Valorant 39: Mind Training (PreGame)

Byjack June 15, 2023

Today we are going back to the Valorant Challenge but from a different perspective.

I strongly felt that the one time when I didn’t feel stressed at all, but instead felt the timings of the enemy and where they could be, and how I could systematically take them apart, I was playing Valorant at a significantly higher level.

Some thoughts for today:

Closing eyes to mental reset
Playing music to hype up
Breathing and letting the energy carry the action

Most of all, I will endeavor to feel out the enemy’s position and figure out how I can take the map piece by piece with util, teamwork and aim diff.

I will create another post after the game to review how that went.

Gaming | Valorant

Valorant 21: Aim Mechanics

Byjack October 15, 2022October 16, 2022

I’ve narrowed down core aiming principals to a couple of things:

General Aim: Pointing your body toward your target
Survivability: strafe peeking (strafe out, prediction of enemy location, hit strafe and shoot at the same time as seeing enemy)
Preaiming: crosshair placement
Flicking: loose mouse hand + some general aim mechanics

Overall, I think the most important technique is just having the mindset of pointing to your body toward your target (what I’m starting to call general aim since it gets you in the general vicinity of your target). This helps massively with confidence, with holding angles, and with tracking and flicking.

Second most important is probably a combination of a loose mousehand and good crosshair placement as this allows you to hit most targets while also being ready for a flick. This pairs with a strong understanding of how to slice a pie and clear a site.

Finally, some sort of strafing is important as it increases survivability by a lot.

There are a couple more aiming techniques that I feel are significantly less important as they are more niche. These will help you in deathmatch and higher elos but are not part of core aim:

Strafe shooting: general ability to track and strafe a moving target, paying attention to crosshair
Spray control: the ability to crouch spray and spray adjust
Angle holding: predicting how close or wide a peek will be

Strafe shooting is probably the most important as it is good for long range fights as movement based aiming is a lot more effective on those fights.

Spray control is pretty niche to close range gun fights and fighting multiple enemies.

Angle holding is very important but general aim and strafe clearing are more key to holding angles.

Gaming | Valorant

Valorant 4: Thoughts While I’m On Break

Byjack October 14, 2021December 2, 2021

I’ve been traveling for the past two weeks and haven’t been able to play any Valorant, but today I was thinking about some of the things I wanna try.

I saw this amazing video by scream (a professional EU valorant player known for his aim).

Some major takeaways:

Warm up wrists
Practice jett knives in practice range
Practice not only one tapping but also burst spraying
Should take longer with Vandal, spray burst with phantom
Crosshair placement is key for getting kills, be ready for a wide swing or a small jiggle depending on the situation
Always look to play off of your team, solo carrying is VERY hard even for pros, Valorant is a combo game

Other things I’ve been thinking to try:

I need to get used to all sorts of movement, play around with it like I do with dance
I should aim with movement a lot more

In general, I feel like I need to apply what I learned from dance – keep feeling out the things that feel uncomfortable. Try different ways to do the same thing. Look for something that feels good. Understand my body as well as just the ingame mechanics.

Gaming | Uncategorized | Valorant

Valorant 38: Day 1 – Apas – 6/3/23

Byjack June 4, 2023June 15, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHsBpSit-kc&t=382s&ab_channel=valorantpromatches

I didn’t really know how to copy the apas style, but I noticed that he wide peeked a lot.

I also used the ideas earlier about hyping myself up and it seemed to work.

We didn’t win this game but I was incredibly aggressive and confident in my peeks. I entried with the classic and was not afraid to push very aggressively, buying my team space.

In this game I started feeling frustrated with my team and that I was starting to overheat and not aim as properly.

After running a deathmatch and focusing on taking a second to aim, and to fully face the enemy, looking for the kill, I had this game.

I felt this was by far the most successful, with aggressive peeking but also utilizing util and gamesense to the fullest.

My sense is that hyping myself up is probably the biggest strategy for me, with some additional adjustments afterwards for aim technique.

Health | Physical Health

Fitness Challenge 1: Initial Thoughts

Byjack May 12, 2023May 12, 2023

Today I had a couple observations after feeling very depleted and inflamed with allergies:

Breathing fully and deeply while feeling the sensations helped move the chi
Clockwise massage on my stomach really helped the chi flow a lot
Same direction with palms facing back on the lower spine to tailbone also very helpful
Clockwise rubbing of the solar plexus also really helpful
Hanging was a nice resting position
Eating slow wasn’t the best method
Prefer to eat moderate speed for a small amount at a time, chewing in a bigger motion and smelling and tasting the food with small breaks in between bites and some stomach massage

I want to continue to push myself and work on finding good resting positions and strategies to recover.

I also need to work on setting a baseline and measurements to track progress.

Get a scale to weigh myself
Get a heart rate monitor, smartwatch or fitness band to monitor vitals
Need to come up with a standard lighting to take a photo

UNIT ONE, Week 1: Regen from tiring out (no matter how tired, wired or drained) lasts 7 days

Today is day 1, end of Week 1 is May 18th.

Health | Physical Health

Knee Strength 8: Strength Side

Byjack February 25, 2024

I’ve been feeling the need to add much more intensity to my knee workouts but I don’t know what. I sought out some outside help from one of my favorite youtube channels that I discovered: Strength Side.

1. Foam Roll Lateral Leg, 2-4 min. each leg
2. Single Leg Hinge Stretch, 20 sec. hold x 3
3. Knee Circles, 20 each direction
4. Poloquin/Peterson Step Up, 15-20 (beginner) or 8-15 reps (full range)
5. Single Leg Calf Raise, 10-15 each leg
6. Sidelying Leg Lift, 8-12 reps with 6 sec pause at top
7. Split Squat, 8-12 reps, pause 5-10 sec on last rep before knee touches ground
8. Squat to Seiza, 2-6 reps *only if knees feel healthy

Hamstring Leg Curl, 5-10 reps

I also found a free version of Knees Over Toes:

Business | Strategy

Profit in Peace 7: Day Three

Byjack December 6, 2023December 9, 2023

I didn’t do the powermoves yesterday. Dunno how I’m already so burned out.

Dunno how to find my power or center again.

This is very interesting for me, like the logistics portion for me.

Thoughts and questions today:

Alibaba is not a marketplace, its a directory of manufacturers
You can send them an RFQ and they can produce your product
Certification used to make something eco friendly
Click hearts on suppliers that look good > Favorites > Select all > Contact Supplier

High quality images
Talk about benefits not features
Use canva for images

Turn off on keywords that are not delivering, put more money into the keywords that are delivering
20-30 per hour for sourcing agent
about 400 for each project

Gaming | Valorant