6th Official FFR Tournament - Is over, Congrats to all our winners!

[Zekramcross]

I'm so mindblocked right now. I really don't want to be elimanated due to it. I know I have to skill for it.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Zekramcross

I'm so mindblocked right now. I really don't want to be elimanated due to it. I know I have to skill for it.

I hate this feeling.
SAMBISTA is so AAA-able feeling for me, but something always goes wrong.
Stupid fluke run, just happen already dammit

[Zekramcross]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

I hate this feeling.
SAMBISTA is so AAA-able feeling for me, but something always goes wrong.
Stupid fluke run, just happen already dammit

^This +1000
I know that my song is very low SDGable for me. I want fluke run as well.

[Ryusei_]

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

I hate this feeling.
SAMBISTA is so AAA-able feeling for me, but something always goes wrong.
Stupid fluke run, just happen already dammit

I'm praying my 2-0-0-2 holds.

In all reality this is going to be one of those songs where I'm going to feel reasonably safe until a few hours before the rounds ends and everyone decides they want to BF or AAA the damn thing.

[Magicturbo]

Originally Posted by Zekramcross

^This +1000
I know that my song is very low SDGable for me. I want fluke run as well.

Whore moar @_@;;;

[TheSaxRunner05]

For some reason, I only have about 15-20 minutes of good PA a day, so the whoring thing doesnt really work for me (I was stuck on 2g all of last round after a couple hundred gameplays). I take a lot of short breaks to help my stamina issues for denser songs. Also, try toggling mirror back and forth, it can sometimes break a mindblock.

[hi19hi19]

Subin's post makes some excellent suggestions. Remembering that the timing on FFR is quite lose, you can "swing" minijacks as he showed to make it easier for yourself while still maintaining an AAA.

With regards to knowing whether to be relaxed as you jack, or tense your muscles, I think it entirely depends on the speed of the jacks.
For example I know I can hit 16th jacks at around 120 bpm easily by being relaxed and just using my wrist. An example of this is the jacks in Fei Longer.
When you reach about 140 bpm, I have to get more tense. However I can still get good accuracy on these using only my wrist. For example, I can PA the jacks at the beginning of Grist with all the action coming from my wrist, but with my forearm tense.
Once you reach 170-180 bpm 16th jacks however I need to make my entire arm very tense and "vibrate" it. I lock my wrist and the vibrating action comes from muscles in my forearm. I can't yet control this very well, but if you watch someone like Dossar who has very good control over their vibrating, you will see it's a skill that can be learned just like anything else.

Finding these bpm ranges and practicing each type will allow you to improve on jack patterns enormously.



One tip I can offer for understanding vibrating:

Hold your arm out in front of you with your elbow bent and the palm of your hand facing you, and then make a fist. Then do the classic "shaking your fist in anger" motion.
Shake your fist faster and faster and in smaller and smaller motions while keeping your upper arm steady- the muscle that is rapidly flexing to do this action is the Brachioradialis. This is the source of the vibrating motion in your forearm.
Next, while doing this motion, turn your hand so that it's sideways, with your thumb closest to you. Continue turning in this direction until your hands are at the angle you usually have them on the keyboard. If you have decent muscle definition, the Brachioradialis in your forearm will bulge out a little near the inside of the elbow. If you see this it means you've definitely figured it out
You can't really vibrate well without understanding what part of your arm has to be tensed- hopefully this helps you to understand what muscle it is you are trying to get the effect from.

[Zekramcross]

Originally Posted by TheSaxRunner05

For some reason, I only have about 15-20 minutes of good PA a day, so the whoring thing doesnt really work for me (I was stuck on 2g all of last round after a couple hundred gameplays). I take a lot of short breaks to help my stamina issues for denser songs. Also, try toggling mirror back and forth, it can sometimes break a mindblock.

I'm in your situation. I'm not even going to play in Tech School so I wait until I get home to play for best results. Hopefully I get a low SDG on the song so that I can go to round 5. The whole non-mirror/mirror thing doesn't really break the block for me, I mean sure it helps me slip a few good runs in, but it usually gets ruined with a random miss due to my finger not responding fast enough.

EDIT: hi19 - That vibrating explanation sounds like good advice since I tried following it. Imma try at home after I try PAing my round song for while.

[bmah]

Have you ever tried a different key setup? That works sometimes.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Zekramcross

I'm in your situation. I'm not even going to play in Tech School so I wait until I get home to play for best results. Hopefully I get a low SDG on the song so that I can go to round 5. The whole non-mirror/mirror thing doesn't really break the block for me, I mean sure it helps me slip a few good runs in, but it usually gets ruined with a random miss due to my finger not responding fast enough.

Play something else in between. For example I (like just about everyone else) have a mindblack something fierce on the beginning of Rottel. But I can usually get through it the first time I try each time I sit down... so I just go and play other songs in between Rottel attempts and try to trick myself that I'm just sitting down for the first time when I play it again 20 minutes later.

I'm horrible at taking my own advice btw, I play things 200 times in a row and it's just like banging your head on a wall. Variety is the spice of life ~

[Zekramcross]

Originally Posted by bmah

Have you ever tried a different key setup? That works sometimes.

Originally Posted by hi19hi19

Play something else in between. For example I (like just about everyone else) have a mindblack something fierce on the beginning of Rottel. But I can usually get through it the first time I try each time I sit down... so I just go and play other songs in between Rottel attempts and try to trick myself that I'm just sitting down for the first time when I play it again 20 minutes later.

I'm horrible at taking my own advice btw, I play things 200 times in a row and it's just like banging your head on a wall. Variety is the spice of life ~

I'm currently using a hybrid spread set-up of qsko since askl is awkward for me. I'll try it though.

I do play things in between, but it doesn't seem to help, well for me at least.
Yes, I do get the best PA in my first few plays of the day and my PA gets worse from there and mindblocks sets in.

[bmah]

Even a similar setup that's not the same may help, such as axml. Being one row further up or down your keyboard is a noticeable difference as far as reaction time and reaching your keys is concerned.

[squeesfan]

oh FFS. Was on 3 goods and a boo then hit 2 goods and a boo in the last 2 bursts. AGAIN. Tha's twice I've gone into the end of the song on 3 goods/3goods and a boo. FFS...

[Zakvvv666]

I'm risking screwing myself over hard and getting eliminated, but I stopped playing the song after about 10 restarts last night, and I'm not playing again until tomorrow night hoping that my mindblocks will have gone away, whether they are gone or not though, I will start whoring the song more than before to make up for the time I haven't played it.

[Zekramcross]

Originally Posted by bmah

Even a similar setup that's not the same may help, such as axml. Being one row further up or down your keyboard is a noticeable difference as far as reaction time and reaching your keys is concerned.

I tried this set up suggestion and I instantly did better. Thanks Bmah!

[Evnoir]

Playing Sambista as many isolated parts in Stepmania.

I'll get the AAA one day :3

[bmah]

Oh that part...

If anything, one tends to get goods late in that burst, so the solution would be early preparation. Anything to get a slight head start for that burst:
- a slightly disaggregated [123] hand, then finishing off the rest of the burst
- a 24th jumptrill of [23][14][23]1
- or just mental anticipation and hitting the burst entirely as is (what I did because I know this file well)

[Evnoir]

Thanks for the advice
I'm pretty much blocked on everything including and after that part - up until the part where there are only notes 234.
I can't do that M.A.M.A. part at all...

[bmah]

That's weird. A lot of people are having trouble with that part, but that was quite easy for me to do. I'm fairly sure it has to do with the mentality in approaching that pattern.

What you have is an up-down trill with continuous right arrows spaced three 16ths apart. I don't know what people are thinking, but it might be the fact that they're separating the trills and right arrows in their heads and confusing themselves over that.

This is something subin would say, but emphasize the jumps created from this pattern. It helps maintain the beat of a repetitive pattern you want to keep track of. All you really have is something like this:
[34]23 then [24]32 then repeat
- and remember that those are spaced three 16th notes apart.

[34]23+[24]32+[34]23+[24]32+....

So it could be that you're either not familiar with the spacing of this particular pattern, or you're visualizing the pattern in an unnecessarily confusing way.
Looking at the pattern in a different light also helps. I've done this several times to get out of mindblocks.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Evnoir

I tend to his this part as 3 followed by a (12) (34) jumptrill. It's worked for me twice in the 50 or so runs I've put into this file, which is honestly not a very good success rate