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Valorant 4: Thoughts While I’m On Break

Byjack

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.

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Valorant 28: How to Get the Feeling for Something

Byjack

This might fall into my Valorant challenge but it goes much deeper.

I started trying to find a way to multitask in Valorant, which led me to thinking about confidence. This led me down a whole path where I was trying to understand how to focus on the game and get into the game, and get into flow.

I finally arrived at a technique that looks something like this:

  1. See the enemy
  2. Imagine their head getting shot
  3. Aim
  4. Shoot

This works for drills, deathmatch anything. The point is that you visualize the outcome first, then take some action (aiming). You don’t immediately aim, you don’t shoot as soon as you visualize.

This does a couple of things:

  • Visualizing hitting the headshot removes anxiety because in my head I can hit the shot
  • Visualization makes me focus on one target and give it my full attention
  • Aiming makes sure I actually hit the shot

On top of this, I can do anything to aim, I can use my movement to aim, I can center my screen, I can do literally anything, the important part is to visualize the headshot before it happens.

In a very interesting turn of events, I’ve actually found this super helpful in music too.

Oftentimes my singing is muddy and unclear. I’ve done something similiar:

  1. Chop the notes into shorter more enunciated syllables
  2. Savor and taste each note
  3. Imagine how I want the note to taste

This does something similar where I am more aware of each note and can sing it with more intention and emotion. I don’t skip ahead too fast, I focus on each word as it comes.

It seems that a combination of a focus on a small step, and visualization helps bring me into the present moment.

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Valorant 38: Day 1 – Apas – 6/3/23

Byjack
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.

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Valorant 5: Trying to Do Movement Based Aiming

Byjack

I’m back from two weeks of traveling and I finally tried it. Movement-based aiming.

It was quite a challenge let me tell you!

Game 1-3: Competitive Games on My Smurf (Comps)

Comp 1: Horrible, terrible no good very bad game. Practiced clutching since the Cypher was completely being annoying, toxic, and throwing (trying to sabotage our team). Was fuming by the end.

Comp 2: Much better team, still missing everything and being horrible.

Comp 3: Finally got a nice team and was able to focus on movement-based aiming.

Comp 4: Bad aiming. Focused on Sova utility. Hit someone with the ult using pure gamesense. 

Main Takeaways

  • I need to follow my previous concept of feeling out the unknown parts of aiming in a controlled setting (deathmatch or shooting range)
  • I’m much worse than before break, probably Bronze 1-2 level.
Game 1-3: Deathmatch Practice (DM)

DM 1: After practicing in the range, I realize that moving only the movement keys to aim is too hard. I need to do a little micro-adjusting with my mouse. I feel like I need to be looser about my mouse movement, when I intuitively move it in the opposite of my movement, I get some nasty headshots. Mostly I get destroyed.

DM 2: Still getting destroyed. I start to understand that movement-based aiming is basically what the Miyagi Do method is teaching.

DM 3: I realized that I need to make sure it’s not just about the movement and feeling that out. Aiming is about TIMING. I spend the entire deathmatch feeling out timing and it starts to be more clear. I am successfully about to “feel out” the aiming on a deep intuitive level like art or dance. 

Main Takeaways

  • I need to constantly move. Movement is something I will also need to practice getting a feeling for.
  • The movement of the crosshair should be with movement, smooth and intuitive.
  • You need to feel the mouse-hand connection, your posture, and your sensitivity. Shift to what feels good, shift to what feels clear and controlled.
  • Timing is absolutely key. Dying is not a problem. Waiting for the right moment is much more important. If you are getting killed first, that’s to be expected for good timing. Your timing will naturally tighten and your time to kill will go down without feeling rushed, out of control, or unclear.

I’m soooo happy!!!

I’m starting to “feel out” aiming just like I feel out drawings, dance and sales processes.

Here are the main takeways:

  • The main goal of practice sound is able to “Feel Out” and play with the mouse to crosshair connection, how to smoothly track, strafe your crosshair while moving, and shooting moving things. Play around with it, feel it out.
  • The Miyagi Do method is the main method you use to practice. However, you don’t just feel out the movement. You also feel out the timing. This is key.
  • I tend to rush and even if I get a kill, it doesn’t feel natural, in control, and comfortable. Dying is always preferable to bad timing. Since timing will get tighter, spamming will make sure you never improve.
  • The next things I need to feel out are:
    • Gun spray control
    •  Gamesense
      • watching the minimap
      • understanding timing
      • guessing what they will do next
      • Isolating 1v1s, only peeking as much as needed
      • Switching between primary and sidearms
    • Movement
      • How to jiggle and peek safety
      • How to get on top of things
      • When to pull out your knife
      • Agent movement abilities
    • Ability usage
      • Lineups
      • Timing and combos

I’m extremely confident that this method will NOT ONLY make you a monster after warming up, but every warmup will make you internally better at aiming (to the point that you will need to warm up less and less to have insane aim).

Core Wounds 9

Byjack

I kind of dropped the ball on these because I don’t know if I feel like challenging my core wounds, but I think I need to keep going for the 21 days at least. It is interesting because you are supposed to focus on one core wound. I don’t know which one I would focus on, but maybe if I just keep going there is one that I will want to focus on.

I was talking to a friend about how it is hard to work on yourself sometimes. What I told her is that it is sometimes scary to think about who you might change into, but I think there is another reason. Sometimes it is hard to work on yourself because in order to work on yourself you first need to look at yourself in the mirror and face who you are, and that isn’t easy to do.

I think a big core wound or belief is that there is something wrong with me, that no one will actually like me if they know who I really am, that I’m weak and creepy and unattractive.

She Said I Made Her Day

Walking up to her out of the blue

On the streets of new york city

On the college campus

They both told me

I made their day

The next girl

Will think you are the one

She told me

And when I asked the girl

Lost in her own world

In a song she just found

Whether or not she thought I was attractive

She said yes

I felt she wanted to say more

But was too shy

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Profit in Peace 20: Boundaries

Byjack

I was thinking today about boundaries and needs, and how I’m starting to work on recognizing them. I’ll add a new one to the list:

  1. Honesty – truth is important
  2. Empathy – emotions are important
  3. Respect – it is important to be valued and value others
  4. Time – control over your time and space
  5. Possibility – belief anything is possible
  6. Health – lifestyle is important

Needs are interesting, because I think boundaries are used to protect needs. I’m not entirely sure whether or not these are needs or boundaries. I also don’t know if they are values. In doing a little more research it seems that some people would consider these values, not needs. Maybe I should switch up my terminology.

In any case, health is a value that I recently added to incorporate my dedication to sleep, digestion, and exercise all in the service of feeling happy, strong, and energetic (for the long run).

I also recently thought about possibility. The most often neglected of all my values/needs but I feel equally important. I realized recently that possibility is what drives solutions. Boundaries are important, but communicating them, enforcing them, often requires compromise and communication. And what helps with that is the feeling of possibility.

Recently, I was feeling resentful of my parents not wanting me to go to a social gathering with friends. I felt it was violating my boundary around health (mental health), empathy (where they would value my emotions) and honesty (I did not feel like I could be honest about any of this).

However, I didn’t know what to do because I respect their boundaries around health might be a bit different from mine. Being older and frailer, they were more worried about my health and their own. I know that I cannot protect them from getting sick, but I felt increasingly stressed.

The possibility value came into play when I thought about how anything is possible. I started to think about how I could meet my need for emotional health in different ways, for example, talking more to my friends and meeting more of them (in a more one on one setting) that would potentially reduce and control the risk to my parents. At the same time I still see possibilities in meeting up with my friends working out as possibility is always there.

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Jiujitsu Journey Month 1: Exploration

Byjack

Ok, so I just had a revelation.

I’ve been putting off making this post for the longest time because I just didn’t know what I wanted my goal and focus for this challenge to be.

I knew generally a couple of things:

  • I knew I wanted to be more dangerous
  • I wanted to get stronger
  • I wanted to learn technique that could be a basis for MMA and grappling
  • I wanted to feel motivated to work out again

But I had no idea of specifically what I wanted and how I wanted to get there.

But then it hit me. I don’t need to know. This is an experiment. I’m not setting a goal and see how close I get to it. I’m trying jiujitsu for a month and seeing how it will affect me. Along the lines of my goals:

  • I want to see how it affects my fighting ability and mindset
  • I want to see how it affects my body
  • I want to see what concepts and techniques I grasped
  • I want to see how it affects my relationship to exercise

Let’s go on a journey! That is why I renamed it Jiujitsu journey instead of jiujitsu challenge.