A Champion's Mindset

Huh I have a few posts that I though I lost but apparently blogspot saved them. So I shall finish them up and publish them one per day from now on.

This is a post inspired from Bleach(The Anime)and my personal observations. In this post I shall show you how to become a Shinigami... or not.

The concept I shall be discussing today is "Reiatsu". Most of my readers won't understand this concept at first so I want to ask you to remember the last time you've played one of the "Pro Players" or one of those even guys who keeps topping your local. No matter what you do, no matter how you play you seem to always make that fatal misplay. Why? The answer is simple Mind Games. Imagine this senario , You are at your first Regionals or Shonen Jump Championship and you read your opponents name "Adam Corn" or any other pro. At that moment you feel like you have a little chance of winning and curse the dueling gods for giving you an "impossible" opponent first round. You walk up to the table with a loser's mind set. While on the other hand Adam comes in expecting an easy win.

What's the difference ,besides than a few SJC titles and Regional wins, between the pro across the table from you? Simple, The answer is confidence. Winners and champions are confident in their victory. Most of us have felt that surge of confidence at playing an obviously inferior player (i.e the new kid who shows up with a structure deck). Most players in a tournament situation will walk into the duel the thought in their mind that they will have an easy victory and thank the dueling gods for their good fortune.

Lastly imagine you are at a regionals. Most of the people there have similar decks and have about the same amount of dueling knowledge as you do. As you walk up to the first match you sit down for your match and calmly greet your opponent , set up your deck etc. You notice your opponent is a lot more nervous than you. You play your cards and he plays his and he plays his. Finally the duel boils down to the final few plays and your opponent attempts to summon his boss monster. But you've predicted this and he falls right into your bottomless trap hole. You then proceed to clear the field, summon your boss monster for game. The entire duel was an evenly matched one, and ignoring the small luck factor in this game. Your opponent was nervous and made inevitably made a few minor misplays that eventually led him to loose the match.

Back to our opening concept, in dueling confidence is your Reiatsu. A little confidence won't help you win championships by itself. Confidence is what gives you an edge when playing opponents with similar skill levels. Confidence is another tool to help you win your matches.