Starcraft Training DBZ Style - Page 8

On October 08 2011 03:48 Hapahauli wrote:
While comparing SC2 to DBZ may be nostalgic and alluring, it is the completely wrong attitude to have towards practice and improvement. For example, a "DBZ Training Method" may make our hands faster through hand-muscle training, but it won't make us into better players. Without a proper mechanical foundation to build upon, we may find ourselves macro'ing quickly, but also very badly. Essentially, Qxc's post confuses training raw strength with training muscle memory.

I may not be a professional SC2 player, but I have nearly two decades of experience in piano and music education. I believe that skills from practicing musical instruments (dexterity, muscle memory, etc.) are much more applicable to SC2 training than say power lifting. As such, I believe we can devise a much better training method by learning from music education, which has been tested and proven over hundreds of years.

When I train to have better mechanics, I am in essence training to have better muscle memory. I want to be able to execute commands on a keyboard without thinking. When I want to inject larvae on three hatcheries, I don't want to think about every key I press. Instead, I want to think "inject", while my hands automatically execute my macro commands.

So how do we train muscle memory? By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning macro mechanics. For example, when I approach a new piece of music, these are the steps I take:

1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections.
2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency.
3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo.
4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed.
5) Polish the finished product.

As you see, learning muscle memory is vastly different than your typical strength training. In fact, if you were to tell any respectable pianist that you get better by playing as fast as possible, you would be the laughing stock of the music world. While "DBZ Training" may be applicable to raw strength training, it is completely counter-productive in improving your mechanics.

So to approach a new build or to learn a new mechanic, we shouldn't try to play as fast as possible. We should take the same approach that a musician does - break down the mechanics and slowly build upon them. If you approach all your builds like this, you'll find yourself with a mechanical fluidity that far surpasses anything you can learn from grinding the ladder.

Perhaps qxc may feel that his mechanics are polished already and that he needs speed training to further improve his game. I do not believe that holds true for the majority of us. Do you think you play as mechanically efficient as Flash or Jaedong? If not, speed training isn't for you.



tl;dr
Practice slowly damnit.

On October 07 2011 23:55 mordek wrote:


Well I guess describe to me what you mean by straight micro practice. I feel like how/when to engage is just as important if not more than how quickly you move your marines around to keep them alive. That useful but you can just use the marine split challenge mod and add some other types of engagements too (like Morrow's Micro map).

The OP made it sound like qxc wanted to train with more difficulty on all aspects of the game at once. You might as well just have more difficult amounts/types of units to micro against but keep all the stats the same. I feel like the split second decision making you need to have to know when to retreat or chase would be broken by inaccurate unit stats. I'm sure it would help but it may hinder decision making which I think can be just as important as the handspeed to micro.

On October 08 2011 03:48 Hapahauli wrote:
While comparing SC2 to DBZ may be nostalgic and alluring, it is the completely wrong attitude to have towards practice and improvement. For example, a "DBZ Training Method" may make our hands faster through hand-muscle training, but it won't make us into better players. Without a proper mechanical foundation to build upon, we may find ourselves macro'ing quickly, but also very badly. Essentially, Qxc's post confuses training raw strength with training muscle memory.

I may not be a professional SC2 player, but I have nearly two decades of experience in piano and music education. I believe that skills from practicing musical instruments (dexterity, muscle memory, etc.) are much more applicable to SC2 training than say power lifting. As such, I believe we can devise a much better training method by learning from music education, which has been tested and proven over hundreds of years.

When I train to have better mechanics, I am in essence training to have better muscle memory. I want to be able to execute commands on a keyboard without thinking. When I want to inject larvae on three hatcheries, I don't want to think about every key I press. Instead, I want to think "inject", while my hands automatically execute my macro commands.

So how do we train muscle memory? By understanding how a musician approaches a new piece, we can better understand how we can learn to approach learning macro mechanics. For example, when I approach a new piece of music, these are the steps I take:

1) Break up the piece into smaller, simpler sections.
2) Practice each section slowly with an emphasis on proper technique and efficiency.
3) Put all the smaller sections together at a slow tempo.
4) Gradually bring the piece up to proper speed.
5) Polish the finished product.

As you see, learning muscle memory is vastly different than your typical strength training. In fact, if you were to tell any respectable pianist that you get better by playing as fast as possible, you would be the laughing stock of the music world. While "DBZ Training" may be applicable to raw strength training, it is completely counter-productive in improving your mechanics.

So to approach a new build or to learn a new mechanic, we shouldn't try to play as fast as possible. We should take the same approach that a musician does - break down the mechanics and slowly build upon them. If you approach all your builds like this, you'll find yourself with a mechanical fluidity that far surpasses anything you can learn from grinding the ladder.

Perhaps qxc may feel that his mechanics are polished already and that he needs speed training to further improve his game. I do not believe that holds true for the majority of us. Do you think you play as mechanically efficient as Flash or Jaedong? If not, speed training isn't for you.



tl;dr
Practice slowly damnit.

On October 07 2011 17:11 GertHeart wrote:
This reminds me of when I trained for DDR first then started to play ITG(In The Groove) DDR I was able to be able to pass songs on hard by day 3, though it was a 7 step expert song, I was able to pass it. By the time I was done training and got there I fell sick for 7 days straight and was coughing up blood, after I got better though I was much healthier, if you exercise too much and surpass your limits a lot, your body can't protect itself from infection or germs of any sort very well.

Later on I tried to do ITG, which in comparison to DDR is incredibly hard. DDR is for babies when compares to ITG.

DDR hardest song:




Itg: Piece of Poetry, harder than any and all songs combined in DDR.(This isn't even the hardest thing in ITG, I came close to passing this myself 10 steps away.)



This is a marathon song in ITG (Looks easy even =B)