Monday
Feb212011
Street Fighter Legend Jeff Schaefer On The Human Potential
BY 
Aris ON Monday, February 21, 2011 at 9:43PM
Aris ON Monday, February 21, 2011 at 9:43PM 
Though I don't always agree with everything he says, I personally think Jeff Schaefer is one of the smartest and most inspirational speakers in the fighting game community. All his videos are worth checking out if you are interested in mentally improving your game. Check out his other videos HERE.
Reader Comments (7)
A very interesting video with valid points and arguments that could be applied to everything, just like Jeff mentioned.
The "don't think about the player, think about the character" argument seems valid to a certain point, but not taking advantage of the player knowledge you have of your opponent is just contraproductive. Playing against a player which you know can't break throws or whatever, if you ignore this fact you're bascially avoiding an open wound. I do realise he's talking about not getting intimated, but this is the wrong way to go about it. I also realise this is SF, where different skills and ways to thinks hill help you more or less compared to Tekken.
I can't speak about SF but Tekken at the higher levels is more about your opponent than the character.
If you know you'll play Knee in a tournament, use everything you know about this player to your advantage, if you're nervous, turn this feeling into excitement or whatever emotion brings out the best in your play. Make sure to really study your opponents beforehand and have a ready default strategy to fall back on when you're not sure on what to do (preferably several). This was mentioned by Jeff but only regarding vs the character.
Confidence comes from seeing a path to victory, not a delusion like "it's only Bryan". Go in with that mindset against Knee and you'll techroll into jet upers, walk into u+4,s and whiff a bunch of stuff a normal Bryan wouldn't be able to avoid and so on without getting any of the advantages a potential anti-Knee strategy would offer.
Humans are proned to develop patterns in a system that allows it to. And Tekken does this due to it's complexity. Take advantage of this. The point about not putting your opponent on a pedistal is completely valid though but saying you shouldn't focus or even think about the player but the character is misleading, at least in Tekken's case.
With all that said, still a great video, more of this please! ^^
@Maxi Milian taking anti-player strategies may be counterproductive in itself. The whole element of sandbagging would not only surprise but make them immediately have to rethink their anti-strategy, during gameplay.
imo its true that thinking only about the character is the more advantageous mindset. what you said about confidence is true, Confidence comes from knowledge, not ignorance. place the limits on the characters, not the players - if bryan has a tech trap, respect it regardless whether you think your opp can taunt JU or not. so many videos where player continually tech and have repeatedly been JU'd (consecutively even) not because they dont know about it but because they hope the opp cant do it or will fuck up. its best to always overestimate your plans, strategies and character matchups, that way when you play you can adjust your game lower to the player, rather than vice versa.
the main reason why tekken players would prefer anti-player strats rather than anti-character strats would be that we dont have the tools to practice against Just the character, ie. a record function. otherwise we would be able to test the true potential of any character, and not name it the "Knee-factor" or whatever
y'all ain't gettin' Jeff's point...refer to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-yKEeh70R8&feature=related
@4:00
basically if you take the player out of the equation completely, it'll be like, for example, vs. Knee u would be thinking "OK Bryan's doing this a lot in this situation so I'll just do this to counter it..." versus "OK Knee's doing this a lot...(same stuff)"
Just the fact that you are even THINKING of Knee in the equation automatically will subconsciously intimidate you. Take the player COMPLETELY out of the equation. That's what Jeff is saying. Great advice.
Certainly it's a viable mindset for top level play. It's a good, competitive philosophy. But I don't think that he was trying to say that it's the only option, rather something that can be augmented in to an already established fighting mindset.
Different players have different ways of playing the same character, but what he said is a great mentality.
Really enjoyable watch. I like his philosophy, does make sense. Only thing I would bother arguing, is that you need to recognise your opponent, for any known patterns or habits in play you could punish or manipulate, being able to anticipate certain styles of play, and overall weak points.
In the other hand, I would agree, that if you're playing someone with a rep, most of the time you're gonna shit yourself and chances of losing are usually higher, NOT necessarily because of the player, but because of the fear you inject in yourself. You panic, forcing you to lose composure, losing your strats, dropping combos, incorrect punishment, random panic button moves etc. I would say, just take away any negativity, think you ARE gonna win. Yeah, he is so and so, but just a person, people lose, and this fucker is losing today! Ima gain my rep today!
Also, think it was bought up on an ATP Podcast, some players thrive and shine in moments like this. Embrace it and play better because of the rush from playing 'hard' competition. Personally, I've found I play well under pressure, when losing 2 rounds to 0, I make comebacks more often than not, because I think "Fuck, I'm gonna lose, I can't lose like this. I've gotta atleast make it to 2 - 2. I'm NOT going down like this". My fear of losing and being made to look a dick drives me lol.
I feel that if you're playing a top name, chances are he will underestimate you to an extent until he realises how good you are. You have more to prove than he does. You'll be more hungry for the W than him, you will be trying really hard, where atleast at first, he wont be. Use that starting point to your advantage. You could even do a few random launchers on the first round and hope for the best. This will help put the seed in his head, to say that you're a scrub, then comes the next round, even if you did lose the last, you are now at a mental advantage. This point could be argued, but IMO it's worth a shot, where there's great risk, there's great reward.
People have individual triggers, which enable them to play closer to their full potential. Not everyone's the same, so points on mental game can be argued. All that said, words of wizdom from a heavy weight are much more valuable LOL :P.
Dude, y'all still ain't getting it...you're reading into Jeff's words too LITERALLY. By playing the character, he also means the opponent. BUT, the difference is he just takes the NAME out of the equation. "I'm playing against Bryan and I notice this Bryan has a hard time breaking 2 throws" versus "I'm playing against Knee and I notice he has a hard time breaking 2 throws."
You're playing against the opponent in both. But, you are acknowledging the opponent as a human entity in the 2nd process and subconsciously giving the opponent the advantage of unpredictability, which will eat away at your confidence. This is giving credit where credit shouldn't be given.