I missed an entry regarding Feb 4th’s Bootcamp. To be honest, I played so badly that night that I didn’t feel like re-living it. I started out on Station 3 but at the very end of the night got demoted to Station 4 again, by Patrick. Between then, each game that I played I got my shit kicked in, barely avoiding demotion matches via coin flips. And then it finally got me at the end and I got fucked up.

The main issue with that was self-confidence, I think.  I got rushed down way too often and was too scared to push back.  Zaine and Luey attributed it to me absorbing so much from the past couple of weeks that I was getting distracted and hesitant.

Flash forward to today, where I started out on Station 4 (FUUUUU-) and easily overpowered everyone there with a 13(?) win streak.  I can’t say that there were any big threats in that first rotation (first for me, second for the group) with the exception of Gurlin (Now called Guru?), and so I rocked the house pretty easily and got set up in a promotion match with Sagat player Nick, or Drenstar for the sake of my tag library.  I feel like I’ve acquired a new rival in him.  I beat him down in the first Bootcamp, he beat me down in the second, and I inched out in this first promotion match to take his spot at Station 3.  The match was fairly passive for me, in that I focused more on Seismo pressure for fear of getting c.lk, c.lk Tiger Uppercutted.  As such, I couldn’t get any TK pressure going.  So, zoning with Seismos and a terrible fear of Kara-uppercuts allowed me to inch out of the game.

So then I played on Station 3 for awhile, and by played I mean got mauled by Balrog players.  I couldn’t help but feel discouraged, and then I got called up for a demotion match.  Bummer!  And it was Gurlin!  My style of play against him is to rush him down, that’s what I figured out while fighting him prior.  Going for the knockdowns, the TK pressure and the crossups against him, he didn’t know what to do and I took the first set easily.  The second set I got a little crazy and started doing really stupid and dangerous stuff, and he took that one from me.  Then the third set I decided to ease up and play more cautiously, but that didn’t work either because that’s the style he thrives on fighting.  It went down to the third round of the third set, but I got demoted.

So I wound up at Station 4 again.  All morale lost, I decided to goof off and play Ryu and ended up racking up a couple of wins.  Then I checked the scoresheet and I was actually in the running for a promotion match, so I went with Viper again and ran through some folks to tie with Drenstar.  Played against him (I remember him asking me “How do I beat you?”), won, and then moved on to play a promotion match again Gurlin.  Sweet, sweet revenge.  I don’t remember the matches too well, but I coached myself into playing more consistently with the rushdown and not to get discouraged or overly anxious.  All the while I had Alan and company cheering me on (Thanks for the wakeup Ultra tip, man), and then Zaine finally stopped playing WoW and sat his ass down next to me to watch my match.  Everyone’s encouragement really helped, I think, and I won.  So now I’m back at Station 3, I’m glad it ended on a high note.  Though, now I have both Gurlin and Drenstar gunning for me, and it’s a bit more aggressive than my friendly rivalry with people like Pren and Alan.  One particular note about Drenstar is that he picked up on my always-throw-after-burning-kick shenanigan, so I mixed it up in one instance with another burning kick, causing his throw to whiff and giving me a free knockdown.  If I can fool him into doing this again in the corner, I can make it really hurt next time with a combo into Ultra.

After Bootcamp ended for the night, I bounced around the casual stations as the crowds began to dissipate.  Played a shitload of Ryu vs. Viper matches with Zaine and Pren, then played a shitton of matches again Juicebox’s Ryu and Balrog (at my request).  Juicebox took the time to explain frame data to me and how to work out my setups, so before I forget, use close s.mp and link with c.mp.  If the s.mp hits, yay for a solid combo.  If it misses, it serves as a frame trap for jab happy Balrogs.  Also, punish a blocked EX overhead with c.mp xx m.TK or l.TK.  Try to use j.mk crossup (after 3 jabs, maybe?) more to get some TK pressure going.

After getting helped out by Juicebox, I got more schooling from the Zaine Academy.  j.HP is a great air attack, it stuffs fucking Shoryukens!  Use it when I know I’m not gonna cross up and then proceed with my normal combos.  I played against Zaine’s Akuma and then limited myself from jumping, working solely on my TK game.  Things like c.mp xx m.TK feint, Viper Elbow.  Spacing, fakeouts, everything.  I think it really helped me out.  Another setup that I like doing is s.MP xx EX Seismo in response to getting SRK’d out of my blocked s.MP, c.MP link.  Basically, I fooled Zaine into SRKing again with the MP and then EX Seismo’s invincible frames caused his Shoryu to whiff, leaving me an opening.  After that, I switched characters so Zaine could play Viper.  It’s actually very fun fighting Zaine, because I see him do shit that I don’t and wish to add to my repertoire.  Alot of his tricks involve using the i-frames of EX Seismo.  Not as many feints as I do, but solid elbow and c.mk play left me reeling as Ryu, especially because he consistently baited my stuff.  At the moment I’m too tired to remember much else about our fights besides two things I want to practice: j.MP xx m (or h?).BK, which crosses up and is dirty as hell, and the magic distance that you’re put at after landing a max ranged m.TK.

Running out of steam here, I played from 7:45 PM to 4:00 AM.  Shitload of games, and it took me a half hour to write up this entry.  Last bit of information is for Alan, since I know that he’ll probably read this: Go easy on the flash kicks if possible.  I was able to bait your flash kicks using a feint or a backdash multiple times, and that trend has existed for the past couple of weeks and won me a fair amount of matches.  I’ve seen the drastic change in results that your crowd-pleasing flashkicks and Ultras do, but my own personal style is to use that against you as a player rather than against Guile.  Also, don’t forget that you can air grab me out of my BKs!  That’s turned the matchup into a 5-5.

Anyway, it was a good night.  My TE stick’s 360 functionality blew out a couple weeks ago and it’s been kind of a pain to get Mike to work on it, but I think it’ll finally be done on Saturday.  Then I can finally start fixing my execution problems while continuing to grow as a player.