hello everyone welcome to the fourth interview of nerf control week um which in case you guys are new this is a series we're doing here at osu university where we take one week of interviews that are all focused on a specific topic we have a bunch of individual interviews lined up where we have top players giving their own insights on the topic and then at the end of the week we will have multiple of the guests come together and just elaborate on the points that each other had brought up during their own individual interviews as a way to wrap up the topic for the week so this is the fourth out of six individual interviews and with me today is bubble man hello hello a pleasure to be here oh my god yeah i think um this is gonna be a really insightful conversation if i had to guess um i know you i got i can't wait i can't wait for the stuff that you're gonna pull out of me oh god yeah the depth of my mind look at the individual little cases yeah you've definitely i think major rounds when it comes to different nerve control methods and things like that so let's get started i think very generally um by just talking about you know what really is nerve control so how how can we define nerve control in my in my opinion nerve control is very difficult to define because there's a lot of different theories and a lot of different um thought patterns behind nerve control you've got the you've got the camp that say nerves make you miss and you've got another side of the story which says nerves don't make you miss it's you being scared of the nerves that makes you miss oh okay that is interesting yeah there's there's two different sides to nerve control in general and whether you need to control your nerves or not and um yeah i could i could go on talking but i'll i'll let you guys oh oh no no you guide me in the direction you you seem to have exactly the direction so okay well um yeah so the the side that says nerves make you miss are generally the side that um i i don't want to generalize but they're the side that shake more under pressure and shake more when they're nervous essentially say small areas uh small um high sensitivity mouse players the people that will get shaky when they get nervous they they um you know and and because of that because of the the shakes because of the little twitches that you get when you um are nervous because you tense up to try and avoid missing and try and keep control of your hand that tends to be the uh nail in the coffin to make you miss um as there's things as well nerves people say nerves reduce focus and um while that might seem to be the case i would say nerves increase focus because when you're nervous you you don't want to miss right you don't want to drop a miss you don't want to drop a note and you go okay where's the next note there's the next note move to the next note okay uh where's the next note there's the next move to you know right it's that continuous process of oh i want to see everything i want to aim everything and i want to tap everything but then you run into the issue of your brain can only do so much um yeah i think there's a nice little uh go on oh sorry um no no i i think really what nerves stem from is like how how much you care about the result of something and so yeah that's definitely the case like when you do get nervous what tends to happen is that you you care a lot and and you don't really want to mess up that you know opportunity or something like that you don't want to mess up that run or you don't want to lose that tournament match so right that definitely does lead to this cycle sometimes of you you get very in your head about like not wanting to miss and i i think you tend to get scared and like you lose faith in you lose faith in your own ability to succeed and you try to like be more careful than you need to be is that something you'd agree with yeah i'd i'd wholeheartedly agree with that the thought of getting scared you get scared of losing something that you don't have which is really interesting it's something that i've struggled with a lot in solo play and it's it's something that i've struggled with a lot in tournaments and it's it's sort of it's interesting i try to perpetuate it now that the the score is not set the score does not exist until you see the results screen right right because before you've hit the last circle you don't have the full combo oh i'm scared of losing this full combo you know right but it doesn't exist yet you haven't made the full combo yet it seems like in in reality i think what it comes down to is like that opportunity of a full combo or an opportunity of some desirable outcome and and you're scared of losing a w what is essentially a 50 50 role oh or even a 30-70 role to to favoring towards missing it's like you will only fc a map once you'll you'll miss the hard part maybe 20 30 times before you fc it once so this seems like it's it's coming down to just accepting the fact that it'll take some failure to get to your successes is that yeah it's something that i struggled with a lot because i hated the thought of oh i can do this why am i not able to and and it still applies today sometimes whenever i go into a solo or whenever i go into multiplayer and i'm having a bad day and i just want that sort of dopamine rush of getting scores and feeling like i i i'm really cool and i matter i i go for these scores and i'm like i can do these i can get these why am i so bad that i can't do them right now on demand like snap snap my fingers and i so get one in in what sense would you say that like getting nervous um plays a role in the sort of outcome of those those days where you're just like i just want to get these scores why can i not do them instantly like do you tend to get nervous um in those attempts to get scores yeah because i do i get hyper focused on that the result instead of the process and i remember i remember you saying something um you asking me i made a tweet or a scored message or something right where i said focus on the process not the result yeah which yeah it's always the i want the dopamine i don't want to i you know i can't be bothered with the process of getting there i just want it because it makes me feel good oh yeah for sure and i think along those lines um this is a bit of an aside but when people talk about goals i think more in a general sense they they make goals for themselves i think new year's resolutions are a big um example of this but they make these vague goals of of results that they want without planning out the process and so they just kind of sit there like like when when will this goal come to me what like without really thinking that much about the process so yeah i definitely agreed there i'll um i'll try and go back to what i was saying about um nerves making you miss versus nerves making you hyper focus and then the hyper focus makes you miss so um nerves you tense up you you try too hard to focus on the next note and eventually you do just miss you shake too much you get scared of the shake and then you miss so i think the latter is more true than the former of nerves don't actually make you miss nerves don't affect you i think the definition of getting nervous is you're getting excited about the prospect of doing something oh and i get them everyone gets them and it just means you're doing something really cool by your own standards maybe by everyone else's standards maybe but the fact still remains that hey this is really cool i might get this and i think the um i i think it gets a little bit too almost toxic when you then miss and blame the nerves and think you're really bad and so on and so forth when in actuality it was like hey that was really good i was on a good run i had the potential there the potential is still there i could just go back and give it another go um oh i see so in in that sense it seems like there's there's a distinction between um being nervous and then there's there's this extra element of like being scared of those nerves that i think is really the core of the issue yeah is what i'm hearing exactly that's that's that's my take on it it's because you've gotten nervous and missed in the past you falsely attribute that miss to the nerves oh rather than attributing it to being scared of missing and then missing oh what do you think about non-pissing you miss the the more you think about not uh the more you think about hitting a pattern the the less chance you have of hitting the pattern to jump forward a bit you could even say that's a form of mind block because you are thinking too hard about hitting the pattern that you then just completely don't read something else because you're hyper focused on this hard pattern that you need to hit right oh okay yeah that definitely makes a lot of sense and and we can touch on mind block uh a little bit here because from what i understand about mind block is it's basically when you somehow stop reading a pattern the way that you typically would in a way that like you know a successful way of reading the pattern i think mind block ultimately stems from like you not reading the pattern anymore and yeah yeah is that definitely true that nerves can contribute to that a lot in the form of just losing focus and and spacing out maybe like um have you found sometimes that like when you do get nervous your vision kind of goes blurry almost and like you just completely space out yeah can you i think that there's an overload on your brain oh that is what i was going to say i was leading up to saying there's theories and this uh i think there's research actually into fighting game players there's a video that i've i've watched by a good channel i'll try and find it and um send it in the live chat but it's a a video about fighting games and having an inbuilt sort of stamina bar for your your mental ability your mental fortitude and the more that stamina bar depletes the worse you play oh okay you are just almost think of it like it might be a corey gaming vid but the more you um the more you try the more you focus and and the more you are in the moment that's i think that's it i think that's it but um you then deplete your brain power and you you can't push anymore you can't you know you you just can't force that play out of yourself oh so s sort of what i'm understanding and and correct me if i'm wrong but you're saying that like you being nervous and caring a lot or like having that extra focus actually depletes your stamina bar a bit more quickly yeah and then that leads to you playing poorly quickly as well is that right yeah oh so do you ever have experiences like that in your own gameplay i mean and are there ways that you get to the you get to maybe the three hour mark on an intense session and have you yourself ever found that you just cannot play anymore you can't read you can't keep your focus up for longer than maybe a minute on on an intense map you just need to stop for the day yeah yeah for sure it's it's kind of like the whole your vision goes blurry and you zone out for a second thing where you you just can't do any more you need to take that step back and take a break oh so in in that sense would you say that when when you are getting nervous and your brain is sort of sometimes against your will but um depleting that stamina bar a lot more quickly than you want it to then is it most optimal to just like take a breather for a bit and wait for that to go away or is there some other way of is there some other way of looking at nerves that can make it so that you can get nervous while not having your stamina deplete yeah that my my take on it is because being scared of nerves makes you miss you should just let yourself feel the nerves and let yourself feel the excitement of potentially setting something that is cool to you same in um same in tournaments you can sit you can uh you play the first map be really nervous because you're like i really want to do really well in this tournament right whether you do or not it really is out of your control right it's in it's in the hands of the other player because you say if you're both playing no mod one and you're both really about the aim map and you're both really consistent you both have really high accuracy it's say a 50 50 who wins that right that is true he says he's a complete toss-up and whether you win or whether you lose doesn't really depend on how well you play it depends on how well your opponent plays yeah theoretically if you play perfectly or if you play subpar if you then uh if you then just completely miss maybe they have two right maybe they've done worse um yeah i've definitely had this sort of mentality for some time that i think helps where like tournament play really is not about you doing well it's just about you getting a higher score than your opponent like you can yeah you can get 100k and your opponent gets 50k and you win which for for those not really comfortable with score v2 terms that's like it's like you could get like an 85 percent and your opponent gets 80 and i mean you you win basically um although both scores are are admittedly very low um but yeah i i find that really interesting um do you have any like cases in your own experience where you oh how do i read this um like using your nerves in your own favor or like channeling your nerves in a way where you're actually able to play better like do you have any tips tips for for people who are trying to achieve that result i don't think i have ever successfully channeled nerves past maybe 2017. there was one case and one case only that i can think of where my nerves actually helped me play better and i think this has been touched on before and it was 2016 the round of 16 against norway in the world from the losers bracket this is this was in the losers bracket of the round of 16 and this was uh a free mod just before match point for them i think i can't remember okay i might be just telling this completely out of thin air but rogan limitation comes on 220 bpm i am known for not being able to go above 200 at that point right and um it was uh for some reason i could just do it because i really wanted to do it i really didn't want to be the thing that brought the team down and the nerves somehow loosened my fingers in this only in this one instance as well i've never been able to replicate it i've never been able to get into that sort of flow state but it that was the only time i've ever channeled nerves oh so it sounds like past that they've always been a detriment or a um or or just present a neutral or a detriment oh i see it it's it sounds like you had this separation between um like you were nervous but you instead of channeling those nerves in the sense of like being scared you like took the adrenal adrenaline aspect of the nerves but not the scared part of of the nerves and so that is what allowed you to achieve that sort of flow state where you cared a lot but i guess not too much to the point where you like sort of freaked yourself out or got scared yeah i don't think i've ever i've ever had nerves that weren't detrimental or neutral since mostly neutral these days and can you talk about what exactly is neutral nerves uh just that feeling of excitement that feeling of hey i'm playing for in a high tier of high stakes tournaments oh okay so then so that sort of excitement or like that the fact that the match or score or whatever is meaningful to you but i guess neutral basically just means that there's no one way or the other okay i see so it's just a mental thing that like you're very aware that it is something high-stakes and meaningful i think so okay so do you have any um i guess like we we can probably touch a bit on your backstory or experiences with nerves in the past and and it's going to be fun yeah the things that you've because it seems like i'm sure it wasn't always the case that you had this understanding of nerves as like having a scared scaredness element that's like external from the nerves themselves because um well it seems like that's definitely how you see it these days um can you talk a bit about some previous like ideas that you had about nerve control or the nerves and like why you sort of don't really believe that nerves are that way anymore if that makes sense this is this is i might not touch as much on nerves in this so if i do stray and talk about something else then do catch me oh no you're good because i have quite i have quite a rich history in terms of tournaments and mindsets and solo and uh just having an internally inward-facing toxic mindset which i have been trying over the past few years to change uh hopefully successfully hopefully visually like outwardly successfully um i think oh sorry i just um yeah i i think we're all very willing to hear those those bits of the story so yeah don't be afraid oh absolutely don't be afraid to to go off on some would you say tangents or asides so yeah this is your stage um this is my stage uh back in back in 2015 my first tournament was in june or july and it was a 1k tournament and um it was something like 1k 240k oh right so playing in a team a bit of um i guess explanation that basically means that the tournament was only allowed for people in the ranks 1000 to 40 000. okay and do you remember what rank you were at the time um i was i started the tournament at maybe ranks uh four five k and i ended the tournament like six or seven weeks later at 2k oh wow and um the the the process of playing that tournament um we got two grand we got two winners finals and we were very much the underdogs because we were a team of maybe two to 15k t uh members and there was there was only one player called air project who i like to attribute to being the first rank 1k tournament player oh he was just so consistent and so good at everything he sat in multi all day um very much my role model in terms of wanting to be a tournament player and play everything uh we got two grand finals and in the grand finals it was basically on me and him and one of the player as a 3v3 and it was of course me and him carrying everything and getting all of these full combos on these maps we eventually lost five to two i think in grand finals twice in a row five two five zero and then moving on from that i had in my mind that i i can do this i can be a really good tournament player and through the year uh onwards hitting owc i kind of underperformed in owc 2015 a little bit to to my own standards anyway but i think that's because i lacked a wider skill set i was very much just an aim farm player back then oh do you remember coincidentally uh in your first in oh sorry um in your first world cup do you remember what rank you were by that time by that time i was maybe ranked 600 okay okay so that was that was a few months later after that tournament that i played it was maybe ranked 600 400 because it was uh yeah 400 because it was november and that was the first year of playing so um moving on from that i went into 2016 and i wanted to be this this tournament player this this this guy that was consistent and good at everything and good at osu not just good at climbing the leaderboards good oh suit right and i kept going i kept pushing myself i was a little bit harsh on myself when i i missed on a map that i knew i could full combo but it wasn't too much of an issue because i wasn't this established player yet and by the end of 2016 i had sort of a name for myself going into the world cup but not too much of a name for myself where i wasn't just kind of still a nobody on the global scene i i was this maybe tier three tournament player and going into 2016 this there was kind of no nerves because i was the underdog oh that's right because i was this guy coming in no expectations there was no nerves at all i just wanted to play prove myself and show what i can do and like we got fourth place and i matched hvic on a lan setup essentially i was playing the i was playing the winners or the losers semi-finals against taiwan on a lan setup uh at a land hall in the uk when there was a big festival going on um so it wasn't even on my own setup that is crazy cemented in my head i am now this big player there's this big guy this this this high-tier tournament player and that's when things went bad because then there was the expectations oh and with expectations come nerves you want to match them you want to play as this player that you've you've got in your head you have this mental image of so that's i think expectations are a root of nerves and um matching those expectations means that you're playing quote unquote normally and if you're not matching those expectations you're not playing quote-unquote normally right but in the back of your mind you know that that is quite a high tier of play that you need to match so you're nervous you you you don't want to look like a fool you don't want to lose you don't want to drop a miss that you know you or quote-unquote no you shouldn't right right so all of these nerves all of these expectations all through 2017 and i get a lot of good scores out of them it makes me push to continue to improve to stay at that top level to continue to meet the expectations that i mistakenly feel are being put on me so owc 2017 rolls around um rank 1 uk rank 11 global but i still see myself as this tournament player that needs to fc everything so the nerves there were astronomical and uh it made me play absolutely awfully as as a consequence and i say awfully i mean to my own standards to where that i had the potential to be playing at that time oh okay um um and then again fast forward a few months a year to a wc 2018 i'm still this player but i've gotten used to playing with those nerves and i i sort of deal with them i'm still off the mindset nerves make you miss don't get nervous and of course i get nervous i miss i get upset at myself i don't want to miss i i miss again etc etc um tournaments are basically the only thing i'm playing at that point is i dropped farming uh just before the world cup of 2017. so all of these nerves circling around trying to meet these expectations i place on myself trying to play as well as i know i can play i just completely dropped me a level where you know i i'm not performing and 2018 the grand finals of 2018 i had recently watched the internet the international from dota oh and an underdog an underdog team got into the grand final and won that oh wow in the interview they gave afterwards um the team captain said when you're in when you're on that stage when you're at that level there is no more afterwards there's nothing more to lose you get in there and you play the best games of your life there is no ifs or buts you get in there and you play the best games of your life and it's not then that it clicked it's a few years later but i went in without any expectations without wanting to do well but just wanting or without needing to do well but wanting to play as well as i could i put on that stellar performance essentially right and i i do i i would have to say that i think that is still something that's that's bright in many people's minds when when they think of you and your tournament performances is is that i think back to back showing between that last map before tiebreaker and the tiebreaker itself in 2018 grants so it was essentially there is nothing there is nothing more to lose if i miss then i miss i just want to set as as good of a score as i can right there is you know there is no um no penalty for missing anymore we either get second or we get first there's no more matches after this i know oh i see so uh yeah there's there's that so um it it would sound like you had like those expectations that you sort of pressured onto yourself over those years and especially in 2017's world cup um those expectations seemed to not really be there as much after you after you had that sort of mindset shift of just that this is just the the one chance or one moment to perform well this is yeah and um if i play like i normally play i will do fine you know that whole thing of um i i will do fine believing that i suppose that ties into the confidence of uh you know confidence not making you nervous right yeah i i i definitely i feel like um like when you do get nervous um i think like the element of being scared can be like overwritten by that confidence because i feel like you can't be scared and confident at the same time um or at least not not to very strong degrees i think i think so i would i would say so you can't be scared of missing when you don't think you're going to miss right it was that it was that silent confidence that i only practiced uh me and you once beforehand oh wow that entire pool i only pract ran through maybe once and on me and you in that uh practice lobby i had before the actual match came i fc'd it again so that was a two out of two fc rate oh wow it then got picked as the last before match point in the match and i went well i'm just going to fc again i did but there was nothing to be scared of there it was just i you know i've done this twice i'll just do it again so i did do you think that like if you hadn't i've seen it in practice as well that you would have been a bit less confident in your ability to get that in the match i would have been scared i would have been thinking i could have i could fc this i could miss i was absolutely not scared of missing because i had just fc'd it twice and in in that moment in that mindset of i'm going to put up the best performance of of my life right right um essentially i did i i was confident i knew that i was just gonna play well today so i did i didn't play as well in the second um second set which i will be a little bit sad about for the rest of time i didn't force my team to practice as much as i probably should have which is a big regret i i take it incredibly well a lot more seriously now i try and this entire year i've been trying to push the uk hopefuls to to practice and get better aim and get better stamina and so forth but yeah um i will i will push it on though because in 2019 is the i think it was april 2019 game oc 3 against vac say was probably the highest level the the greatest tournament match to ever be played in my opinion right i i think a lot of people um who do know about that match would probably agree we were just cranking out scores one after the other and double left seeing 7.5 star maps at a time when that was maybe above the average uh star rating of the aim map in a map pool right and it was just in that moment yet again it came over me of i'm in grand finals time to play to put up the best performance of my life and and and that's that quiet confidence that it removed the need to feel nervous and those two or at least that game osu match is one of the matches that i've left feeling incredibly satisfied of that was just what i could do and no more oh i see um but after that came a period where i had the expectation of playing like that in every tournament afterwards oh oh so yet again i fell back into the pit of i'm nervous i need to play well i need to do this i need to do that so essentially the common thread between every time where i've been nervous and i don't think i honestly don't think i've put up uh as good of a showing i've i have been continued to be successful in tournaments but i don't think i've put up as good as you're showing as that one in 2019 um maybe the pools are harder and and maybe that's the excuse but still um do you um common thread oh uh yeah do you find that like that expectation like played a big role in you feeling like you haven't really put up as good of a performance like do you feel like that expectation ever since that match has been so overbearing that like you it's been harder to put yourself in that mindset of just sort of playing playing your best yeah absolutely i was um in 2019 world cup which was at the height of my um like lowest that was that was my lowest time um i played really well again but because of those nerves because of the feeling of losing the chance to play in the grand finals again i underperformed to my standards again because i wasn't in that mindset of there is nothing to lose i just need to play and whatever happens will happen um although that is i will touch on that in a second okay the the mindset shift that has happened the mindset before essentially was i am really good i need to show i'm really good by being really good all of the time if i'm not being really good all of the time then i'm really bad where is the mindset now the mindset now i think has shifted to i think i'm really good i would like to show that i don't need to oh i i know my own strengths i don't need to could you um and maybe we can touch on this more later but i definitely like to hear about that sort of transition of how you were able to shift your mindset in that way um it was a tough one because i had to um i had to sit and well after the 2019 world cup i took a break for a month i didn't touch the game and during that time um i just really wanted to play but i knew if i went back to it and in fact i stayed away from the game until february and when i came back i had figured out or i'd i'd given myself a method an arbitrary one because sometimes there is no right answer and you just have to go with one of the options right so i i sat and i just played maps without retrying and it hurt my soul because i was missing i was dropping bad misses i was i was not retrying to to get the fc that i knew i could get and it hurt my soul tremendously because i i was conditioned to go i i want to i want to be good i wanna i wanna show you people i'm good i am good please look at me and um eventually it sort of stuck that i didn't need to fc everything i i i didn't need to um set these high scores on every map i touched because that really wasn't the end goal there and and getting nervous like the yomiuri score i set in the middle of 2020. i i said i was going for a pass and i really was just just wanting to complete the end of the map set the score and move on to something else oh i didn't i didn't expect to be able to fc that and the expectations weren't there the nerves weren't there and in fact the nerves were there because i i remember thinking could i actually get this could this actually you know result in me for comboing but i was aware of them and didn't feed into them because feeding into them would have been i don't want to lose this score i don't want to lose what i could get whereas i knew i was approaching it from a place of just wanting to to play the map once finish it and move on right so it um it sounds like that whole experience um when you came back to the game in february 2019 of just trying to sort of forcibly humble yourself and your expectations of yourself as a player and ultimately i mean um with that example of your yomiuri score i think like that habit that you developed um through that sort of humbling experience um has sort of played in your favor in that sense would you say yes i i think so i definitely think so um the uh the whole experience taught me a lot about mindset and a lot about approaching things oh in in what sense approaching things so um it took a while for me to approach tournaments in a different way because tournaments are almost intrinsically tied to my self-worth as a player because they're what i wanted to be they wanted you know um but then past that um oh hello oh um [Music] wait what happened is everything okay hello oh hello uh hey this this might be a different microphone i'll i'll do a little um sound check on my own one sec oh okay um okay apologies for the slight intermission i wasn't sure if i disconnected or if he was just like trying to gather his thoughts or something like that um right okay we should be good i'm really sorry about that okay yeah no problem right i don't know what happened but it just i think it's to do with using um discord in the browser oh interesting probably uh anyway where was i um something about the um something about 2019 like and the mindset shifts that that you were making um right yeah it it kind of taught me that it wasn't necessary to go for scores because i i'm sure this has been touched on by others and has historically been touched on as well but it's not necessary to actively go for scores because if you get good enough at the game they will happen naturally oh that's right um yeah i do remember this sort of um like i think it was rojo who would advocate for this but like going for pp won't make you good but like getting better will get you pp so yeah along those lines i disagree with the first bit though i think going for performance points is a way of pushing mechanics and pushing aim pushing space streams etc um yeah so to go back to the topic at hand of nerve control i uh there's a few little uh threads that i can grab onto from that story sure of all the way through 2016 2017 2018 getting nervous was very normal uh for me because i wanted to meet expectations and i wanted to match the way that i knew i could play and ascen getting nervous letting myself hyper focus and miss was detrimental to my play because i i would get too into my own head i would get scared of not being able to put up the score that i knew i could put up and then i would just not put it up because i was i was too focused too nervous i would miss in a silly place etc but then come 2019 2020 the feeling of needing that score and and you know needing the um the result was replaced almost entirely by a want for the score and the difference between the two the difference between the two is a want doesn't have to be fulfilled or can be fulfilled at your own pace really right like there's a lot of schools i want right now i i of course elephant in the room i want the apparition score i get really nervous at the end of the apparition school and i i really want to set that score but i don't need to you know what i mean right right there's there's not a need to this run has to be the run that i get it right i'm completely content to miss in the hard parts i'm completely content to just drop a note at the start and fc the rest it it doesn't it matters to me of course but it doesn't worry me it doesn't it doesn't change anything about the score it doesn't change anything about my own skill because i can just try again i can i can give it another go right so the map will always be there for you exactly the score will always be there to set however many attempts it takes for me to set it doesn't matter there's no metric there's there's no penalty for trying a map 150 times compared to 100. right so the nerves come the nerves happen at the end and i'm aware of them i know they're there it excites me because it's like hey here we are on another run i've reached the end streams let's see how well i do and and sometimes i miss beforehand i i still have the nerves and i go in and i hit the end stream but you know because i've missed is it's not something to get angry at it's not something to be upset about it's just hey cool i hit the end streams so it it seems more like you you take those runs as more of a learning experience or confidence boost in your own ability to get that run at some point in the future so even though that run might not be the run because it doesn't need to be the run right like like you were saying yeah that difference between want and need like that run doesn't need to be the run but what it is there for no matter what is to teach you that you definitely do have that ability to get the score and that is a very good way to give yourself that confidence going into future runs that even if you miss it's like hey you now know that you can definitely get to that point where like all the way to the point where you get excited about the potential that you like you have this capability of achieving that thing that you want otherwise you wouldn't have gotten nervous um in the first place so yeah very and the closer the closer you get the more nerves you get the more excited you get about setting it and the cycle repeats right even even getting really really close you can feel a lot of nerves you can feel no nerves it's it's a feeling it's it's enjoyable it means we're human right it's something that you would never be able to feel if you didn't choke that run if you didn't miss that note it's it's this yeah it's it's nice i i enjoy it now i actively seek it out oh that's interesting so it's it's come sort of full circle to the point where yeah nerves really are not necessarily something that you have to get rid of it's just it's just a part of the whole experience of playing the game and and i mean really ultimately doing anything i would say i'd say so how many times can you say you've got nervous sat playing a two-star map true i can i can say a fair amount because back when i was started playing the game i got really nervous at the end of two star maps because i wanted the score whereas the difference i think in how i approach the game now and how i deal with nerves now is instead of wanting the score i or instead of needing the score it would just be cool to get the score but i'm still playing an aim map i'm still practicing my aim or i'm i'm playing this score that i really want this map i really want to score on to put on the leaderboards but you know the leaderboards don't change over years i've got number ones from six years ago right i could set the same score today and it would be the same number one today i'm you know the time between them the time you set the score doesn't matter oh right so that that does sound like it it sort of goes back to that whole thing of the the map will always be there for you and like yeah that that one run doesn't need to be the run i think um on a similar note um i i've somewhat explored this whole um mentality of like i guess not getting emotionally attached to uh certain runs um like specific runs so what do you what do you think about that i i think that's just sad that's just a really upsetting way of playing the game because if you're not attached to anything why are you doing it in the first place right well if you don't care about what you're doing why are you putting in the effort to do it all right okay maybe we should make a sort of distinction between what what exactly it means to be emotionally attached to a run um because i think there's definitely there's a subtle difference and that sort of is similar to like a want versus need difference as well yeah i i i guess so i do know what you're saying right being emotionally attached to a run is um oh how was i gonna word this being emotionally attached to the result of a run is different from being emotionally attached to a run oh okay that's right okay that yeah i would agree with that as well because you know when you get on a good run you are emotionally attached to it you get nervous you you enjoy it right when you drop that run the only thing that changes your emotional attachment to it is whether you care about the result or not oh okay i see and again goes back to that um don't focus on the result focus on the process right yeah i think that that's definitely been the case from what i've noticed that like nerves when when nerves end up being a detriment is typically in those situations where you treat like like you focus your mentality on something future oriented then very you know just focused on the present and and what you're doing in the moment so um yeah exactly speaking of um oh no you can finish i was i was about to change the topic so no i was i was gonna summarize everything because that would be perfect because i guess in summary expectations about a result lead to nerves desire for the result leads to nerves and um those are all future oriented as you said whereas i think the best way to deal with nerves is not to deal with them is to know they're there is to almost relish in them enjoy them because when can you ever feel like that apart from when you're doing something cool oh right so it's it's something to let them not uh yeah not to be scared of them not to be worried about them and not to think that they're going to make you miss apart from in rare cases where miles make you shake half your tablet area and um i i get really sad looking at the cursor when that happens oh there's just nothing you could do about that but is there nothing you can do about it no that's i that's that's not slander that it's you know oh no i i know it's entertaining i guess as as um sort of an aside though is is that um something that you feel like is like can be targeted specifically like getting shaky whether there's something you could do about that or not it's not something that i know because i've always played on full area so whenever i get shaky you can't see it oh you never notice it because my area is just that big i think it impacts smaller area players a lot more than it impacts bigger area players and some people just shake uncontrollably on on bigger areas anyway um maybe relax maybe i that's okay um so yeah i overall have have agreed with everything and i do want to mention um on on the whole topic of staying present oriented or like as opposed to future oriented um because from what i remember there was a time where you were sort of exploring like meditation's effects on um their people as well can you talk about that so meditation is all about training the mind meditation is about not letting you get out of control not letting um aberrant thoughts affect you um it's not emptying your head a lot of people think meditation is is just head empty brain off but it's not at all that it's about recognizing that there are thoughts there and just letting them be there letting them go afterwards and being present in the moment um a lot of meditation headspace i use headspace a lot and a lot of meditation are sponsored by the cube and not sponsored a lot of a lot of meditation on that app a lot of meditation on i'm sure other apps are all about focusing on how the body feels focusing on the breathing focusing on what's around you and not stopping your brain from thinking thoughts come and go naturally we we think about stuff all day long i mean i've had a lot of different distractions during this podcast or this this um interview but it's recognizing that they're there and then letting them go because they're not not well not necessary but they're just they're not in the way they're not anything but they're not needed right now oh you can just let him go just let him let him move on i see so um in in some senses also um i guess just coming to terms with with those thoughts that you have and not getting too caught up in like oh worrying about yeah and so the way it's helped my nerves is i recognize that i'm nervous in exactly the same way that i would recognize i'm thinking about what color the sky is today and whether it's going to rain later and yeah you know it's just there i just let it go just let it do its own thing oh and focus on what i'm doing right now so from what it sounds like you sort of see like your observation of you being nervous as nothing more than an observation and so you're somehow able to not let it manifest into something that is detrimental to your performance yeah it's i don't let it consume me i don't let it continue um any more than it has to it's just a an acknowledgement the i didn't really finish saying about meditation but yeah it trains your mind it trains it trains your mind to recognize when you're thinking about something and observe and and see what your mind does and and watch it from a distance and not really feel like you have to engage and that's especially helpful with nerves you don't have to engage with them you don't have to take them and and and deal with them there's no dealing with them you don't have to take them and push them away because there's no pushing them away you just accept they're there and and let them go and so do you really does help do you have any um sort of ways in particular that have helped you the most in like noticing your nerves but just leaving it at that observation and not letting it manifest like other specific things that you've done that really help you with that no not really it's just a oh i'm nervous oh and then i just continue playing that's that's all that's that's all that needs to happen is that when i'm thinking about other stuff in a match or in a play say if i'm playing a 15-minute long map and i'm thinking about something i go oh i'm i'm thinking about something i'll just return my focus to osu right and then a minute or two later i'm thinking about something else i'll just return my focus to osu it's it's all about getting better at noticing what your brain is doing and observing it and controlling it pointing it in a direction oh so um it from from my understanding so like you can you can sort of play a 15-minute map and like here and there you're maybe like oh i'm a little hungry and then you just like you you notice that that like okay you're a little hungry but it doesn't manifest into like oh my god yeah if i'm hungry then i'm getting this oh god oh no what am i what am i gonna eat to to remove this hunger oh no i'm thirsty now too oh i need to drink water when i when i finish this map right oh i'm too focused on my mouth i'm too focused on my stomach i'm gonna miss because i'm really focused on my stomach yeah when really all that needs to happen is i'm hungry right later right and then you just return your focus and what it sounds like is that you sort of see being nervous as the same way um like it just it just sort of comes to you just like that feeling of being hungry um or something like being tired for example um it just kind of comes to you and you notice it and then chances are you just sort of go back to whatever you were doing and you pretty much you feel um so like i guess my understanding is that being nervous is something that should be treated the same way as you just notice it and then ultimately you can just go back to what you were doing because yeah because really it's not a big deal i've always been uh well i've always been a my argument has always been nerves don't make you miss and it's going back to what we started with nerves absolutely don't make you miss it's what comes after the nerves that makes you miss oh okay so in in that sense being like what comes after the nerves as in like maybe being scared of the nervous machine or something like that okay now is meditation something in particular that has like helped you come to these realizations of like being able to just sit with the feeling of being nervous without um without it manifesting uh it's been something that i've been working on anyway of of just allowing myself to be nervous and continuing what i was doing it's helped me to um not entertain my thoughts during a play and not entertain the the fear of missing but really i would recommend it i would heartily recommend meditating for five ten minutes a day basically once until you get that routine going and you can step back and then choose to be mindful instead of forcing yourself to go through oh excuse me to go through a meditation um every day it's it's nice to be able to sit look at your brain and go hey this is how it works this is what's happening in there oh do you ever find that you you try to like pull up some i guess um on the spot meditation protocols while while you're playing the game as a way to keep your focus no if you if you meditate once during the day that that kind of stillness of mind remains throughout the rest of the day and it's very easy to return there by taking a step back from what you're doing taking a deep breath and noticing how a the body feels uh the mind feels um etc everything you have done during that meditation can be sort of just just a snap um i don't want to say a snap fix but right you just go back into that place oh you've already been there i see and is that also so have you explored with like meditating like deliberately scheduling a meditation session before a match or something like that and like has that had certain effects on the way you play um i i'm i'm in a good amount of circles with a good amount of collection uh connections and i speak to a few professional players of other esports and they're i get advice from them a lot because they're in a much much much higher pressure situation and a much higher pressure scenario of they're playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars basically whenever they're in grand finals whenever they're in important matches and hey uh i know what happened there um but but they're dead oh oh no no you're good now you're good like this hey no um they they develop a pre-match ritual and they they recommended it to me and said because uh in grand finals suiji in um what was the other one there was there was a tournament i lost as well recently in grand finals where i was really really really nervous and i couldn't focus um and um knicks maybe i'm not sure no it was it was this year and it was just squeegee squeegee definitely though i i put those expectations on myself again of i am the aced i need to fc everything because if i don't our team won't win oh so those are they correct back in that it's not like um a done battle it's like they crept back in they can do that and having those expectations led to those nerves which led to those misses and under performances and i couldn't stop myself from doing that so the pre-match um and what i do again arbitrary no right answer you just kind of have to pick something and do it it's five deep breaths and i do kind of go into a meditative state there where i'm i'm noticing how my body feels i'm noticing the sounds around me um aware of my feet on the floor and how how it feels how the weight of my feet feel pressing into the carpet and after those five deep breaths i just play because it's it's just kind of um it has helped has very much helped because it takes me out of the situation and it makes me remember that it's just a tournament match it's just another tournament match and i will play it in exactly the same way as i play every other tournament match oh okay you know right the whole the whole sort of expectations of i want to play like bubble man i want to play like the bubble man everyone knows i am bubble man i i am i am dan bubble man i was so powerful not play like me right you know so as far as like when you mention like you just sort of pick something and and stick to it and that is in the context of just picking a meditation practice that you can just yeah okay essentially yeah um just picking something arbitrary centering yourself using it and then remembering that you know nerves are normal nerves are okay this is just another match this is there's nothing special about what we're doing right there'll always be another tournament there'll always be another tournament match there'll always be another attempt in solo there'll always be another this that the other right um so is that similar to the sort of pre-match rituals that your esport connections from other games have talked about as well yeah okay um they didn't give me an exact one to do i think so well i don't know i didn't ask very much but it's um yeah they they say it helps oh okay sitting deep breaths play basically it's it's a way to keep yourself centered and put yourself in the same scenario every time oh so whether it's a hard match or an easy match it's just a tournament match it's just another match it's just another just another game oh so they they also tend to advise meditation as well pre-match as a way to just sort of dump out those thoughts yeah i don't know if i don't know if it would say meditation they just said pre-match ritual but i've combined the two right they do sometimes oh okay but it was it was that lack of center just before the um just before the match that made me um [Music] well yeah get scared of not performing up to potential not not doing what i need to do quote unquote to win the match and yeah there you go it's the vocabulary you can kind of pick it and and and pull it apart the need to write um okay so i think because i i do want to make time for viewer questions as well um so what what we can do is yeah so those of you listening through the discord server if you could post your questions i think we'll start going through some live chat questions there's a text thread in the discord server where you can place your questions and what i'll ask you guys to do is if you see a question that someone else asked that you would also want answered if you could add a thumbs up emoji or reaction or something like that so that we can look through the questions a bit easier um but yeah while those questions are coming in bubbleman do you have any miscellaneous things things that you wanted to bring up that maybe you weren't um weren't prompted throughout what we've talked about so far yeah i will apologize i did the same thing to spazzo when i was on his podcast but i think we've gone over right oh no so on a little bit over time there there is no uh set time really i i just yeah so i i did mention earlier that these sessions have been around one hour but um that is more so just um the the trend that has been happening not necessarily like a goal to aim for so yeah don't worry about that i can i can talk about osu for hours honestly i i i just it's such a passion to me it's such a right yeah and i i would definitely be excited to have you on for future um topics as well i would love to yeah so look forward to that those of you who are maybe listening to this um in a couple months time um definitely check out some of the other interview week series that we have here at osu university um surely um uploaded by then and i'm sure bubble man has made multiple appearances at some point in the future so um yeah check that out um okay so a question first question from t-bounce do you ever practice to the point where it makes you more nervous and match because you don't want a worse score than in practice and how do you overcome that um yeah that's that's a really bad one i mentioned 2019 world cup already but that was the one where i pretty much over practiced i played maybe seven or eight times on every map in the grand finals pool and i got so so nervous about replicating those high scores and expecting those high scores because essentially it goes back to that expectation versus expectation versus reality um of what i will do versus what i can do um i just don't take it as seriously take it seriously of course right but don't feel the need to perform oh okay you know oh there is something that i will touch on are you said about miscellaneous stuff right fc'ing a map i've well developed this mindset and mindset is a skill mindset is practicable it's it's taken me years to get a mindset this good if you remember me years ago i was toxic and awful and i hated myself every day very verbally very vocally oh but f seeing a map and winning a tournament match winning a tournament map they're all rolls they're all like coin flips you can get you know you you can pick a map that is a 90 10 in your favor but there's still that 10 percent that you will lose it and you just have to accept that 10 percent if it happens it's i'm not saying it's rng but there is always a chance you lose there is always a chance you miss etc so it's it's about accepting the the fact that you could oh so just accepting the fact that failure is a possibility but still giving you your best yeah rather than um i feel like sort of the alternative to that is you bank on the successful outcome happening and then if that doesn't happen then like you're not even gonna know what to do with yourself so to speak okay yeah yeah exactly um okay so another question um from tron plays asks how do you combat finger locking if you're nervous especially during tournaments um finger locking if you're nervous is a speed issue rather than a consistency issue or a nerves issue um it's we go back to confidence and and being able to do something if you're scared of not being able to do something then that obviously means that you're not as comfortable as you would like to be on that thing if you're comfortable with streaming 190 in solo but then you finger lock it you're just scared of not being able to to do it so you need to improve your speed so that when 190 is there's nothing to you and you get scared about 200 or 210 220 etc oh so it really comes down to your expectation of your own abilities and like just being aware of what you're capable of and not capable of because if yeah right if you're listening intently you can hear these these words getting thrown around a lot of expectations of um us being scared of nerves of need versus want etc there's there's a lot of the same things coming up and i hope that it's apparent that well all of this is linked in a way right right um i i would definitely agree with that um oh uh actually there's this question from johan okay so jawan asks what advice do you have for people that rage after missing on the same part on maps i personally cannot relate to raging on scores so i don't know what to say to my friends that do okay i can relate to this because it was like heavily me i see myself in that question and i don't like it i've gotten better at it now um whenever i used to miss and just drop a note in the same place each time and i would rage you've got to realize that it's it's a big um [Music] well it shows your expectation basically of of saying um i can hit this part why am i not hitting it slams desk so you they know they can do it or they they feel like they can do it they believe they can do it and they're not doing it and i don't know if if you've tried to do something you know you can do and failed at it five ten times in a row it does get pretty frustrating it does it naturally you will get annoyed that hey this is something i've done really really easily in the past why can't i do it now when it matters so there really is not much you can say to people to snap them out of it but when you're in that situation at the point you're getting mad at it you're getting stubborn you're you're you're taking it as it should happen it needs to happen it must happen whereas you can just try again tomorrow and and that's my advice for people that get annoyed at missing on the patterns the score will still be there to be set tomorrow oh okay so yeah ultimately it sounds like it is really coming down to that want versus need um idea again oh i see and that is something that exactly like you said you've you've sort of learned from your own experience so i feel pretty confident in that um awesome uh okay a question from puffer fish kirby says how do players like you just focus on playing the map and not on the fc or result um so we did touch on this a little bit earlier but do you have any sort of ways to expand on that just focusing on on the map again it's a process of changing the mindset from hey uh i want to play this so i get 200 pp to um hey i want to play this and if i full combo i might get 200 pp but i still want to play it and try it and and see what i get essentially um what i've been telling myself and the manta i've been living by is the only circle that matters is the next one you don't have to think about that jump section that's that's three minutes in if you if you miss the next note then full comboing that doesn't matter at all oh um and on on a similar note actually i've i've sort of experimented with this mentality as well that like you can treat a a map into like just subdivided like for example you could you have like a two minute map and you have like four separate practice difficulties and so if you sort of treat the map as a bunch of individual practice difficulties and um just focus on on each one at a time then that can sometimes help with like just keeping yourself in the present and like just focusing only on that section of the map that you're on yeah and not thinking about like just like not worrying about like the fact that you hit the hard part like a minute and a half ago in like a long map or something like that and that you're still holding full combo you can just sort of you can try to convince yourself like oh i've hit that but now that's in the past and all that really matters now is that i'm just gonna i'm you know just gonna keep playing at where i'm at in the map right now i mean the map is as hard as its hardest pattern if you miss on on the easiest bit of the map it's you still missed on what is an eight star map it's still an eight star pattern even if it's the easiest one in the map it's still you know that difficult oh that's interesting um okay actually um do you have anything to add on to that whole like sting yeah i i i find it funny that osu is a game and or osu is a rhythm game and in every other rhythm game you've got solace in guitar hero um i would love to pull more examples but that's the only one i can think of right now or any other rhythm game but they all have segmented fcs there's a whole little sub category of fcs which is segmented fc's let's split the map up and you see every pattern in its segments and osu doesn't have that which is really quite interesting we're very much a a game that's cultured on the full combo is the only one that matters in a full run you know segments and fcs are also interesting if you can get that full combo but only that they only prove you can get it not whether you will or whether you won't and stringing together every full combo of every segment may be a one in a hundred chance but of course you will still try for that one in 100 chance right and you find that in in speed running as well um in those you know like like timers as well that have like segmented um or like some of best um segments something like that so yeah i do agree i i think that um the sort of osu community's culture um at the moment is that like if you only see like a segmented like hard section um it's usually just brushed off sometimes as like twitter clip farming or something like that yeah yeah yeah um that isn't interesting yeah what do you think about that um so maybe we do have segmented runs but we just don't have a segmented whole map fc run you hit the hard part yeah wow i cannot see this but well in a full run right can you hit that section and then not let your nerves affect you and not hyper focus afterwards that's that's essentially what that tests i suppose oh um okay so there is one topic about nerve control that i sort of want to touch on and that is was sort of brought up by this question by quill who asks do skins that don't show stuff like accuracy and combo really help with nerves so really sort of on on the topic and we can make this a bit more broad um is sort of like removing like information around you that sort of feeds information about the score um how do you think that has an impact on nerves i play with the skin with like half size combo and half size um score numbers but it's not really learning to deal with knowing where you are in the map it's it's almost learning to not think it matters really because again my my mantra going into maps is the only circle that matters it's the next one as long as you click the next circle 1 376 times you will get a full combo on that map right right worrying about where you are in the map doesn't really apply to me simply because it doesn't matter where i am on the map uh the next circle is at uh x 218 y 72 um so d do you find that like turning that interface stuff off is just a matter of preference or i think so okay so you can you can really still achieve those same results even with everything on because if you get distracted by it that's you letting yourself get distracted by it because you think it holds some weight and again touch on something i said half an hour ago the score isn't set until you click the last circle and the score screen shows up right you're worrying almost worrying about something that doesn't exist uh and in that sense as well i think um we can touch a bit on tournament play as well and the leaderboard popping up during breaks and things like that do you have any um well that's an interesting one do think that that i i used to play with the leaderboard off i had that skin element that hit the leaderboard and um it whether it helped or not i don't know it was um yeah it was it was interesting to me the difference between having it off versus having it on where having it on because now i don't give it as much weight as i used to it doesn't really affect me knowing that they've missed means that i can relax a little bit more and and not have to spend a lot of my mental energy keeping a combo right right or keeping accuracy high if i'm close to the end of a map and i know i've won a point i'll i'll take a step back and i'll just coast the way home because i'm saving myself for later but that's the only thing it really triggers is okay i know i'm i i know i've got this i can just take it easy versus i might not have this there's enough of the map where he can make a comeback if i miss um but i have the ability to say okay i've won by now i can just step back and enjoy myself for the rest of the map great do so and and you're saying that like when you have the leaderboard off that you you don't really get that yeah it's it's because i had the leaderboard off when i was so hyper focused on the result rather than the process um i would just go in and want to fc every map and show that i'm really cool and amazing and super awesome and everyone should think i'm cool um so yeah i'd go in and i'd do my best to put up the best scores that i could uh and it did help you know not knowing what they were doing helped me to not think about oh i need to keep fce i need to keep doing this right or or on the other side of that you you sometimes see the break and you get too complacent because you see that that they're not really holding a good score and then you you end up getting too many careless misses just because you feel like it doesn't matter and then that that can sometimes be your downfall um so in that sense do you feel like it's um like really fair for some people to be using that skin element to hide the leaderboard completely or do you feel like it really even should be an option that's available to players um hiding the leaderboard completely absolutely should um stuff like the ui should be toggleable i think you can take a big leaf out of popular um oh forgotten the genre name but mmo um world of warcraft final fantasy where you can infinitely customize your heads-up display to show whatever you want it to show the slots in it to press certain abilities at a certain place and have them bound to certain keys i i think that's really the way that ui's um hduds should work to give you the information you want rather than to supply you with information that they think you'll need so do you feel that in in a sense that that sort of subtracts from the um spectators experience of like the match itself like not at all because you as a spectator don't see that leaderboard right but i guess in the sense of like the the pressure um or intensity of the situation that the viewer might be experiencing like say hey there's a break two thirds in the map and and the map is really close right now um here's and maybe the commentators are like here's a chance where the players can see the leaderboard like what do you think about stuff like that that's the the only that is the only thing that gets removed and that is such a minor thing because everyone has already been used to hiding the leaderboard anyway but you can still say that on the off chance that both players have the leader port enabled right right and then even if it doesn't have the leaderboard enabled it you can spin it in a way that instead of oh they have the leaderboard they know what each other are doing you can spin it such that they take a break they're aware the other player might be full comboing they need to calm their nerves it's a time to to sit back and and calm down and really focus for the last x amount to to get the most score they can there are other ways you can tell the story of a match oh okay so ultimately it's like too minor of a thing to to really be missed so yeah nobody will miss it absolutely right i i feel like um that's almost similar to the whole sense of failed scores not counting way back when or like the commentators would sometimes um have to say things like you know barring a fail at the end of the map then x team is is definitely going to win this and things like that and nowadays now that no fail has been implemented and things like that and yeah you can't just fail at the end of the map like that's not something that commentators say anymore but at the same time right right it's it's such a such a plus to the overall experience of of tournament competitive integrity and things like that and like really what tournaments stand for which is that you know the better performing player will get the point um so yeah definitely agree absolutely um but uh yeah that actually sounds like a um decent spot to wrap up uh we can maybe take one more question um this question comes from a recreational fish who says you ever get the looming feeling that you're inevitably going to miss and then actually do and if so how do you deal with it um i mean that feeling that you're inevitably going to miss you don't again don't need to pay attention to it it's just the same way you don't need to pay attention to nerves like again to go back to the yomiuri score i set all throughout it i was saying don't hype i um i'm gonna miss you know i'm gonna miss the ending it's not gonna be an fc it doesn't you know and then i didn't right right i just got it i got through the map i didn't miss a note and it was it was a complete surprise to me i thought hey i'm not good enough to do this i'll try and uh get as good a score as i can and whatever happens happens so essentially if you get that looming feeling of oh i'm going to miss at some point it doesn't matter if you miss it doesn't matter if you if you you know drop a drop a note don't you don't need the score at the end of it you you want the score yeah i wanted to full combo that while i was playing it but my goal was to get to the end of the map without failing oh i see so ultimately really because i i that actually reminds me of um some instances i remember some friends of mine would like tell stories about some mentality that they had during some good score that they had set were all throughout the run they're just thinking like okay this fc is not going to last when am i going to miss it's going to happen at any point now and then it just kind of doesn't happen and they manage to fc i think the danger we're thinking that though is if you think it too much you become too invested in the thought of missing and then you miss and you're like oh yeah see but if you if you recognize it as a possibility of missing then you don't need to give it any more thought the same way we go back to again i love how every question ties back into something we've already said just to reiterate a point right but going back to meditating it's recognizing the thought is present accepting it moving on like recognizing nerves are present accepting it moving on thinking hey or i could miss at any point does it matter ultimately no not really oh okay so really just separating yourself from um yeah the the possibility of like of of messing up without it really being too overbearing it's it's it's it's really funny because a lot of the times people get nervous people miss is when they're thinking oh we don't want to miss is is when they're thinking oh i'm getting nervous i want to miss and we yeah we've already said it's it's about recognizing you're nervous and not letting it matter the the you get caught up in things the only way that is attached to things is stuff you allow it to have right allow stuff to have weight and you allow stuff to occupy your mind and you allow these thoughts to circulate and perpetuate and grow into something that is just just big so um you know have those thoughts and let them let them be leave them be and continue to enjoy the run right and and i do want to touch on that a little bit that um all this i guess talk about just not letting it matter um it's definitely something that that takes a lot of time and practice and and sometimes frustration um trying to get that sort of mentality and and still having your nerves to um get the best of you so to speak and um yeah i just i just sort of want to add on that um it it does take practice and that's something that that you've sort of tried to emphasize as well throughout this that it's taken years for you to come to the point where you feel comfortable talking about things like this so i was absolutely in one of the most toxic mindsets towards myself outwardly i was um i would hope anyway i was pleasant and and chill and i was hopefully a nice guy but inwardly i hated myself i did not like missing i just just hated everything about playing the game and not being able to live up to this person i thought i was and um the mindset shift has happened over two three years basically right it has been a conscious effort to not get annoyed at myself allow myself to make mistakes and you know not give off this image that i'm anything but a normal osu player you know right i make mistakes i miss notes it's normal it's almost it would be weird if i didn't right um sounds good though i uh yeah do you have any last things just yeah just to touch on not caring is boring because you don't get happy when ufc that's not all what we're saying what we're saying is not allowing thoughts in your head to have power over you caring is great if you didn't care why would you be doing what you do why would you be attempting the scores you're attempting care enjoy the process of caring enjoy the process of pushing yourself and enjoy missing enjoy it enjoy the failure enjoy the scores that you attempt and can't quite get because they're just a part of your journey towards getting those score it's um it's not about being stoic in the sense of i you know great i got the score move on whatever who cares it's about being stoic in um not letting yourself get caught up in the negatives or the positives too much and not overthinking it not letting yourself uh not letting yourself get caught up in the sense that you're uh too happy you're you're too scared to to lose the happiness you'll get from getting that score it is it's you know it's about being happy with what you have and excited about what could be right it's a matter of um just riding the wave so to speak pretty much yeah that is powerful of course it's not about it's not about not caring it's a it's absolutely about caring and i care greatly about the game i it's a passion of mine and it's a passion i don't think i'd give up for the world but you know it's about not caring about those little things that don't need to be cared about the oh i don't care about that miss whatever i'll play it again don't care about losing the tournament match whatever i'll i'll win another tournament match right oh hello yeah oh okay okay i yeah i did i did just kind of stop yeah okay just making sure you didn't cut out again um i can't think of much more to say on the topic that that is okay i think um there was a lot of really really valuable insight that i i did not even expect some things were very new information to me so i'm very glad to have had this conversation with you um i am absolutely happy to provide uh yeah and hopefully to those of you listening that that was insightful which you know i'm i'm sure it was um but yeah i'm definitely excited to um talk to you some more potentially in in future interview weeks because you you definitely have a lot to say and and i can i can tell that by by the many different um questions that that we had gotten um they were all all very valid um some of them seemed like they were probably better fit for different topics that i i am planning on having you come back for sure so there's a lot to explore so i'm very excited but for now we are going to wrap things up for today thank you so much for joining me bubble men and um those of you those of you listening um through twitch live um we appreciate you guys being here um those of you listening on youtube um well first of all thank you for making it all the way to the end of the video um if you sorry for doubling the video oh no worries at all i think i think if anything i think people will be very glad that they got as much as as you had to say out of this conversation so um yeah best way to support us on youtube is to subscribe to the channel like the video it really helps us out and share the um either the interview series or just a single video um with just one other person goes a long way um if you want to stay directly involved with the osu university community as a whole or maybe just at the interviews definitely join our discord server that is where you can stay most up-to-date and involved in everything that we do but yeah in other news uh those of you listening live we will have another interview with kables in just over two hours so look forward to that those of you um watching on twitch keep the tab open maybe um but yeah any final thoughts bubbleman well you have been a brilliant host it has been an absolute pleasure to be here thank you so much thank you thank you yeah so um yeah thanks to everyone for listening and we will see you next time