of playing one-handed made my right hand become stiff, thus being great at wrist jacking and direct patterns, but weak at vibrating and weird patterns. How would I go about "loosening up" my hand again?
When I started playing spread, my left hand picked up rather quickly. The cool thing about my left hand is that I feel it can move "freely" and hit any sort of pattern, no matter how weird, or complicated it may be. I can also vibrate with it (haven't practiced much, though). To date, I cannot wrist jack well with it unlike my right hand. When it comes to jacks, I exploit my vibrating skills by controlling and doing short bursts of vibrations. Recently, I've thought about getting good one-handed with my left hand because it worked well with my right hand, but fear that I won't be as versatile anymore. Is there a better approach?
Barely registered as a member of the community, one of my objectives that drove me to get better at this game was to be able to combo anything (FotBB to be exact. I know that everyone thought it was the hardest thing EVER at one point in their career). I learned how to break down patterns, change a pattern mentally to four others, exploit some of the mechanics (jump-trilling some rolls, etc...), I used to play on intense rates to brain shock myself till I couldn't anymore and things seemed easier the next day, but my accuracy suffered. Also, FFR doesn't really help, hehe. I've been working on my MA since I started playing again and I've gotten noticeably better.
Because I haven't played in so long, my reaction time has somewhat diminished. I can't play on C750-C800 anymore and was forced to drop to C575. The weird thing is that dropping the Cmod so much was the very factor that increased my MA and I can even combo certain songs better than before. Maybe because I have so much time to think? The problem is that in a couple songs, I can't hit a certain pattern no matter how simple it is because I have too much time to think. If I bump up the Cmod to, say C600, I have no problems with combo'ing, but my MA is significantly hindered. A couple questions arise: I used to think the faster the speedmod, the better, but is that really the case? Could a slower speedmod than normal be better? Should I stay with a slow speedmod and just work at those patterns, or is combo'ing in general more important than MA?
They say knowledge is power and I couldn't agree more, but what if I applied that to learning and mastering all the different playstyles? Like I said earlier, I'm going to practice and master playing one-handed with my left hand to sort of balance my hands out, but should I also learn index? I'm sure I can master it within the week no problem, but would it be worth it? What about the "silly" playstyles like pettanko (or whatever)? Do they have some value, or would I be wasting my time?
I play with my wrists on the table because it gives me more stability and speed, but when I was being coached by Mina (haha good times!) he told me to raise my wrists because it's better for wrist jacking and for your biceps to get bigger
. I find that keeping my wrists on the table helps me wrist jack better and vibrate, but I raise my wrists to loosen up my wrists and hands during intense moments when you feel that they start to stiffen and you can't hit anything anymore. Maybe someone can expand more on the pros and cons of wrist level...
My weakness:
- Vibrating
- Wrist jacking
- Scythe of 13
My strenghts:
- Bursts of any sort
- Speed? idk
- Face
Random/miscellanous questions:
Do the notes dropping (forget the name) have more effect than overhead?
Does lighting matter? I prefer the dark...
I'll add more here later because I'm bored of writing.
Basically, I'm asking the community how I can improve and what I can fix right now that it's easy to change. You don't have to answer all my questions (I'm not looking for "practice" because that's a given), but feel free to elaborate and give tips on subtle details I might have overlooked. Hopefully, you understood what I was trying to ask and maybe you might have gotten some insight that can help you as well. I'll check up on this later...
Ps. Hi guiz!