Going with the Flow

If there's one thing I've learned when it comes to navigating life, you really do have to go with the flow. Well, to an extent. It's important to be firm in your direction, and adaptive in your route along the way. Going with the flow though, is something that I haven't really done in a very long time. It's proven to be my biggest obstacle in a lot of ways, although I can only see that now as I'm looking back.

To anyone caring enough to read this article, it's no secret that I've been on my way out of competitive gaming for a while now. Too long in fact. Regardless, I've made the best of it whenever I could and made the decision to continue to do so as long as I'm still playing. In a large sense, I don't have the same passion or drive for gaming as I used to. It's naturally faded and I believe that's a good thing. I look forward to the day when I can walk away from Melee completely and move on to things that excite me far more.

I'm well on my way, but I've learned not to count my eggs before they hatch. I am still here after all, and the Melee scene around the world is greater than it's ever been, including in my own region where new challenges await and potential is rife. I don't know how long I'm going to be active and the last thing I want to do is put a time frame on it. Externally, while I can still afford to be with my time and focus.

Internally though, until I'm satisfied.

It's fun going to tournaments for a variety of reasons, and I've been doing that throughout the summer. Up until recently though I haven't been motivated to do anything other than attend tournaments and compete as strong as I can while I'm there. Once again I don't have the same level of blind passion as I did years ago.

Logically though, everything around me says that I have all the opportunities in the world to make the best of this path I chose so long ago. This post is basically saying that from now until it's time to walk away, I'll be giving it my all.

Rewind to a few months ago and there's no way I'd be able to make this post. I wasn't feeling consistent enough mentally and emotionally. I wasn't focused enough, I wasn't strong enough. It's easy when you're younger and you have blind passion to just dive into something fully, and enter a zone where nothing else matters. Life's caught up to me though, circumstances are different and a lot of factors had to be aligned both internally and externally for me to be able to feel that something like this is the right move. Otherwise, I'd be in and out like I have been for a while now.

So again for anyone that cares enough to be reading this, I'm just going to quickly break down where this is coming from and what to expect. I've had to dig to find new motivations that excite me enough to stick, new potentials rewarding enough to chase.

The following is an outline of all of my motivations.

Realize my vision of Marth/Fox at the highest level

I used to struggle in a very common situation: What character do I choose, and when? Most of us have been there in our careers so I'm sure you can relate. I made the decision years ago to switch between Marth and Fox based solely on how I'm feeling at the moment. The downside technically is that I have to keep both characters sharp and ready to perform at any given moment. The benefit is that I never stress at all over which character I should choose and that's a huge advantage for me. I'll take that all day, especially because I have stupid amounts of fun with both characters.

Another thing that helped me make this decision was that it's just optimal for my personality, the way I think and feel. I like variety, I like creativity and spontaneity. Being able to switch things up based on how I'm feeling keeps me more engaged and in turn keeps me fresher. These ideas were the basis that formed my vision for dual maining at the highest possible level.

I want to look back at my career and see me doing crazy stuff with both characters. These days motivation is harder for me to come by, I have to dig deeper. The thought of taking both characters to the highest level I can and approaching any and all situations with these two sets of tools excites me enough to want to put time into refining and modernizing my play.

Keep the Upstate Crown

These goals are in no order and I don't want it to seem like this is the second most important goal or anything like that. It's not, but it's an important goal nonetheless. I'm not even going to flush this one out that much because it's just self explanatory and kind of a given. Competition is fiercer than ever, try to beat everyone and remain the best, etc. I'm working on going to bed earlier and waking up earlier so that I can attend as many Upstate tournaments as consistently as possible. Very important goal to me, but not as important as the next.

Travel OOS as much as possible/Stream Consistently

I want to be there. I want to be a part of what this game has grown to become, and all that it has to offer. With Ferris from Ohio and IBDW always being down to travel, I'm looking to hit up as many out of state tournaments as possible. There's only one way I'll be able to do this though, and that's streaming.

I've always looked at the idea of streaming as something I'd never do. I'm in it to compete, not sit around at home and have people watch me. What am I doing though? I'm thinking back to when I was seventeen just starting my career and thinking to myself, "If streaming were as big back then I WOULDA HAD A BLAST!" It makes no sense why I'm not streaming. My friend let me hold his computer which is very new and running great. Ferris is going to hook me up with his streaming equipment and from that point it's game on. I'll have my apartment open most nights to people who want to come through and train on stream, you just gotta hit me up in advance and make plans of course.

Guys I'm going to be completely honest as well, I'm going to stream because it's necessary financially. I've always looked down on the idea of playing Smash for money. I promised myself when I was seventeen that I would never play for money. I've kept that mentality intact though and I can say that it's so ingrained in me, money will never be my main motivating factor. As the community has changed though and as I've grown as well, I've come to accept that I have to expand what's possible. I can't be limited in stubborn in how I approach my goals. Where I'm at currently in life, I won't be able to travel unless over time, I can use streaming as a way to get me out of state. I'll explain.

Right now I have no job and no source of income. I have other endeavors going on right now in life, and getting a job at this point would only be going backwards. It makes no sense whatsoever and is a step in the WRONG direction. I have my brother who's moved in with me and is an amazing support who is helping me right now financially. I'm not in any trouble of not being able to live or anything like that per say, but I just don't have any money of my own to really do much of anything.

I don't ever rely on money from tournaments, because you never know when you're not going to place or make any. I consider tournament money extra money. If I make money at tournaments from here on out, that's amazing and I'm going to use that money wisely. There's a chance some of it COULD go to travelling, although in the long run I'd prefer it didn't since my brother is helping me out after all, and I also have other expenses outside of Smash that are extremely important.

So I have this idea of trying to automate streaming and travelling. The more I travel OOS, the more of a dent I can end up making in the scene. Hopefully over time I can bring more viewers to my stream. The goal of my stream is to give value to anyone who's watching. I'm going to be completely new to this, but my single focus and goal of streaming will be to create value for people and make it worth their time always. If there's not much going on in terms of viewership or requests or w/e, I'll be practicing, trying to take my game to another level, etc. At the minimum or I should say by default, I want to at least let people see how I train, what I'll be doing to take my game to the highest level, etc. At any point in time though I'm down for requests, I'm down to answer questions, tell stories, pretty much anything.

The goal is to be able to figure out a tournament that either people want me to go to or that I want to go to, figure out how I'm getting there, what it will cost in its entirety, and then through streaming come as close as possible to reaching that goal financially. I'm not expecting this to explode immediately and I don't expect this process to be smooth or easy or anything like that. I kinda have an idea of what to expect, but I'm so new to this I'm in it to learn in the long run. I do know it's more than possible though and I've always encouraged everyone to go after whatever they want. I have people telling me every time I see them at tournaments, or on Facebook all the time that they want to see me compete OOS. I used to just laugh it off, but it's genuinely gotten to me, and I've received a level of support I never would have expected in my own region. To Hero, Stooby, Ferris, IBDW, Vino, JMook and a handful of others, thanks for making me feel like it'd be worth it to even attempt something like this. Seriously.

Hopefully when I look back at my career and the legacy I left, I'll be able to add in amazing moments and memories from my stream to the checklist. Anyone that knows a lot about streaming, has ideas, is interested in helping me, PLEASE lol. Your help will be so appreciated and I mean that.

And make no mistake, for all the excitement and optimism that I'll be bringing to the table, I'm only looking to bring destruction to the Melee scene. There are many factors and things that I'm hoping I'll get out of this journey, but that doesn't change the fact that I'll be going in with a laser like focus to compete at the highest level I'm capable of...all in the name of Upstate.

Prepare, compete, and navigate through the rest of my career as professionally as possible

I was all about being a pro gamer when I was younger. I bought a book called, "Paid to Play: An insider's guide to the video game industry" and even let M2K borrow it when we were friends way back when. (Never got it back lol, ain't no thang) Everyone laughed at me, both in and out of the community. For many years this kinda defined my mental state, and my view of life. It seemed like everyone wanted me to fail, and didn't believe it was possible at all.

I'm far past the point of caring about any of this, and I'm not looking to avenge my younger self or anything like that. I'm not even looking to become a professional gamer. I have no thoughts or visions or dreams of anything like that. But I owe it to myself to compete as professionally as possible, and that includes preparation and how I navigate through the rest of my career. For all the dreams I had, and all the time and energy I spent stressing about them, it's the least I can do for myself.

I'm not going to go into detail on this one, because I believe the next part of the Ruthlessly Perfect is going to be on preparation. I'm going to make preparation a focus, and document it all so I can put it out there for everyone.

Get my permanent teams partner back, and enjoy the rest of this ride with him

When I thought I was going to be done with Melee permanently, I decided to team with other people, mainly Manalord. However, I miss teaming with Asylum and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him back in the game consistently, and team together permanently from here on out. I have the most fun teaming with Asylum and I just miss it so much. Teams is just so fun with him and adds so much value to the tournament experience for me. I picture us training the night before every tournament, just enjoying the process and then giving it our all whether it's locally or out of state. I'm not teaming with anyone else ever again as long as Tom can make it to tournaments. Everyone do me a favor if you can and shoot AsylumSmash a message on Facebook. Tell him he's got to get these tournaments again, and the other half of Team "WIN AT ALL COSTS" is ready to wreak as much havoc as possible. Tom's a mysterious one and it's hard to get a hold of him, but I think a lot of messages in his inbox from different peeps will do the trick. Hopefully at least.

It's all about the Flow

This may seem like a lot, but it doesn't feel so much like it. These are the right moves to make for all the right reasons. This all came from within, over time, as my circumstances changed and my mind has grown. There's no reason for me to not do any of this now that the gears have shifted. The only disclaimer I have is that I have no idea when my I'll be done with this game, and I don't want to pretend like I do. At the minimum, I feel I'll still be going hard until the new year. A lot of this comes down to how beasty I can get my stream as well. If I end up making enough money to travel, I'm travelling. If I do well and people wanna see me keep playing, we'll go from there at that point.

WARNING: I tested the new streaming setup Ferriswheel gave me, and it works perfectly smooth with no issues. After about a half hour the name for the stream came to me based on how things were going, the overall dynamics of the stream amongst other things.

Check it at https://www.twitch.tv/jesiahevolve