I want to go pro. I need mentor(s).

[ZeroSymbolic]

I don't mean that I think I am a top echelon player, but I'd like to play in tournaments and be respectable. I've wanted to compete in a fighting game tournament since I experienced Street Fighter II Turbo, way back when it was new.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm. Thus I couldn't find other players to learn from and improve with. Now I live in Detroit and I think I can find some people.
That being said I want to get in shape as much as possible with Mortal Kombat XL, and then be very serious in MK11. I just want to start from the beginning. Fighting games are so evolved now. I don't know how to begin taking it all in, but I am willing to work very hard.
Any advice ya'll can provide down below would be greatly appreciated.

 

[AbeW]

Your greatest resource for learning and multiple mentorship (one mentor is not enough) would have to be a ....GOOD INTERNET CONNECTION these days, whether you live in a farm or the city. If you have lousy laggy internet, everyone's gonna run away from you after 1 game. You will not always have the ability to host 10 best players in the world in your living room. Hence, the internet is your best friend.

1) Get a Mic and befriend good players you run into online. You can have discussions with them as you play along in future sessions. Don't tbag, annoy and possibly lose a good future practice partner.

2) Don't discard advice from non-prominent players, a.k.a players you've never heard of. There are many players out there you may have never heard of. But, they maybe just as good as the ones you've seen in top 8s. Everyone has something to offer. Don't be an elitist.

3) Watch and learn from high level match footage. Pay attention to footage of character enthusiasts who specialize in single characters. Players who play multiple characters won't always have the niche tech that some character enthusiasts tend to come up with.

4) Read the character specific, matchup specific info that pops up on Reddit, TYM, etc.

5) Lab a counter for every problem scenario from different characters. a.k.a record problem scenarios and practice your counters. Familiarity with different situations is the key to alleviating stress in tourny situations and focusing on reads.

6) Practice rapid memorization of patterns that players have. You should be able study them as much as possible on game 1 whether you win or lose. The more you practice this, the more ease you'll feel when you're up against a high level player in a tourny set of 3 setting that you've never faced before.

Also, last but not the least and no offense to anybody, It takes a certain amount of cranial capacity (not just gathered knowledge, practice and execution) for quick adaptation, making reads, etc, etc to be top at fighting games. Chess players tend to be smart, for instance. There is that requirement as well in high level FG play to some extent.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Most of the better players will play with you or show you things if they vibe with you socially. So being cool outside of the game is probably just as important at the start.

Second thing I'd say from having spent a bunch of time behind the scenes listening to guys who are getting ready to make Top 8 is Find a Buddy. Almost everyone who's cracking into the top of the tournaments has at least one reliable training partner as a friend; sometimes multiple. Sometimes those friends aren't professional-level, but they're at least high-midlevel and they're good enough to provide a reliable training ground on a daily or weekly basis.

Another thing I've noticed is the importance of Keeping an Open mind. A lot of players, even really good ones, struggle in certain situations because they're just not open to re-evaluating the way they approach even certain simple concepts. A lot of times the friends and training buddies are the ones that have to wake them up to this, the hard way. Never assume you're doing things the best way, because it's always possible that you're missing a concept and making life harder on yourself.

Last is play a LOT. Lab a LOT. Online is a resource now; play everyone, regardless of where you live.

Someone who's been there and done that can go into much more detail, but these are a few things I've noticed from being friends with a bunch of top placers over the years and watching their process.

 

[Evil Canadian]

I don't mean that I think I am a top echelon player, but I'd like to play in tournaments and be respectable. I've wanted to compete in a fighting game tournament since I experienced Street Fighter II Turbo, way back when it was new.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm. Thus I couldn't find other players to learn from and improve with. Now I live in Detroit and I think I can find some people.
That being said I want to get in shape as much as possible with Mortal Kombat XL, and then be very serious in MK11. I just want to start from the beginning. Fighting games are so evolved now. I don't know how to begin taking it all in, but I am willing to work very hard.
Any advice ya'll can provide down below would be greatly appreciated.

pft I grew up in the middle of nowhere and stayed in the middle of nowhere, and I got plenty strong still!

That said initially you will want people in roughly your skill range, preferably punching up with people just a bit better than you. People wildly beyond your skill range when you lose you might not understand why you lost so you can't do much with it.

That said, losing will teach you so much more than winning will, and you need to use that as a resource. Losing can be frustrating as all hell, but don't let it cloud you. If you won, hey your shit worked but it doesn't really teach you much, if you lose well obviously there is room for improvement on some aspect. I am sure mk11 will have local replays so just rewatch your losses and see where you cracked because thats exactly where you can improve.

Also make sure to use all the resources at your disposal, obviously here on TYM will be good, but also check places like reddit, twitter, or youtubers(I hear that Rooflemonger guy will be covering MK11 so he might be a good channel to check ) because you never know where you might find info that can help your game.

On the road to getting good you will face more setbacks than triumphs early on, best thing I can say is just don't let it break you. Overcome the hurdle and then you will really start getting to where you need to be.

 

[JSF]

easiest way to get good is to play and watch others play, play a shit ton watch your own matches, watch pro matches. enter online tournaments. if you start winning a lot and doing well in online tournaments the top players will find you or at least be more willing to play you in long sets.
if youre a complete beginner with no fundamentals then you have to learn the game, pick your character(s) etc then just play as much as possible and learn. if you lose its fine as long as you know why you lost and learn from it

 

[Marlow]

There's an interesting book called "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise" by Anders Ericsson. He basically studied expertise, or how people become experts in their field (music, sports, whatever). He has some great tips on what he calls Purposeful Practice. Basically the best way to get the most out of your practice sessions. I'd highly recommend picking it up and giving it a read, it's pretty great if you're looking to become serious about a hobby.

 

[PLAYING TO WIN]

You first need to ask why you want to do this and if there are people that depend on you financially.

 

[Badboy Takuma]

I don't mean that I think I am a top echelon player, but I'd like to play in tournaments and be respectable. I've wanted to compete in a fighting game tournament since I experienced Street Fighter II Turbo, way back when it was new.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm. Thus I couldn't find other players to learn from and improve with. Now I live in Detroit and I think I can find some people.
That being said I want to get in shape as much as possible with Mortal Kombat XL, and then be very serious in MK11. I just want to start from the beginning. Fighting games are so evolved now. I don't know how to begin taking it all in, but I am willing to work very hard.
Any advice ya'll can provide down below would be greatly appreciated.

-play a lot
-watch highlevel matches and analyze them.
-grind properly.
-play offline - try to find players or build your own local scene.
-go to tournaments
-repeat

thats pretty much it

 

[RoboCop]

I don't mean that I think I am a top echelon player, but I'd like to play in tournaments and be respectable. I've wanted to compete in a fighting game tournament since I experienced Street Fighter II Turbo, way back when it was new.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm. Thus I couldn't find other players to learn from and improve with. Now I live in Detroit and I think I can find some people.
That being said I want to get in shape as much as possible with Mortal Kombat XL, and then be very serious in MK11. I just want to start from the beginning. Fighting games are so evolved now. I don't know how to begin taking it all in, but I am willing to work very hard.
Any advice ya'll can provide down below would be greatly appreciated.

Pig of the Hut famously kept a little handwritten notebook where he would record everything he learned about a game, including matchup information, tech, gaps, and notes about specific tournament players he knew he would be facing. If you want to go pro, you can't just learn the game, you've got to learn the major players as well. Good luck!

 

[ZeroSymbolic]

Thank you all. I actually wound up in the hospital and had to have emergency surgery. I'm fine now but that's why response was so slow.