Needed to hear this kind of talk for life in general today, thanks gamers.

"You Are Not Defined by One Win or Loss" Unless you're perfect legend. Then you're defined by 13 losses

I couldn't define myself by one loss if I wanted to. There's so many of them, it's impossible to choose just one.

"The true measure of a man is not how he compares to his fellow man, but how he compares to his former self."

One of the hard things to learn about competitive games is that no matter how good you get you're still gonna lose 50% of the time against your peers. Just how it goes.

You say that, but as a counterpoint: WOSHIGE NOOOOOO

The only person defined by one loss is Justin Wong.

Personally speaking, I am defined by that one time at Canada Cup 2013 where I had my third-round winners match against Daigo in HD Remix and the game failed to save his button config THREE TIMES IN A ROW so we had three false starts, and I couldn’t tell if he was accidentally hitting the wrong button at the end every time (English Xbox menus) or if the game itself was just really wilin’ out that day (known but rare bug), so finally I helped him make sure that his buttons were configured properly, and then he immediately mopped the floor with me 0-2 using his tertiary ST character, laughed as we shook hands, and then walked out my life forever. God that guy is cool, hahaha.

I like to think of losing to someone “worse” than me like losing to certain bosses in souls games. Like in Elden ring, I soloed the valiant gargoyles first try as a melee build, but then promptly got brickwalled by Astel. That one instance doesn’t mean that the gargoyles are the easiest boss in the game while Astel is the hardest, just means I had to make some adjustments to beat that sentient nerds rope

Kizzie told me if you lose once you're free.

If you ever feel bad about losing, be glad you're not Low Tier God or Dark Syde Phil.

Counterpoint: Woshige.

It's easier to not get upset about the losses if the game doesn't hold your W/L ratio over your head constantly * glances towards SFV *

Back when I was a salty League player, one of my favorite bands at the time, Streetlight Manifesto, came out with their album "The Hands that Thieve". One single lyric really hit home with me for this lesson and I made it all the way from Bronze 5, bottom of the solo q barrel, to Silver before quitting League for good. It was just a simple line of "I don't care if I lose, because my heroes did too". And I think just simply recognizing that even the best of the best are capable of losing, so you shouldn't get too worked up over losses emotionally, is a really good thing to recognize if you truly wish to git gud. Like in Souls games, learning to parry an enemy or fight a boss, or whatever you wanna do in that game; if you give up on it and care about your failure more than your potential, you won't be able to get the hang of it. Letting your failures discourage you is easy and natural, but fighting against your own nature is a big part of self-improvement.

I was hard stuck rookie to bronze for a very long time in sfv and it felt like I wasn't getting better at all. Then one day, without me even noticing, I started anti-airing with dp, landing my combos consistently, adapting to my opponents play style etc. I used to dream about anti-air dp before, and could never do it. Now I'm ultra silver trying to hit gold.

It's so hard to get the right mindset to make progress in stuff like this. I spent so long feeling bad for myself until I finally realized: hey, recognizing an opportunity to anti-air and doing it is winning. Executing that one thing I've been practicing in training in a real match is winning. Punishing a flaw in spacing is winning. Making the monsters I'm fighting WORK for their meal is winning. Taking a round is winning. You've got to give yourself credit for those tiny accomplishments or you will just never get to the that big W we all so badly want to experience. The next hurdle after you start winning matches is to always celebrate wins, never forget there was a time where you got NONE. It doesn't matter how lucky you got whatever. I do a little yatta! every time I take a set, even if I took it off a flowchart Ken. Even against that guy, I got it because I've learned and gotten better and compared to like...a HUGE majority of players, I'm already good now....and I'm TRASH by community standards, you know what I mean? Hahaha...anyway, you just gotta believe and be mindful. Just like life, same rules apply.

My brother walked into me playing a match in SFV and he was confused cause I was looking at the win screen but I was complaining cause I dropped the combo I was practicing for 2 weeks.

I really wish I could take advice like this, but every time I've picked up a fighting game I would go 0-20 every time I played with someone for months on end; and every time I've left with the thought "Well I guess I know my place." and I'd put the game down to try a new one. I finally stopped playing fighting games a couple of months ago when I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just wasting time and space in my local community, and I've kinda had a fucked up mindset ever since. At this point I don't know if I can salvage myself. Not asking for a therapy session or anything, this video just got me thinking.

Been playing melee for 6 1/2 years and it’s only been the past year or so that I really understood the nuances of the neutral and game and there’s still so much to learn. It’s very exciting knowing I’ve come so far and can get EVEN FARTHER

I definitely needed to hear this. I've been feeling down about my slow progress in kof15 but this helped.

No person is defined by a single loss. Except Justin Wong, who is doomed to relive evo moment 37 for all eternity.

You are not defined by one loss. At worst, you are defined by thirteen.

Remember that Time invested is not equal to Skill gained. You only become better by reviewing your gameplay and polishing your mental. There's NO quick path to greatness. Self comparison WILL be your downfall if you're only wanting to win.

“You Are Not Defined by One Win or Loss” Counter-argument: Perfect Legend

Thank you for this video, and I think there are a few that could definitely go in a playlist just about the 'mental game', because it's honestly the worst struggle in fg's. I'm sure other people deal with it too, but it's never "I lost, but I did this, that, and the other thing pretty well", just this shitty feeling of "well the sum of all of those things was a loss so I must've done all of it badly". It really is just self-gatekeeping. I think the last seriously long set I managed to play was months ago with a 0-100 against Renard's Baiken, and I dunno where the willingness to take those L's went.

Very well said. You learn from the causes of your loss instead of the idea of losing. Great video Sajam!

Holy crap this literally happens to me all the time, it happened to day in fact, I think I really needed to hear this. thanks Sajam

This video really helps, I really cared about my wins and loses when I played injustice 2. But now when playing guilty gear, I just play to try to improve and to enjoy the game

Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. So when you're practicing, making sure that you're practicing with intent is far more important than doing combos over and over. For some reason that's a super difficult concept for new players to grasp, that's why whenever I try to get someone new into fighting games I only ever sweep, throw, and anti air for a bit to really get that point across. A lot of friends who are starting out and want to improve and play some long sets I'll see just doing whatever crazy nonsense they can to get a W as well. Like chill man dial it back and focus on doing the things you wanted to practice or learn in the match.

This is a top Tier Sajam video. Really enjoyed this.

Thank you very much for this discussion topic Sajam. Personally, I think this is one of the hardest things for me to overcome. I feel upset over a loss- and feel very little joy after a win- when confronted by what I would consider a stronger player. I usually circumvent the venting that stems from this issue by just not joining VC if available- as I am not talking, I don't voice my frustrations and instead think about them after my set is through. This is harder to avoid when playing fgs with my local community as I have to speak with players trying to learn as well as continue to play at a level expected of me or greater. Perception of skill within a local community and the disappointment felt by a loss- for me- go hand in hand. Incidentally, this video followed a play session where I expressed my frustrations at learning a new game in an unhealthy way- by aiming it at a friend. I've already apologized and been forgiven, but I think addressing the source of concern- this unhealthy and inaccurate perception of skill in a local community- is important to address for any "Decent enough to win locals, but the pond isn't quite large" level of player. Anyway, just throwing my two cents into the void in case other players like me see this and need help relating to or comprehending the issues another has faced.

Amen, Brother Sajam 😌🙏

i love this approach not just for fighting games but life in general, very helpful

Needed to hear this right now. Thank you Sajam.

No you’re not defined by one loss, 13 in a row, maybe.

Needed to hear this, it's so easy for me to dwell on the loss rather than what needs to be improved on and what I did well.

Number Of Times Sajam Played With His Hair: 17

I find I sometimes do this to myself, if I score a win with gimmicks or my opponent refuses to pass my knowledge checks sometimes I'll think "How did this person get to this rank?" and if I go on to lose the best of three, it feels bad. It's like you psyched yourself out. There's a kind of respecrful mindset you have to approach the opponent with, especially during long sets. Whenever I'm up against a stranger in the tower I always enjoy matches where we connected through a fight to the point we can compliment each other and swap tips after the match. Go in expecting the best and leave helping each other reach that best. And if it's a rude May player who insults you before bolting after a one and done, don't worry about it.

this mindset is vital. overcoming this has helped me improve greatly at everything i attempt. currently doing this w all these new fg's im tryna get into

Another thing that more players need to do when they suffer a bad loss (arguably the hardest thing to do in that situation) is give their opponent more credit. You can acknowledge someone else just made a big improvement or happened to get a great read during their match with you, without putting down yourself or discrediting all the work you've already put in. If you can do that, it becomes much easier to take losses and keep yourself motivated.

Focusing on what you lost to not who you lost to is huge!

I'm loving soo much this videos, they are great to someone like me who love to watch FGs and play casually when work, life etc don't kill all my free time, the perspective os everything for sure, thx Bro o/

I remember reading someone’s advice for Elden Ring and one of the quotes can be used for fighting games I think. The quote went something like “Losing doesn’t have to mean failure. Losses can be used as a teaching tool for improvement.”

Sajam speaking wisdom for life not just fighting games

Thanks, Sajam.

I always get crushed by guys who say they suck lol. Hustlers out there. being too humble is annoying and thinking you're too great is annoying. balance people.

KoF is my current demon. I've never played an SNK fighting game period so getting washed by everybody online is frustrating but I'm sure the day I actually figure it out I'll be LIT

I've taken to asking myself, out loud, "What did I do wrong?" when I lose. Not in a frustrated way (usually), but more pensive and actually trying to replay it in my head before the rematch. Then sometimes you just get stomped and you say "Oh idk what to effin do here" and you gotta remind yourself that's ok, rematch and try some shit.

You talking about Not Being Able to See Progress in the portion with Mario speedrunning and that's wow that's something I think I had to hear today

literally this for ANY and I mean ANY competitive game

Oh i think i needed to hear that actually thanks :,D imma keep it up

Thanks for responding to my bbcf sad post during the stream. I started feeling better after your response

Ever watch a tournament, where a relatively unknown/lower ranked player beats one of the big guns? I recall it happening every once in a while to Justin Wong in the SF4 era. The person would pop off and have their celebration and everything, but if you saw the camera pan over to Justin, you wouldn't see him crying or stick throwing or anything else. Chances are, you'd just see that small nod, the 'I see what happened' look and he'd go on with his day. And you KNOW that he'd be back at the hotel room labbing that exact situation, or searching out players that were more familiar with the rare character he lost to. And you also know that if they ever met again in tournament, Justin would absolutely bury that person. They took the loss as a learning opportunity. That's something I can aspire to, though it is a struggle some days when you're getting your head kicked in during the grind.

This was really helpful actually, because I feel like I've really plateaued in my improvement in Strive. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to improve.

Sajam drops more knowledge than frames in online Melty

Thanks Sajam, I needed it after KOF's totally crushed my spirit.

I don't know man, Perfect 13gend is pretty defined by certain defeat...

Thank FGC therapist Sajam

I am a goldfish. I am defined entirely by what I did for the last 30 seconds. Currently I am someone who watched a Sajam outro.

I always like to sit down to a session and see if there's a particular skill I can attack that day. Like today I want to improve hit confirms, win or lose, and see if I can over power my lizard brain that keeps buffering buttons without recognizing the situation. Some losses can be harder than others, but the only things that really get to me is when I lose because of not using the knowledge I know I've worked on. You gotta take responsibility if you want to get better.

I think I'm very strange because I don't care about winning, I sometimes even enjoy losing more because it means the opponent is probably happy. If I enjoy losing, the opponent enjoys winning, it means both of us are enjoying the game. Even in Elden Ring, yesterday I invaded someone for the quest that requires 3 invasions, I waved to the host and their helper and walked toward them, he was confused when I didn't fight back, he then bowed to me and killed me as I just didn't attack at all.

Dadjam telling me the things my father never told me

Tell that to Perfect Legend

I had this happen to me today. I played against some dude with red aura on floor 10. It was HC mirror match, dude was wiping the floor with me. I had an AHA moment during one of the matches, and there were some rounds were I beat him.

I don’t mind losses, some of my favorite days playing FGs I had literally zero wins. But execution errors genuinely make me want to hurt myself, even if I win in spite of them. They’re proof that no matter how much time I spent in training mode, no matter how easy the technique is, my brain and my fingers will simply never get along and I’d be better off if I never got out of bed.

thankfully ive ascended this mentality of needing to win. i just smash my head against fighting games get stomped and learn by getting stomped. but i still dont expect to win much even after alot of losses because i know some things need to be learned in the lab.

The only possible exceptions I can think of are Perfect Legend, Woshige (for people who don't play gear), and Onisan. Of course those are all very public, high profile matches so the point still stands.

I look in the mirror every morning and know I have no definition.

In other genres people might be blaming their teammates right after the match already, forgot to reflect on themselves, and call it a day. So I think even the very first step Sajam described here is already a good start. Just gotta adjust to a good head space let's go.

Well I don't get frustrated just because of inconsistent winning rate, but it does get daunting when I realize how deep mindgames can get. That's especially true when I am doing footsies and thinking about how to get my turn or what makes people hesitate. Refining my strategy to the point that I don't have to gamble during neutral situations is tough. I feel like this is an endless learning process that no one can really teach.

I'm defined by a 200 loss streak. No point to keep trying Strive since they won't let me drop back down to lower floors again. Had to give up.

basic guide to improvement at anything: give yourself permission to fail and try

You need hardwork to be great but hardwork alone does not bring greatness.

I dunno... WOSHIGE NOOOOOO!

I like this mentality and knowing that it’s going to take losses to learn. Like it’ll be harder for me to go into matches with specific goals like I want to convert off of this button, I want to anti air this character’s move with this button, or I want to play neutral differently this time but the point isn’t winning. It’s just building the awareness to use these other tools correctly. It’s frustrating to know that your character has a busted godlike button and you get smoked whenever you try to press it, but how else are you gonna learn that it’s godlike unless you press it?

I like your comparison to speedrunning. There's definitely a big overlap in the mental game. You can grind tech skill all you want, and cram yourself with game knowledge, but I think without real development of your mental fortitude, your progress kinda crawls. No matter how many times you can land the trick and save time in practice, it doesn't mean much if you pressure yourself unnecessarily when you know you've put in enough time to hit it.

another question that I'd like to be answered for is something along the line of "is it okay to let more experienced people to figure out what i did people in my matches, as in asking them for what should i do here? or what move is that? for example"

Going from the "things that took 3 years to catch on in FGs" video to this one, you know another thing this generation has that's a huge buff are videos from creators like this to help new players understand how important a healthy mentality is. Healthy mentality back in the early/mid 2000s? We just had a "don't be a scrub" mantra, and what that even meant was not super clear to anyone lol.

I've had this problem recently with kof specifically I play on pc and idk about console but the matchmaking is fucked so when I finally find a match and lose badly it really frustrates me because I'm like "I spent 20 minutes finding a match to get utterly bodied and now I gotta do it all over again" it can be pretty disheartening but that's also a pretty specific situation

I'm defined by wanting to know what song plays in the outro of Sajam's videos

Real talk, playing fighting games used to make me think I must have a learning disability. I look online, everybody talks about how easy it is to get into gold, or celestial, or whatever rank and I look at my low rank and the time spent and just. Bluuuuuuugh.

I've lost so much that I dont even play anymore fr fr That is until I p4au has rollback then we have the wild ride all over again

Only time I get upset at my losses now are when I have to fight computers in these games. God, the computers erk me in such a way that a spammer never gets to me.

True. I beat CPT SEA champion in ranked match and i thought to myself “Finally! i got nice results from my grinding”. But the next ranked match i lost against a ultra platinum rank player and i like wtf happened, why i played this bad? 😔 . It’s really challenging to consistently play solid in fighting games but that’s why i love it :3

I've been playing fighting games since KoF '99, I've beaten the combo trials multiple times for the characters I like to play in XV. I still can't do that shit in a regular round. Doesn't matter to me, though fighters are still one of my favourite genres and I still run a weekly fighting game event at my place despite being nowhere near as good as some of the other people that show up.

Small story time: Just because someone plays more than you doesn't mean they're better. My first time playing street fighter was SFV and only a few months ago, but I played other fighting games before. Its my first day, and as a joke, I try ranked matches after labing in training mode for about 30 minutes. I go 1-1 against two other rookies, I'm learning, they're learning, having a good time. Third match was against a level 309 Ryu who had 1.2k lp/super bronze. My heart sank, this is clearly an experienced player who didn't really play ranked, and I'm about to have my teeth kicked in, right? Just someone who played for years and is just now hitting the ranked ladder, right yeah...He only went for crossup heavy kick, if it landed he did full combo, if it didn't he went for crouching light kick into Tatsu. I got cheesed by it round one, and then I noticed it was ALL he did, I took my time to plan my punish during his end frames, and thats how I learned to convert a punish into a full combo. Final round of the last game, he did start mixing it up a little by going into DP after cross up...which accomplished less than tatsu did, so...needless to say I ended up taking that round. I know its not an exciting story, but its one that people probably should read and take away that just because your opponent "has more experience" doesn't mean they're better than you. Just because you dont know the perfect counter hit combo off of every move doesn't mean you can't beat your opponent with fundamentals.

if you enjoy the game but is always pissed after losing rounds, then you are a masochist. which is who i am

watch this video alongside aris black blade video , good laugh

The way I see this for me is more the "quality" of interactions than winning or losing. It's probably bound to how much I was able to play: if I lose but just did my best and got outplayed, well that's how it is, and I'll still have a smile (if a bit sad) on my face. But sometimes you come up against people whose play really rubs you the wrong way. Something that prevents you from playing, something that feels random, something that beats what you're doing and you don't find how to work around it... It's still GGs, but underlined with a "I hope I never see you again". The brain does a bad number on you here though: it always feels bad to lose (even if it's not that bad) and winning feels. So. Good... You can't fight chemistry here. And of course, as I'm fighting my good honest fight and winning in the most honest way someone across the screen is probably thinking "This guy is such an cheap %^&~@!!!!". (sometimes I do feel bad winning, just a little bit)

When all you take is Ls in life and in games like myself yes, it does define you. Even my wins are Ls

what about when you lose 13-0 at a first to 10???

Losing is Not the Problem for me, it is losing without being a Good Opponent

i feel like sometimes you just gotta power through and rack up loses. after a while you just kinda get over it. that’s my take, anyway.

I'm not, sure ... But darksydephil is absolutely defined by almost defeating daigo that one time in super turbo.

What would Lord Daigo do?

👍

I can actually comment on the Speedrun thing I speed ran Mega Man 7 for like 2 months? And really wanted a sub 46 cause at the time it was a really good time and my buddy who started the same time I did got it a month into his runs and it made me feel terrible, eventually I got it and I got the sub 46 by frames normally I woulda been salty but I was so happy that I got that sub 46 lmao

My logical brain: "I'm new to KOF, there's no failing in my losses." My dumb brain: "Dude, I have played 100 online ranked matches in KOF XV and I have won 6. I am a total scrub, I can't wrap my brain and fingers around this game. I am a joke."

Ive been on both sides of skill isnt always attributed to hours played. I have a metric fuck ton of hours on shooters like 7k and my friend has less then me but hes far better, but also when i got into rogket league i got reallt good really fast and became better then a friend who had alot of hours, sometimes it can be your just better at some skills or pickup certain things easier and sometimes u dont. It can also be time not welk spent for getting better

I really like Sajam's content, but I'm a spanish native speaker with spanish speaking friends that don't know english and they have this type of issues and I would like to recommend this videos to them but can't, it feels bad lol