I learned a couple of things when it comes to Valorant. Firstly, I need to either warm up less, or find a different way to warm up, because I notice that both my overall body and my hands get tired after 3-4 deathmatches.
I also learned that it isn’t always good to position for the strafe kill since usually you want good first shot accuracy and even though you are hard to hit when you are strafe shooting, I realized strafing is more of a niche skill rather than how you want to take most gun fights.
However, the best way to use strafe shooting is using cover to shoot.
Here is a step by step breakdown:
We strafe to the right to clear left.
As we move to the right, we expect the enemy somewhere on our left.
As we peek out, we try to predict/micro adjust to the head. We are already thinking about moving left now.
As the shot fires off, we are already back behind cover.
Here is a short clip of me demonstrating this concept in a deathmatch.
The point is to always look for cover, if you notice, I get overexposed a couple of times in this clip and I recorrect behind cover quickly. These are a lot of long shots, but it gets even cooler for tight close angles and you can use it hold angles after peeking as well (you don’t need to overpeak everything).
This is definitely one of the most difficult challenges I’ve undergone in a while.
I’ve tried a couple of things and I feel frustrated.
The Reaching for the Untouchable
The frustration
The reaching in my heart
Is getting to me
Reaching for the untouchable
I wonder if I will ever know
The doubt creeps
I seek to know
And when I rush there
There is still nothing
Frustration in my chest
Like a roar that wants to escape
But is trapped behind bars
I have created multiple messages to my girlfriend in French, multiple times I’ve tried to imitate. I feel like imitation is the key, but I grow tired of seeing no results. I feel tired and frustrated.
I feel angry and unhappy.
I suspect failure is such a hard thing for me to grasp. It is such a tough pill to swallow.
I saw a video with a lot of potential:
It is about learning jiujitsu really fast. But really it is about learning. He talks about many ideas in the video, ideas that I’ve myself considered. Ideas that I think are pretty profound and helpful:
Performance vs. growth
Train in the gym to fail – growth
Compete to win – performance
Form to leave form
Repetition until it is second nature
Turn something thought into something intuitive
Smaller circles
Reduce something from intuition to a conscious idea
Look for different ways to apply it
He mentions some really interesting sounding books:
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
The Will to Keep Winning by Daigo Umehara
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard
Anyway, I feel if I were to embrace my fear of failure, I need to meditate on it, but also come up with a plan.
I first want to come up with the plan to train From to Leave Form…and be repetitive about the most common words in French, say them until they are second nature.
So what are the top most common 10 words in French:
Oui: Yes
Non: No
Merci: Thank you
Je: I
Tu/vous: You
Le/la/les: The
Un, une des: A, an, and some
Le/la/les: It, them
Et: And
Mais: But
Bonjour: A general greeting meaning “hello” or “good morning”
Au revoir: Goodbye
Salut: Hello
Amour: Love
Bonheur: Happiness
Chat: Cat
Chien: Dog
But these words are too basic. What about the top 10 most common phrases?
Bonjour: Means “hello” or “good morning”.
Merci: Means “thank you”.
S’il vous plaît: Means “please”.
Ça va?: Means “how are you?” .
Je ne sais pas: Means “I don’t know”.
Parlez-vous anglais?: Means “Do you speak English?” .
Bienvenue: Means “welcome”.
Madame/Monsieur/Mademoiselle: Means “Mrs.”, “Mr.”, or “Miss”.
Anchante enchante: Means “nice to meet you”.
Sava: Means “how are you”.
C’est simple comme bonjour: Means “it’s simple as hello”.
Et patati et patata: Means “and so on”.
En avoir ras-le-bol: Means “to have had enough”.
Tu m’étonnes: Means “tell me something I don’t know”.
Ok that is a little better, but what about the most common French verbs?
Aller Means “to go” and is also used to describe the near future tense. Avoir Means “to have” and is used to express possession, relationships, physical and mental states, and many other contexts. Être Means “to be” and indicates the action or state of being. Pouvoir Means “can” or “to be able to”. It’s an irregular verb like prendre or faire, belonging to the third group. Savoir Used to indicate knowledge or understanding. It can also be used in many idiomatic expressions, such as “savoir-faire” (know-how). Mettre Means “to put” but can also be used for dropping someone off somewhere, laying the table, taking time to do something, laying a carpet. Prendre Means “to take”, including “to travel” on particular forms of transport. It is also used for having meals. Venir Means “to come”, and it can be easily used to conjugate the recent past or convey the idea that you have just done something recently. Vouloir Often translated as to want and to wish in English, as its main usage is to express desires and wishes.
I want to read more about verbs in French but it is too late and I need to go to bed.
After trying out the first two AGT (ATHLETIC TRUTH GROUP) Zero workouts from the Knees Over Toes guy, I’m feeling very hopeful. The kinds of exercises we are doing legitimately make the knee feel stronger and more flexible and like it was worked out in the right ways.
The main issue is inflammation. After a few days of non-stop traveling, weeks of stress and sleep deprivation, and a workout that left my knees shaking, it’s no wonder I felt extremely inflamed and depleted afterward, the thing I always worry about when I work out.
Luckily, I talked to my coach today about feeling like I shouldn’t work during depletion even though work sometimes makes me feel stronger and more energetic. I finally have a sort of solution to depletion and inflammation. It’s a version of self-soothing that I like to call self-cuddling. I thought of it because sometimes I just wish my girlfriend was here so I could cuddle with her, but I can actually hold myself and freeze in soft comfy positions that I can then move and change. There are elements of stillness and comfort and delicious movement.
There is a sort of feeling that work is similar. That interesting and powerful work can be delicious movement and calmness can be holding myself and cuddling with myself.
All this is very similar to the dance practice I used to do all the time. Some self-massage, holding myself in comforting poses, and fast spinning clearing movements.
A short test of this yields amazing results. I felt the inflammation moving and melting. My system fluid and de-stagnated.
This idea of finding the same type of gameplay in a pro or radiant player was really interesting, and so I decided to take it into my next vod review.
My vod:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05HsudTzvQ
Main takeaways:
I’m mad about getting one tapped, but that actually happens at all ranks, Valorant is a quick time to kill game
Controllers don’t smoke as quickly as I do, and they often use them selfishly (smoking mid if they play mid to establish control over the parts they want to take control over)
The smoke on B site creates a wall from pushing onto site, I guess I didn’t know what kinds of smokes would be useful
In terms of playing around smokes, they move quite slowly in and out of smokes
Generally play wide and out in the open for better angle advantage, I play scared and close to the wall
It’s not Miyagi do the method. It’s not movement-based aiming. Its not feeling out the timing. It’s not the last bullet method.
It’s a combination of EVERYTHING I’ve learned into a more simple mindset – catch them on your crosshair.
This method works if you are lagging, on low FPS, can’t hear anything and have a bad mental state.
Believe me, last night I was playing on my laptop with low FPS (sub 60) and terrible audio (laptop speakers) and not the best mental (unhappy, nervous and angry) and I still used it to drop tons of headshots.
I outlined the mentality in my earlier post about the “last bullet” exersise, but I’ll break it down again.
Start out by holding a tight angle, and waiting for them to walk into your crosshair
Get the feeling of “catching them” like you would catch a ball, adapt to their movement naturally, and try to click when you catch them on your crosshair
After you feel comfortable with that, try to “catch” people while pushing them aggressively, this requires you to intuitively feel where they might be before swinging. Don’t swing until you are ready. This is an intuitive way to “pre-aim” as we like to say.
When you are warmed up, go into a real match. Go on intuition on whether it is easier to catch them walking into your crosshair or if you need to catch them while peeking out at them. There is usually an option that helps you isolate more kills.
I saw an ad on Facebook. It was talking about making money as an introvert and making money without giving up your inner peace.
I immediately signed up. It was about 20 dollars.
Now I have done a bunch of the exercises for the prework of the challenge and here are my reflections.
Some major questions that I have right now:
What am I willing to give up and how will I go about giving it up?
How do I live my values every day in a way that is in flow and not forced or mechanical?
I have some initial ideas.
First, I was thinking originally about what I wanted to give up in terms of things like YouTube, or socializing. But recently it made a lot more sense for me to think about time. Specifically, I wanted to dedicate my entire morning to succeeding at these goals.
From the time I wake up, I usually am doing what JT Franco calls “buffalo brain” (the idea of being one of the herd that moves without thinking). I listen to audiobooks, and watch YouTube videos. I don’t eat breakfast or drink water. I keep the blinds closed. I feel awful and I don’t feel the feelings.
Someone once said (might be Melinda Gates) that the first few hours of the day are the most important because they set the stage for the entire day to come. If I want to give up anything, I want to give up my mornings to getting up, drinking water, feeling my body, and going downstairs into the lounge to write on my blog and work on achieving my dreams.
Middle of the day has to be reserved for work and for talking to my girlfriend. End of the day has to be reserved for me time. Being alone, taking time, creating art, and letting the magic of nighttime take over.
This is what I’m thinking roughly:
7/8 AM – 9/10 AM: Dedicated to living the magical life
9/10 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to doing the impossible at work
12 PM – 1/2 PM: Lunch, meditation
1/2 PM – 5 PM: Work, performing at the highest levels
5 PM – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
During the weekend, work will be removed, leaving more time for dedication to my magical life. I think it will look something like this:
7/8 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to living the magical life
12pm – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
With this balance, it seems that my breakdown is this:
Weekday
1-3 hours per day on living magical life
5-7 hours of work
4 hours of alone-time/play
2 hours of miscellaneous time
Weekend
4-5 hours per day on living magical life
4 hours of alone-time/play
7 hours of miscellaneous time
I suspect, I will have to do careful planning during the weekend, in order to perform at the absolute highest levels of work and potentially spend less time there.
In terms of living out my beliefs of empathy, intuition/following feelings, creativity/imagination, and honesty. I’m not entirely sure what actions I need to take to feel that I am in congruence with my values.
My main thought right now is about taking risks, breathing through difficult emotions and sensations, and following connection theory.
