EPTSo in my blog earlier I said I had a really bad day on ladder which is true, I played like crap and lost games I shouldn't have. I sometimes get into that mindset and really need to work on reversing it, And today is a huge step in the right direction for me. So today I've put in 16 hours into Starcraft II, Not just practice, Like I said I started ladder early and played bad so took a break, None of my practice partners were on so I didn't play much. Instead I looked into how to keep up motivation and came across a video that actually flipped my entire thinking upside down. The video can be found here, It's a basketball video but the speech in the background is what opened my eyes and made my get back on the grind. The main quote I took out of the whole video, and pretty much the climax of the speech was " When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, You'll be successful". It just really rocked me when I heard it. Right after that I had to log back on for Legion practice, During practice my first game was against Jimrising, He's a sick good GM zerg that I've never been able to beat. Just after coming back from playing terribly earlier in the day I was able to beat him in a 21 minute macro game that wasn't gimicky, Wasn't some silly cheese, Or some silly mistake that got be ahead, I just played the game in a mindset that would allow me to actually play to my ability. It just felt better, I played more smooth, I felt better
Keeping in mind I never played much starcraft, I never sat down and grinded out games. I played roughly 4-5 hours of games but not as much as I usually put in. Instead I watched games, Something I haven't really done in the past. I watched my own replays and broke them down indepth, I've been watching IEM on my TV beside me all night, I've followed all the protoss games and really watched them, breaking down the play even through the casts, I downloaded pro replays and analysed them and tried to put their knowledge to use in my own play, and I'm not going to lie. I really enjoyed it. I never use to just sit down and watch starcraft, and I honestly don't know why. So after today my breaks will be watching vods from MLG or IEM, I'll be downloading replays and watching them on my downtime, I'll open up pro streams in the back ground and just taking it all in. I know to most of you this won't seem like much, But to me I feel like I'll be able to overcome a lot of my current problems and continue to keep myself engaged in Starcraft. So even though I didn't put in as much time into just grinding out games, I put in roughly 16 hours of just trying to improve through other methods. (I'm trying to fix my sleep scedule so I've been to tired for the past like 6 hours to actually play so that's a big reason I didn't put more time into games).
On top of that I looked into healthier living to help me focus as well, Someone posted on my schedule blog with a lot of good tips to help with my exercise and it continues to pile up on how much I'll be able to improve within the next few weeks.
Thanks for reading through my wall of text, I just want to thank everyone for supporting me!
TLDR - Had a bad day of ladder, Found good motivation, Played better after, Learned I liked watching SC2 and will do more of it, Figured out my schedule more to be healthier, and am all around in a better mindset to improve.
P.S. I'll be playing in Go4SC2, Antec attack, Synergy cup, and 4PL cup today so if you guys want to catch me I'll be streaming those in my insanely tired state.
