Question Does Anyone Use Breathing Techniques While Playing?

[WannabePlayer]

Title pretty much says it all. Before performers perform, they breathe, and continue to take even breaths as much as they can throughout their performance. Before martial artists do pretty much anything, they breathe, and take in and let out breaths depending on the way they move. Does anyone do this while playing Mortal Kombat, or any fighting game for that matter?

I try to do it to sort of calm me down and prevent me from doing anything rash, but honestly, the moment that loading screen is over, my even breaths are gone and I'm breathing with my hypertension. So, does anyone here ever breathe through their matches? Talk about it. How you got good at it, how it affects your gameplay, etc.

 

[EGP Wonder_Chef]

I was actually thinking about this earlier. I'm curious if anybody does either.

 

[Qwark28]

i never breathe fast, whenever im trying to win im concentracted and breathe slowly be default.

 

[McNasty]

I have a rule that if I drop a match in tourney to ALWAYS go to character select take a breath or two think it over focus and continue.

 

[Johnny2d]

My last tourney, I played great in a round, absolutely crushed, then after the round I almost blacked out when I realized I wasnt breathing the entire time. I spent the next round trying not to feint and lost all composure. Ended up losing. My tourney nerves absolutely obliterate me lol.

Sent from M-Class Star Freighter USCSS Nostromo

 

[kanaida]

Play with a towel covering life bars for a while. Ranked matches. Do this enough and you'll keep your cool. Also you know those uncomfortable silence times where you flinch, instead stay ducking and practice counters. You can control the rate of the match by doing the opposite thing that your opponent expects. Not sure if there is a no life bar code... Think it might be 404 404.
The other thing is play with self handicaps, like no big combos, or breakers etc... It will make you feel confidence and calmness as you can take more opponents without certain powers. After 6 months I don't get that feeling except for the first round while my brain speeds up.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Hobozzzx]

If I'm playing online and I lose a round that I KNOW I should have won (i.e. being uppercutted out of EVERYTHING), then between rounds I'll start taking deep breaths just to prevent/surpress any rage that may be building. Also helps be clear my head so I can actually think and adjust to my opponent.

 

[Justice]

I do because I'm horribly nervous and it helps take the edge off. After my first tourney win, I damn near puked I was so anxious

 

[TheSpore]

Now this is gonna sound kinda crazy(or not), but if your is issue your breathing and keeping calm under pressure, this what I have done to help it. My wife got me into to doing this recently, I started to listen to music and well it didn't work at first, turns out the soft sweet sounds of Slipknot, Otep, and Lamb of God don't exactly work, no the key is start practicing while listening to classical music and be sure your using head phones to drown out your surroundings. I started jaming out to well Beetoven and Mozart while practiciing on my own. It has forced me to slow down and think rather than react. It calms you to point where you can focus better. Yeah it sounds weird your listening to classical music while playing Mortal Kombat, but it strangely works. It will help teach you discipline, because if you practice enough like this you will begin to unconciously do it all the time you play.

The whole covering your life bars up while you play, though is a valid idea, but seeing the life bars is an integral part to strategy, the life bar will help one understand when you need to use what attack or when is the right time maybe use that x-ray move, the other concept set ground rules like not using X-rays or combos is good for teaching one self a specific skill, but can cause one to grow some nasty playing habits. Lastly one thing you can do to help your game is go into practice mode set the diffiiculty on expert and try just blocking and evading your opponent. Don't attack or anything play keep away for a long period of time, this will help to teach you how to watch and pay closer attenbtion to your opponent, then gradually move up to poking and so on and so forth.

Sorry for such a long post, this just how I run practice sessions, I try to make full best of my time because I typically don't get much time.

 

[kanaida]

The invisible life bars bars to me anyways take away the luxury of knowing if I'm at an advantage or not. Keeps my senses on alert whereas if normally toy with my food or be too conservative its a humbling of sorts. Another strange thing thats kinda funny, playing distracted on the phone I've played some incredible matches barely paying attention as well. Perfectly relaxed and disciplined like autopilot when you drive a car to work, there may be something to that. I know supposedly boxers attack and react with muscle memory before their brain thinks about it when they are in great condition, which makes sense. Perhaps fighting while distracted by music or otherwise you can improve that. Its true about the classical or upbeat music, my girl plays much more relaxed on that. It affects her skill level quite a bit. If you compare it to when you first got your drivers license, we were all kinda jumpy but then we began trusting our senses unconditionally.

Are you a footsies player? Who do u main?

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TheSpore]

The invisible life bars bars to me anyways take away the luxury of knowing if I'm at an advantage or not. Keeps my senses on alert whereas if normally toy with my food or be too conservative its a humbling of sorts. Another strange thing thats kinda funny, playing distracted on the phone I've played some incredible matches barely paying attention as well. Perfectly relaxed and disciplined like autopilot when you drive a car to work, there may be something to that. I know supposedly boxers attack and react with muscle memory before their brain thinks about it when they are in great condition, which makes sense. Perhaps fighting while distracted by music or otherwise you can improve that. Its true about the classical or upbeat music, my girl plays much more relaxed on that. It affects her skill level quite a bit. If you compare it to when you first got your drivers license, we were all kinda jumpy but then we began trusting our senses unconditionally.

Are you a footsies player? Who do u main?

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

Well I guess I am a bit of a footsies kinda guy, I main Mileena, recently picked up on Freddy and now I'm starting to train with Sheeva, 3 characters that play way too differently between each other, mainly for the reason that stepping outside your comfort zone will force you to learn newer skills and grow less complacent. One thing the military taught me is that complacency is the devil, because when things don't go the way they normally do you freeze and act like a deer in the headlights.

Muscle memory works perfectly with execution BTW, another thing the militray taught me to do, by commiting all your character's moves to that, you will natuarally not think and just do. The reason healthy distraction works is because when you think about what your doing you wind up over thinking and then you are prone to an emotional response. You have to turn off that switch. This is typically why a police officer is able to draw his weapon, flip off the safety, aim, and fire without thinking. In that officer's situation there is no time to think, only time to react, if the emotions are going that officer is dead before the altercation began. You cannot let your emotions control your game, you have to control them. Don't get me wrong now I am no professional player, I am hoping to achieve that sort of status one day, but I am stil a bit scrubby on the edges, but I am doing what I have to do to polish those rough edges.

 

[Chongo]

Whenever I'm in a stressful position, I take a few seconds at the select screen to sit down, breathe, and think. I inhale through my nose, count to 5, then breathe out through the mouth. Then I usually think that overthinking and panicking will just make me lose. I usually just have it in my head to try my very best and leave nothing on the table.

 

[Justice]

Now this is gonna sound kinda crazy(or not), but if your is issue your breathing and keeping calm under pressure, this what I have done to help it. My wife got me into to doing this recently, I started to listen to music and well it didn't work at first, turns out the soft sweet sounds of Slipknot, Otep, and Lamb of God don't exactly work, no the key is start practicing while listening to classical music and be sure your using head phones to drown out your surroundings. I started jaming out to well Beetoven and Mozart while practiciing on my own. It has forced me to slow down and think rather than react. It calms you to point where you can focus better. Yeah it sounds weird your listening to classical music while playing Mortal Kombat, but it strangely works. It will help teach you discipline, because if you practice enough like this you will begin to unconciously do it all the time you play.

The whole covering your life bars up while you play, though is a valid idea, but seeing the life bars is an integral part to strategy, the life bar will help one understand when you need to use what attack or when is the right time maybe use that x-ray move, the other concept set ground rules like not using X-rays or combos is good for teaching one self a specific skill, but can cause one to grow some nasty playing habits. Lastly one thing you can do to help your game is go into practice mode set the diffiiculty on expert and try just blocking and evading your opponent. Don't attack or anything play keep away for a long period of time, this will help to teach you how to watch and pay closer attenbtion to your opponent, then gradually move up to poking and so on and so forth.

Sorry for such a long post, this just how I run practice sessions, I try to make full best of my time because I typically don't get much time.

I just had to tell this story.

Back in the day when I played CoD4 online, this one time theis buttmunch had his stereo on too loud and it was constantly playing in my headset. The funny thing was, I found out that night that the best music to "blow shit up" to was the peace-promoting sounds of raggae music. Tru story!

 

[kanaida]

very good points. One thing that helped me mentally quite a bit was realizing this:
If you loose, you gain experience and realize you didn't follow or have a good plan
If you win, you proved to yourself that your experience has given you discipline.
Either way you win something.

Also for all those people that make new xbl accounts to reset losses/wins or disconnect on people. Losses don't count towards rank anyways, only wins do

I think everyone has felt this at one point in time when you've elevated to another level (to yourself) while playing mk (if you play often). But if there was a belt ranking system, it would go something like this:

1) fundamentals and special moves (muscle memory)
2) combos (R&D and execution)
3) blocking (v.s high/low and other complicated looking attacks, knowing opponent attacks)
4) evasion (fighting without blocking)
5) not reacting the same way (breaking bad habits)
6) counter striking (knowing when to attack to cut off the enemy's attack)
7) capitalizing with as much damage as possible (what to counter with to make it really hurt)
8) reading opponents (what would he do? if I was him @ his skill level.)
9) luring opponents into traps (what would get a specific response based on what I read)
10) Being fully aware of spacing based on opponents
11) Close quarters efficiency vs evaders and advanced pokers (think IP man)

After a while you get the MK hand muscles:
muscle in the web next to your thumb lol, each hand builds it differently too cause of the D-Pad and the button difference.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Well for me, my issue is that I slow down in tournament need to pick up the pace so no breathing techniques for me. Classical music is a great idea, I personally listen to prog metal to keep my intensity up but not get into a rhythm (due to weird time in the song)

 

[TheSpore]

Well for me, my issue is that I slow down in tournament need to pick up the pace so no breathing techniques for me. Classical music is a great idea, I personally listen to prog metal to keep my intensity up but not get into a rhythm (due to weird time in the song)

If that is what works for you then go for it, I find that the reason classical works for me is that its calming and when there are no words you are less at to focus on, I honestly never heard any prog metal any paticular bands that could give me a good example f$%king love metal

 

[Gesture Required Ahead]

I forget to breathe sometimes in matches so when I actually exhale it messes up my inputs and makes me rage and nervous even more.

Regular matches by the way...lol. I don't even remember how I breathed when in tourney.

 

[Zoidberg747]

I breathe after a round or a game, right before both too. It is important to take a deep breathe before you do anything important.

 

[Derptile]

Breathing is for losers.

 

[Astrocytic]

I guess it could increase your focus but I would never need it.

 

[Spinky]

turns out the soft sweet sounds of Slipknot, Otep, and Lamb of God don't exactly work

Lmao.

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

If that is what works for you then go for it, I find that the reason classical works for me is that its calming and when there are no words you are less at to focus on, I honestly never heard any prog metal any paticular bands that could give me a good example f$%king love metal

Well the best example would probably be dream theater, they have a sound that ranges from prog rock to straight up metal. My personal choice for mk though is symphony x. They just pump me up like no other lol.

 

[RiBBz22]

I just never breath during tournament matches so I don't complicate things.