Dealing with nerves/anxiety in tournaments

[Hawk_Hill]

Hi guys, first post here. I was told this would be the proper section to post this in.

 

Like the title says, I wanted to ask around to see if I can get some advice on dealing with nervousness and the like in a tournament setting. I went to the RVA monthly here in Richmond on Saturday, it's not the first tournament I've been to. My first match, I won the first game fairly handily. Everything was going alright, but I just fell apart the next two games. I was extremely nervous, not because I thought I would lose but because I thought I could win. Being on stream probably didn't help either. My hands were shaking and I had to get up and walk about to calm myself down.

 

I realize that playing under pressure is just something you get used to over time, but does anyone have any advice at all on things I can do to make it a little easier for myself?

[StylisH]

Forget there's a crowd and just enjoy the game.  If you just have fun then nerves don't come into play.  Just don't get too lax and have a good time.  Games are supposed to be fun.

[Airk]

Take a few deep breaths while you wait for the match to load. Proven physiological impact and stuff.

[PandaFace]

not really any more to be said. Just try to relax, take a deep breath, focus on the game and you'll get over it.

 

As someone that suffers quite a bit with anxiety I know the feels. My first tournament was an online one and even then I was getting all antsy. You'll be fine in time.

[Hawk_Hill]

Thanks, I've just gotta keep working at it I guess. Eventually I'll get used to it.

[Hollysmoke]

A strong cocktail consisting of Red Bull, methamphetamine and 100% Canadian ginger ale lets me focus so intently I can perpetually see 2 frames into the future, but I can never get out of winner's bracket because I black out.

 

Look up videos on "Pranayama". It's breathing exercises most commonly used in Yoga. The pressure of winning in a tournament, the pressure from playing in front of a crowd, and the pressure to do well builds up. Lots of people are saying "Relax". They're right. Pranayama is how. When I play against local vets, this helps me get through matches.

[Monarch]

Or you could pull a Rock Lee and just keep telling yourself you're going to lose regardless and not care. Worked for me.

[SoulGuitarist]

A fellow local player of mine told me it also helps to try your best to focus in on the music (If they have the volume on) to zone out the crowd. It sounds silly but since there is usually alot of sound during tournaments once you finally focus on the BGM and game audio, you might not feel as nervous and can zone everyone out.

[mAc Chaos]

That's why people wear headphones.

[Nemesis]

A fellow local player of mine told me it also helps to try your best to focus in on the music (If they have the volume on) to zone out the crowd. It sounds silly but since there is usually alot of sound during tournaments once you finally focus on the BGM and game audio, you might not feel as nervous and can zone everyone out.

 

 

That's why people wear headphones.

 

 

Against all odds to prove your point this terrible example of an evo player managed to put on headphones and look stupid 

https://youtu.be/FkHalBZzgMI?t=3h19m

[skd]

i personally feel like it wont go away no matter how good you are, you kind of just need to embrace it. Like, it's one thing to get comfortable with it, but it will /really/ be there. Your hands will always shake. Isn't that part of the fun? I think I can play a little better under pressure anyways, so I don't really mind haha. Anxiety towards this kind of thing isn't bad, but just dont let it clam you up.

[Hollysmoke]

Against all odds to prove your point this terrible example of an evo player managed to put on headphones and look stupid 

https://youtu.be/FkHalBZzgMI?t=3h19m

 

At first I was like "Did he really just wade through 5 hours of footage to find that? That's impressive".

 

Then I realized it was actually you being there. *Facepalm*

 

Me, personally, I like to play guitar solos in my head so keep a rhythm up so I don't drop a combo and helps me focus on a beat. I know it sounds weird but it works for me. You'll always be nervous, but it helps to keep it in control.

 

EDIT: You got two tournament winners giving you advice on nerves, that's about as good as it's going to get in this thread lol.

[mAc Chaos]

i personally feel like it wont go away no matter how good you are, you kind of just need to embrace it. Like, it's one thing to get comfortable with it, but it will /really/ be there. Your hands will always shake. Isn't that part of the fun? I think I can play a little better under pressure anyways, so I don't really mind haha. Anxiety towards this kind of thing isn't bad, but just dont let it clam you up.

One of my best friends is a world class violinist. He said something interesting about performing on stage that I think also applies to the tourney nerves. If you get up there and don't get nervous, it means you don't care about it anymore.

[shtkn]

i recommend exposure therapy. play in more tournaments (and organize local ones!).

[Nemesis]

I'll condense the big points if I may be so bold - These are some fantastic suggestions...

 

Soul/Mac - Use the power of music to help shape your emotion rather than being shaped by it~

 

SKD - Learn to Ride the wave of "emotion" and let it push you to greater heights rather than being crippled by it

 

Holly - Self Control through meditation and conditioning exercises (prepared before and during events)

 

Shtkn - Desensitization 

[Hollysmoke]

You neglected Red Bull and cocaine.

 

WHY ARE WE NOT FULLY EMBRACING POLITICAL STEREOTYPES WE'VE BEEN GIVEN AS GAMERS?!

 

Another one I forgot was go with a friend to tournaments and stuff. It just feels better when you have a good friend to talk too and chill with between matches rather than standing around by your lonesome self. 

[Nemesis]

You neglected Red Bull and cocaine.

 

WHY ARE WE NOT FULLY EMBRACING POLITICAL STEREOTYPES WE'VE BEEN GIVEN AS GAMERS?!

 

Another one I forgot was go with a friend to tournaments and stuff. It just feels better when you have a good friend to talk too and chill with between matches rather than standing around by your lonesome self. 

Thats another good one - If it wasnt for Ctrl last Evo then I would have been a gibbering mess

 

Buddies can do amazing things for you in tournaments.... Like remind you how you play your own character for example

[Hollysmoke]

Thats another good one - If it wasnt for Ctrl last Evo then I would have been a gibbering mess

 

Buddies can do amazing things for you in tournaments.... Like remind you how you play your own character for example

 

And you have a friend to go get a burger and a beer after all is said and done. Don't forget to invite the lonely guy, s/he can use some friends too! :D

[TD]

One of my best friends is a world class violinist. He said something interesting about performing on stage that I think also applies to the tourney nerves. If you get up there and don't get nervous, it means you don't care about it anymore.

Personally, that would mean I never cared about tournaments in the past, and that simply isn't true.

I think it's a by-person basis. Some people just don't get stage fright. It's all about confidence after all. People who get scared of something that isn't deadly are victims of their own imagination. It's not to pick fun at them, but usually, if a person is scared of something no matter how minute the detail, it usually is irrational, and these people are assuming the worst. "What if" would sum up their train of thought at the moment quite nicely. What if they get dead last, what if my pad/stick breaks, what if I wake up late or never make it to the venue, what if I suddenly appear there naked... It can get quite silly, but I empathize. We all have those moments, and most of the tips here maybe will work for several people outside of tournaments, even.

As for my advice, I agree, breathing is like #1 priority. Deep breathing calms the nerves, clears the head, and you overall feel as though you can handle life better, even better than a minute ago. I swear by deep breathing. If you aren't doing it, you aren't just not having fun, you are not living.

Definitely socialize. It's not enough to test your might against others if you leave the tournament without learning something new, especially from those who place higher in the tourny (though one can learn from even the smallest creature). Use your senses. Look at how people play their matches. Ask questions. Write stuff down.

If you have a portable hobby, like you love the vita or you play dominoes... Whatever, bring it with you. The happy memories attached to the hobby in question will make you feel in a familiar place. A good luck charm, if you will.

I also recommend becoming great friends with chewing gum. Besides cleaning that unsightly garlic breath and gunk from your mouth, chewing food makes one feel safe (you likely won't be able to run from a gun while eating a burrito), and therefore, comfortable. If I taught nothing else today, it's that comfortability can lead to fake confidence, which leads to real confidence, and then, win or lose, you can have fun. Because besides winning, why else would a person go to a tournament?

[Mucky]

In my experience, trying to rationalize why you're feeling nervous doesn't really help to stop feeling nervous. It's like trying to swim upstream, lool. Best bet is to embrace it, like SKD said. One way to do this is to reframe your anxiety into something more positive, like excitement. I mean, just calling it anxiety is essentially telling yourself you have a disorder, since that's the term used for actual disorders. Not to say that I know anything about your life, but nobody needs to be bogged down by thoughts that there's something psychologically wrong with them while there's a tournament to win.

 

Depending on how severe it is, you may want to try breaking it down to its most basic blocks and knocking them off one at a time.

 

Being on stream: Stream lobbies and netplay tournies can help desensitize yourself to this. It might also help to know that, aside from the spectator aspect of it, streaming inspires the sense that everyone is together in the same room, like the oldschool days of gaming before netplay existed. So, in a way, it's not too different from having to be with a crowd in an offline venue.

 

Being in an offline environment: TD's advise to socialize is good. Having people you know, even a little bit, helps to feel less like an alien. Let them know some things about yourself, too. In an ironic sense, you'll feel like there's less eyes on you, like "who is this dude playing right now."

 

Pressure to perform well/win: Not sure what to do with this one, lool. I would say this pressure comes down to a notion that you have something to prove. For most people at a tournament, that "thing" can be as basic as "I can win this," which you seemed to realize as you wrote your post. Trying to understand what it is specifically that you want to prove can help you deal with it more efficiently, or perhaps re-evaluate why it needs to be proven in the first place.

[Blade]

As someone who has an extremely low tolerance for stress... I can't really give any advice except that you learn to focus on the game itself.

 

The more you get used to a thing, the more you expect it to happen, the less it surprises you.

 

If too many things surprise you, or if too many things stress you out... at the very least you are inexperienced.

 

So you need to get that experience so that less things surprise you.

 

Say you're not used to people rushing you down or IADing in your face... that's stressful in and of itself.  Getting used to it is just something you need to do as part of an aggressive game.

 

If you can block a lengthy series of attacks without flinching or losing your cool and bursting, then you can keep your cool in a tournament, I believe.

[Airk]

Also, smile. It has known physiological effects.

[Blade]

I just wanted to add something I have learned recently.

 

If you're one of those players who plays fighting games just to "try stuff out" or to pick up on stuff:

 

If you come in to a battle with a laid-back mentality that you just want to pull off a combo that you saw recently or a trick you learned...

 

That's not going to work out if you're up against competitive players.

 

The reason I say this is because players are going to be doing everything in their power to END you.  Until the game says SLASH or FINISH, they are your enemy.

 

People mash buttons, they're in your face, they will do all kinds of things to get you to stop doing what you want to do.

 

In many ways it might seem like people are giving you no respect and stomping you, but think about it in terms of what their goal is: they want to win.  It's only natural that they'd try to defeat you.

 

Sure, you can experiment in the lab and try stuff out in Training Mode or against CPU, or maybe against a close friend who doesn't mind playing guinea pig.  But if you're up against players who just want to win, you have to be prepared to face that and overcome it.

 

That basically means you have to be aggressive to win.  Possibly even more aggressive than your opponent.

 

If you're like me and have a low tolerance for stress, being aggressive in anything takes a LOT of energy to pull off.  So you have to be ready to deal with it and throw everything you have in to the match.

 

That also goes for blocking and playing defense.  Guilty Gear and BlazBlue are not meant to be played defensively (unless you play Tager or Potemkin, and even in their case they still have to do STUFF in the match to win), so you got to expend a lot of energy on throwing out the right normals and attacks for the right situation.  Don't think of it as 'blocking', think of it as 'waiting'/baiting for an opening to attack again.

 

Even passive players who jump backwards and airdash backwards are still throwing jabs and playing footsies hoping one of their punches will eventually find its mark.  In a lot of ways those stray jabs and attacks are all potential hit-confirms.  Just being ready for that is part of the game.

 

So yeah, when you fight, you have to be going at it with people, not messing around... no hesitation, no distraction, no mind-wandering.

 

In addition, don't just be aggressive... be aggressive and smart.  Learn to know what you are doing.

[vrj_rrls_2015]

Stay calm it's just you and your opponent nothing else matters.

Oh and do some shots for courage.

[Kuuhaku]

One thing that really helps me, and as far as I know really helps other people is to show up early and get 5ish casual matches in. Not too much that you're not mentally worn out, but enough to where you feel warmed up and ready. Talking to people beforehand and spectating some matches also tends to help at becoming more relaxed. Plus you get a chance to meet some of the other people who are competing.