Went to Dorion’s again tonight.  I’ll keep this short (You know you play SF too much when you see/type the word short and an image of Ryu doing a c.lk pops in your head).

Started out playing against a Ken player who really wasn’t very good, but neither was I.  I don’t know if it was because I was using Reece’s stick and not my own (His is much looser, even for a TE), but none of my shit was working.  This wasn’t like I couldn’t do my normal SJC FADCs, it was more like I couldn’t even do my burning kicks, or I couldn’t get my Fierce Punch to come out after a jump in.  My fingers were overly frantic, I suppose.  Maybe it also has to do with the game being played on a non laggy TV, whereas mine is pretty bad.

So anyway, it took a couple hours and me running through training mode to get going for real.  I didn’t really spend a lot of time learning new shit tonight, more just playing for the sake of playing.  This doesn’t necessarily help me grow as a strategic player, but it does improve my reaction time.  I played Zaine (He was fooling around with Dan, though), then Shane’s Boxer (Got wrecked), then Reece’s Akuma (Did okay), then Juicebox’s Akuma (Got wrecked), then Juicebox’s Ken (Got wrecked), then Louie’s Guile (Wrecked him!), then Reece’s Blanka and Bison (Got wrecked), then Louie’s Blanka (Got wrecked).  A couple of major points resonated with me tonight, though.

• I deal with rushdown very poorly.  When Juicebox was rushing me down, he could tell I was mashing throw tech.  To summarize his advice, I should make a conscious decision on whether or not to just block or to throw tech, not try to guess on the fly.  Also got a quick lesson in footsies from him.
• I can punish Blanka balls better now.  It’s all about paying utmost attention.
• Louie says I’m hesitant while I play.  I don’t know exactly what that means, maybe I’ve been playing too cautious like Zaine lately.  I’ll need to watch Zaine play more so I can understand how exactly I should be playing.