When I first got into fighting games, my og FPS/RTS community dabbled in fighting games on the side and I got a lesson with one of my homies. We went over blocking, plus and minus frames, and so on, but he told me something that hasn’t left me to this day: “you practice the fundamentals until you die”.
For Street Fighter 6, I’ve had a handful of coaching calls with Shine where he’s seen some of my worst games. Outside of the SF6-specific stuff I’ve taken away from the calls, I’ve realized that every piece of guidance he’s given just comes down to “work on this fundamental because it’s weak right now”:
- throw people a lot until they start teching to gain access to strike-throw-shimmy
- spend your meter to turn stray hits into oki and/or damage
- know when to take your turn back on defense
- know your punishes
- drill anti-airs and dash/mechanic checks
A friend from the Street Fighter 5 has been struggling with the shift from SF5 to SF6, and after one battle lounge session we had I realized he had a similar issue; he was spinning his wheels watching replays and drilling one-off situations but his fundamentals had weakened. I shared my experience with him and two days later, he stopped flailing around in Diamond and put his new character in Master.
The only way to get better at something is to do the boring stuff. Everything else is entertainment.