can you summarize this video transcript and give me the key-takeaways? this is a conversation with ron rambo kim the fps coach himself and in this
conversation we talk about his career as a professional esports player his time
professionally coaching teams like cloud9 mvp and complexity as well as his best
advice for how to become a better fps player now quite honestly there's not a lot i need to say to preface this
conversation a lot of the value and interesting things are packed within it so
watch it carefully consider even taking notes and i hope you guys learn a lot from this conversation and i
hope it leaves you feeling as inspired as it left me feeling so without further
ado here's the fps coach himself if you were to give someone a rundown of who you are
Who is Ron Rambo Kim?
and uh and what you do in esports uh where would you start sure um i guess we could just start with
my playing career i used to be a professional counter-strike player so in 1998 my dad got me my first computer
um was immediately hooked to counter-strike and pc games um made a team with my local high school
friends and we started competing in tournaments um we started winning our local events started competing online
um and then there was actual like tournaments happening um so big qualifiers international events
uh surrounding myself with you know some of the best n a players um you know at the time and uh played
for a team called team 3d for about seven years full-time uh you know day in day out traveling the
world literally dream job you know got to do that so and then after about seven
years i decided to retire got into esports marketing for about three years
um and i had the edge for a competition again so that's when i decided to move to korea
to become a coach so i coached team mvp uh their counter-strike team and then
coach complexity and cloud9 for two years after that um and then i started youtube channel a
couple years ago under fbs coach ron rambo kim where i teach gamers everything i learned from my ps
career to help them get better awesome that's pretty succinct and uh i want to dive into each
step of that career because i think each of those is pretty interesting um but to be fair i think that the best
place to start is right at the start i think a lot of people who are passionate about esports
and gaming um you know there's a difference between surface level passion and full-on
commitment and i think a lot of that commitment starts with pretty young maybe with a certain level of
history within gaming where there's just like a pure passion and love and i'm curious where you think your
like passion and love for gaming originated for you um
well the first time i ever put my hands on a video game was nintendo my dad got me nintendo and i think it
was like at the age of four and i remember in one day i got to the
last level um it's weird i don't remember if i beat it or not but i remember getting to it
because i remember like the love and everything so um i always loved video games i loved
figuring them out even as a young kid my parents on the weekends would go to the farmer's
market and to keep me entertained they gave me some quarters so he gave me like a pocketful of quarters and i would
go to the arcade and um you know i just i was more uh gravitated towards the the multiplayer
aspect so you know play versus other people um so it was competitive in nature and i
played soccer played hockey um and then yeah so that was just kind
of innately in me um and then when generally for me i kind of have like a i don't know if you an obsessive
personality in a way where if i like something i'm pretty much all in so whether it's a recreation a hobby
you know it could be golf it could be starting an aquarium you know whatever it is i want to learn everything about
it um and then you mix that in with the element of competition um i think that was you know those two
two perfect kind of pieces um and then you know once once i knew we
could make money and we could travel um it was it was i knew i was hooked there
was nothing else i wanted to do yeah that's that sounds like a pretty inspiring start and i'm curious to dig
into i guess um like you grew up at a certain age uh how old were you when you went to your
Ron's Career as a Player
first like esports tournament like lan event i think i was 16 or 17. um i was a senior in high
school um i was with at that time i didn't have a really good computer but my best
friend in high school bobby shout out to you bobby um he used to let me land at his house so we would play over there um and then
there was lucky for us like we lived in dallas i still live in dallas but there's this event called quakon
and at the time it was the biggest gaming event in the world i believe and maybe next to dreamhack in sweden um
so everyone in the nation would come down it was a huge land party and it was like you know 500 to thousand people so
that's where i got my first taste of competition and during the land of bilc's um
i you know i figured out i was pretty decent so that was even more inspiration for me uh
i had read somewhere that i don't know if it was your first tournament one of your first tournaments you ended up winning like a pretty
significant amount of prize money right the first of the first first land
competition it was in counter-strike beta i was it was at the quake con yeah um so the
quake was the actual official tournament but in the land byoc it was counter-strike it was a 64-person
one-on-one uh on this map called cs mansion um so i ended up playing my high school
friend in it won it um won like a 300 graphic 300 graphics card
at the time nice um it was a huge upgrade for me um yeah so that was my first official
winning that'd be so motivating that's fantastic yeah so it's like
you know winning little tournaments here and there um you know would go to lands on the weekend there'd be like you know 20
entry per person and then we'd end up winning like 100 each so nice um yeah just you know
using those those that money for for upgrades and gas money travel around and stuff uh yeah that's awesome and then in uh
what was it there's 2002 you ended up being one of the founding members of the
first salary north american esports team was that like a big step at the time for
just esports in general or did you not really think of it that way or what was that experience like i guess
yeah it was huge um i remember k sharp my teammate
um he told us about this guy named craig levine and he reached out to us and said hey uh this guy wants to like be
our manager and find his sponsors um he's gonna get his jerseys and stuff and we're like we're just like okay
whatever yeah sure let's do it um it ended up being um his name's horrible
he believe he's like the president of esl uh like chief operating officer or
something so he's like um one of the big dogs now but back then we had no clue who he was he was just
some random guy from new york um and we're like sure let's do it we get free stuff
he ended up being probably arguably one of the best esports managers of all time um he landed us huge sponsors like intel
comp usa nvidia subway so we were getting free subway meals and
um all our trips and stuff were paid for um and then yeah we're getting you know at the time the biggest salary
um so with that we're able to focus full-time a huge reason why we're so good because
you know we didn't have to work we could we could play you know 40 50 hours a week wow and was that uncommon at the time
very uncommon yeah yeah i mean there was barely any tournaments um there was no structure
there was no like there was nothing it was brand new industry like there was no esports industry
before no established orgs um leagues you know
so um yeah it was unheard of we were just at the time just kind of going with it
and again i mean craig huge he took of care of everything out of the game so
um i that the outside of the game sponsors stuff i didn't really know about um i
was just happy that i got paid and you know all our you know food and travel and hotels were taken care of so we can compete
and during all of this time what did your parents think of your your gaming
yeah so you know i got i'm super lucky that i have parents that supported me um generally with asian parents it's not
you know you know get that stroke of luck so um they supported me um they always have
they always let me do what made me happy um so yeah they
they um it was kind of a weird transitional moment too because i had graduated uh high school um
i had failed economics i had to go back and take it for summer school so i could get my degree
yeah um that's how much i sucked at school and i hated it um but luckily i was pretty good at
video games um so after like i'm supposed to go to community college like i didn't know
what i wanted to do with my life after high school um but we ended up winning a qualifier to go to new york
um and we won that qualifiers for wcg to represent america and korea so this
was like 17 and a half right out of high school and then we went to korea um and we did pretty good there um and
then that's when craig noticed us um we got sponsors so if it wasn't for
that event i don't know if my parents would have given me the chance but they saw that i could you know
actually got everything paid for it went to korea which was like my motherland yeah a crazy experience so um
definitely lucky in that aspect wow that's that's so crazy i i it feels like or it
sounds like um it sounds like there's a big mix of uh skill or a big mix of luck in there but on the
skill side of things what do you think it was that you and your team had that other teams didn't have that allowed you
to succeed at that time yeah i think i always say like one of the luckiest things
is finding teammates that all blend together well you know in a team game you have to have
the chemistry um both in and out of the game right like personalities have to match the rules have to to not overlap um
so definitely got lucky there um kind of what happened was um as i was competing and playing i
started to figure out who the better players in north america were because we would constantly play versus each other
in scrims or in finals or in matches and those are the people that i knew i
wanted to be with if we were going to be the best in the world so slowly we started you know
piecing a core together um you know k sharp uh you know at the time bullseye boto
big dog chameleon so there's all these players you know just trying to surround ourselves with the best um and you know when you kind of have a
core of players it's a lot easier to pick up other players um yeah right because it's it's more
enticing that way so yeah in that aspect we're lucky because we're able to attract the best talent and
always have a lineup that can compete internationally yes nice and then um it was i guess in 2007 that
you joined complexity and that was what like um i think i'd also read that you started like playing
on like television and stuff like that like what was that experience like yeah so um 2007 um
there was this gaming organization developed by directv called the championship gaming
series and at the time it was that's when counter-strike uh source came out so there was this
transitional moment and whilst 1.6 was still huge so cgs wanted to use um counter-strike
source because it looked better on tv and so what their whole uh
kind of concept was is they wanted to create city franchises so they would have like los angeles complexity 3d new york
uh dallas you know east coast they had like eight cities and then each city you'd have like i
think there was like four or five games and so they would have um you know a counter-strike team
a fighting game team a racing game team and we all lived in los angeles um for so they
would pave we lived in uh marina del rey which is one of the coolest places um to live in l.a i was like right by
the beach we lived in like luxury apartments right with the biggest salary of all time um
at that point so it was like we made it you know yeah um this was heaven but
unfortunately um there was just i think they were two ahead of their time
so we got to compete in two full seasons of that yeah amazing experience but it was
short-lived um but yeah is is a cool experience and at the end of that when um after
those two years what what happened from there um from there um i got back into 1.6 a little bit
played for about a season or so but um that's when i was definitely at the tail end of my um
competitive drive um you know i just been competing non-stop for about seven eight years so that's when i decided you
know to hang up the keyboard and um i just didn't have the drive to practice anymore so
from there um i got into working in the esports industry so i did
a whole bunch of contractor work uh went to a whole bunch of events
and that's when i got into marketing did you did you enjoy the transition into the corporate world and
Ron's Career After Playing Professionally
i asked that from a point where like uh a lot of people who are younger and interested in esports
probably don't like the idea of like what happens after their career was it was it like a a negative thing
for you to transition into corporate or was it actually like more enjoyable because you're doing something new yeah it was definitely
um by choice and it was interesting because it was new um i never worked a real job before you
know showing up to an office um getting salary and
working with different departments and other you know people uh like uh and yeah like um
you know marketing departments and other divisions but yeah i did that for about three
years i started with customer support um and then i worked my way to
running the esports marketing so this was for benq with zowie so it was an invaluable
experience um since i didn't get a formal education i felt like i got it through those three
years working through those different departments working with different divisions and just learning firsthand so it was
amazing i'm also curious how that opportunity came up for you did you see like a job posting somewhere did you
know somebody worked there yeah um so i met this guy named bob budeck
he was the the head marketing guy for ben q um he's the one who did who actually
like decided that bank you should go into gaming um so i met him through some of the events um and he hired me
wow that's really cool and then um it also saw that you did um event
specialist work was that like yeah so that was um right after cgs that's that was a
contractor so working with this guy named laurent um he's one of the ogs of esports
he has him and craig had uh was working for it was a company called
ess esports services so companies venues exhibitions
tournaments would hire them to help them set up and run events so i would you know i went to like
15 or 20 mlgs bunch of e3s um you know just some of the biggest
gaming events in the nation um and just yeah just you know continuing to travel go to gaming events
um yeah it's cool and then uh i'm curious what
Ron's Experience as a Coach
what um at what point did you want to transition back into or transition into more of a
coaching role like what inspired that decision yeah so um after about three years and
the corporate world i felt like i got to a point where i wasn't really learning anymore and i didn't really see a next step or
progression that interested me so um and i've always and then the other thing was
i always wanted to live in korea you know just kind of my heritage so i sent one of my a message to one of
my friends there named ken yang shout out to king another og um asked him if there's any jobs if he knows
anyone he said yeah actually there's this team mvp looking for a coach so i was like done how do we do it um
you know i was there in three weeks you know i had my working visa and i was i was living there so um yeah so that that was in 2017
where i got to live in korea for about a year did you like do you speak korean fluently uh i mean it's
it's like second grader you know like when i talk like i'll probably sound like an infant at
times so like i would speak the language over there they would just bust out laughing like oh i probably sound like a noob
just you know trying to change together words um but yeah i mean it's enough to get around
did you live in a seoul or like a major city or where did you live i lived in a city
called inchon oh incheon yeah yeah it's like the airport city yeah i actually i spent
most of 2020 in uh seoul this year so i uh i'm very familiar yeah
what are you doing there uh i actually so funny enough i went there originally for some esports events that were
happening and then corona took off about three days after i got there so it was kind of this like weird thing
where everyone was like stuck inside and no one was really going outside and i was thinking like should i just try to
go home or not i thought i'd wait it out then about a couple weeks later everything was relatively contained
there but not back here where i live in canada so i was like i just feel safer staying here so all the events got canceled but i
just wanted to stay there because it felt safer and i ended up just meeting a bunch of new friends so i actually stayed i lived
basically in hongdae uh for about six months and it was a great experience yeah yeah it's
a really cool area too yeah i really liked it i really liked it and i learned so much about korean culture which was amazing
yeah it's um it's very special place i could definitely uh live there again um yeah it's very
respectful people nightlife is fun food is great yes always something open something to do yeah um
and esports is you know it's the birthplace of esports yeah a lot of cool events and shows to
go to i'm actually curious uh what your thoughts are on i guess like you grew up in the the
north american esports scene when you went there as a coach what did you learn about the differences of how
they treat esports versus us here is there a big difference or not necessarily
uh the biggest difference for me was the relationship between older people
and younger people so in korea naturally the culture and language is actually designed
um to respect the elders so when you speak to an older person you have to speak a certain way
so there's this automatic respect you have for elders so um you know if i
wanted something done or if i uh you know um had an idea or whatever it was it was no
question that they were gonna listen yeah um and there was a lot more respect amongst each other too
i felt like um maybe you know maybe it's just the players i worked with maybe there's other
you know side cases but just the interaction yeah between each other and the elders so it was a
lot more structured disciplined people would show up on time no question they're very self-motivated
and you know whereas here in america you know there can be some players that may be a little bit lazier um
not as self-disciplined um you know you know kind of so
so that was kind of dynamics yeah okay and i'm that it sounds like that would make
your first year in coaching a lot easier but i'm curious to hear what the the other side of that is what do you
think was like the hardest part of transitioning into a coaching role yeah so for me
there's two things um easily one is my korean wasn't as good enough as i needed
it be to coach you know as a coach you have to be very selective with how you provide criticism how you talk
to players when they're down how to motivate them how to talk strategy
how to break down demos it's a very complex language that i couldn't do so um definitely limited in that
the second thing is um the coach's ability to understand each player
as both in and out of the game so you gotta understand their personality type um how
to communicate them how to command communicate with them the tone the message the timing
how they receive information like those kind of very unique understandings of each
person was something that um i'm still working on and i definitely was new to back then um
because it's different having a relationship as a coach to a player than it was an igl or a teammate
like when i played professionally i could communicate a way different way to a teammate than i
can from a coach to a player okay so um yeah just kind of learning that the social dynamics of being a
coach ah that makes a lot of sense and and i imagine that changes
quite a lot based on what team you're working with so like after that um you ended up coming
back in and coaching in america you came back and coached for complexity next was that
yeah so i'm curious what uh what inspired that decision to move back
and then um yeah we'll start with that what inspired that decision yeah so
at the end of 2017 um matt warden or matt matt diggins uh his
gamer name is warden um i used to compete with him against him and i also
was a teammate with him in complexity so a very strong relationship with him he was the
at that time current head coach of complexity and he wanted to transition to the general manager role so
he reached out to me and see if i was interested um and it actually ended up their
headquarters was being moved to my home city of dallas like in frisco so
um that made perfect sense um it was you know i could be back at home and be near my family plus
coaching uh a such a you know iconic esports organization like complexity that
i already played for so it's a no-brainer and yeah that's fair and then uh when
you came back did you did you feel like there was new learning curve to
working with a with a brand new team and and how did you kind of overcome that learning curve
yeah definitely a lot of things that i learned from korea and coaching that team that i could bring to this new team
you know definitely uh opening up the language barrier was huge um and then um also
you know just learning the meta a little bit more and having a stronger idea of a competitive counter strike from that
first year um because it you know that was kind of a re-um introductory again into the scene
because i had been out for a while so a lot of good stuff i could bring over um
and then yeah i mean all the players were super welcoming um uh the whole org was good so um we were
there we we had a little bit of roster um tribulation i guess like kind of not
instabilities better word in the first six months or so but once we finally settled on a team that we could
kind of commit to really dig down and develop um you know
one of the best moments we had is we were able to go through the open qualifiers of a major
it was the um face it london major and we had to qualify from the very
first stage of open so like with any other teams and players and we ended up like over months of
you know competition qualifiers boot camps were able to make it to the eighth um top eight um at the face atlanta
major which is you know they have two of those years like the biggest events so it was an amazing accomplishment um in
that short amount of time so uh that was yeah by far um
my my best memory from that that's awesome that one's been really exciting when that happened
yeah it was crazy it's i mean because i mean when you're standing
there on the stage out of a major and in the crowd there it was packed full it was at um
that's like what it was at a huge stadium in london um it was absolutely packed and i've
never been with that kind of energy and that kind of um
that many fans um before like when i would compete it was much smaller so this was a whole new thing um
it was a crazy experience um considering just you know the journey we went through and you know all the ups
and downs and all the grinding and stuff but to say you know we got top eight and you know one of the biggest events of
the year with a team that wouldn't hadn't been together for too long and yeah
yeah so it's super cool what do you think was um maybe the the reason for for that
success because i imagine that's hard with like a new team like what what do you think that maybe uh you and other people did to help
bring that team together and to do so well i think definitely a big piece of that
was matt um warden our general manager he was pretty much the glue of our team he's
really good at what he does very personable person um before we went to the first stage of the
face at london major qualifiers we were boot camping in germany um for two weeks um to play versus the
european teams and just you know get in shape um and it ended up being like
the most like it was traumatic like we were getting destroyed like absolutely destroyed it
was so demoralizing um and we're like you know when you're preparing for the
big event you're waking up every day playing for six eight hours and just getting trashed every day um it was very so at that
point it's like we're at an all-time low right but when we actually went to london to start
the first stage um i think there's like this whole new energy it was kind of maybe like it felt like we
had nothing to lose kind of like um we didn't have any any hopes we're just like we're just
gonna do the best we can right like um and i think maybe because we got
trashed well one we learned a ton right like through all those trash errors we still like stuck to our plan
we did our analysis we talked about what we could fix so in that period we were actually prepared us more than anything
else so with that attitude we went to the first stage um i think we went three and one
our first match was first astralis which was literally the best team in the world um at that time they
they were on a tear so it was like whatever we were supposed to lose right um but after that we actually
winning uh start we won three in a row um which qualified us through the first stage so we found some momentum
uh we carried it we beat some really big teams there and then the second stage we carry that
momentum i think we also went pretty sure we went undefeated so we we ended up beating like six of the best
you know 16 teams in the world somehow uh with some crazy momentum um which yeah
it was awesome it's amazing that's so cool and then um i i guess after that you ended up going
to cloud9 right yeah i went to cloud9 um
went to nine after a year with complexity um moved to la um
and then also at that time cloud9 was going through some roster issues after the major so
you know there's a lot of uh kind of ups and downs with the roster it's always a tough thing to develop a
team when you you pick up someone new and then you have to teach that person everything again
so you're kind of like you have to take a couple steps back so the team actually doesn't progress it's more of just like a ketchup period
okay but anyways yeah i got to work with some world-class like hall of fame
players um automatic he was on there flesha um
uh rush was on there so like major winners like big time players so yeah
great learning experience for me as a coach um and yeah we attended one major um
but unfortunately because of the roster issues like we had to use a sub which took up a
coaching role so yeah and actually helped them on stage with the coach was which sucks um but um yeah it was about six seven
months i was with him um learned learned a ton and um i was
glad for the happy for the experience what do you feel like uh through your coaching experience what do
you think that you learned that you would want to either like teach yourself on your first
year of coaching or teach like another coach in their first year of coaching like what what key lesson would you want to
give to them um well i think
just in general you should try to be real with what your weaknesses are or
where you can improve upon so if you could i would say in two high
umbrella categories in and out of game so how can you develop yourself in game to understand the strats the
meta um you know how can i help my team develop uh in the shortest amount of time like
how do we use the schedule what's the philosophy and systems we use um natas specs and then there's the out
of game stuff so how can i better myself as a as a you know
not only a coach but you know as a friend as a mentor how do i work on my skills to be a
better teacher um yeah so kind of like really high level stuff
um but has the most impact um because it's you know a lot of the day-to-day stuff
so you know uh um yeah that's that's what i would say did you have any like resources
books or mentors that helped you learn the skills of coaching
um yeah i had a couple books on my kindle um there's a championship mind
um there's i say i'm really bad with memory uh or
like memorizing specific stuff um but yeah i mean like i always i was
watching youtube videos watching interviews podcasts uh just trying to learn from experts
it's difficult for me to like uh remember exact things like quotes and books and names
but it's in there it's in my brain somewhere so like i just feel like once i retain that
information do my best to retain it kind of you know something i can
apply so it's just a constant pursuit of expanding um that knowledge base whether it's like
tips tricks techniques philosophy systems perspectives ideas and then applying it
appropriately depending on the situation or the person ah that makes sense um and then uh
you you transition from coaching to to like what was your next step when you finished coaching was that
immediately starting the youtube or uh what was like the what happened right after you you ended it with uh
cloud9 yeah so it's a weird period in my life it was definitely like
an excess existential moment it's like what do i want to do with my life um like i had been released with them um
it was kind of some some a weird things i don't want to get to but it was kind of like an awkward circumstance um but then i
was like you know i had coached the i guess probably the most popular
esports organ n a maybe the world like they had one esports org of the year before yeah so i was like i'd reach the mountain in terms
of that so i was like there wasn't really any other team that i wanted to coach
or an org so it was just like what do i want to do
Starting YouTube & Working with Statespace
with my life so it was definitely um a little bit challenging a little bit dark period for
a couple months um kind of resetting my mind and new objectives and what i want to do
what's my purpose and all that um and then i've always wanted to to i mean i had a passion for teaching i love
video games i like trying to help people so um i thought it was a perfect moment to transition into
youtube um it was something that i always wanted to do even when i like when i was a pro player
like i was giving lessons on the side stuff and i always wanted to make my own website so like i had a site i had a forum and
stuff but never really pulled the trigger um but yeah so i i thought i would start a
youtube channel didn't know any idea of how the process of creating videos recording
um oh actually you know what it was like um right before i started the youtube
channel i i wanted to write a book okay i wanted i wanted to write a book of
all the fps fundamentals so okay um so instead of video format it was a book
um and i did that for about three months straight just like wake up sleep you know write
edit very very tough period um writing as a book is one of the most difficult
things to imagine it's so mentally taxing um
it's not anything fun at all um because there's such a demand of
like when you put words down and you try to teach someone you can only um put it down once right like once you
choose a sentence or whatever way of teaching it that's it and it's cemented so it could be very um yeah there's a lot
of kind of rewrites and edits and doubting and stuff but yeah um so once that was complete um you know i
was reaching out to book publishers um you know make it a real deal
and then i had a phone call with one of my mentors to han and he through that conversation he kind
of just dawned on me that it'd be much better to share this information and video content
i think our generation our community just how big videos are right so um that's when i
just transitioned all that book content into video content into youtube so a lot of those early
videos um even some of the videos i'm making now are just straight from the book um into video format wow did you know
how like uh how many pages that book would have been like how how long it was
um i think it was around like 30 pages 32 um
[Music] yeah it was about 32 pages
but um the cool thing with video content is it's much not only is it easier to absorb but
because it's real time and it's like animations and graphics there's a lot more i can compact into a shorter period of
time right whereas the book you have to read it and then you only have still images right so yeah right
definitely glad i want the video route and then i saw you also uh relatively recently launched um a course
on your website did a lot of the material from the book go into that course yeah absolutely yeah so um you know out of all the the
lessons i've given um by far the biggest question is how do i get how do i better my aim
yeah how do i find my sensitivity how do i know my right grip or yada right so um i always was seeing the
same questions um so i decided to make a course on it so
um yeah it's everything that like all the the techniques and drills and stuff i've learned as a pro player
and as a coach and with my from my teammates and the research and stuff i've done for videos um it's all in there so
that's awesome yeah all the fundamentals from like how do you know how do you buy equipment
how do you set up the equipment the settings the fundamentals of like how to position your body like your
biomechanics your forearm wrist grip um and you know the various aiming motions that's needed for fps games and
flicking swiping vertical so it's built in a way where like if you're a brand new beginner you can
start with page one and it would teach you okay the stuff you need how to set it up how to use your body
um how to find your scents warm up stuff and it gets more into advanced stuff like peaking techniques
uh learning maps and angles that kind of stuff awesome man i i actually when you when i
saw that you had uh you made like a video mentioning the course i was instantly inspired and i uh personally
kind of suck with mouse and keyboard for aiming i used to be a console fps player most of my life but
recently i've been inspired to try and improve that so i think i might end up getting your course actually just
to just see what it's all about it looks uh i trust you as a coach and a teacher so
yeah i'll hook you up i'll give you a free one oh that's awesome man i'd appreciate that um and then i was i was curious um
i also saw i think it was on your twitter you're working with state space so what's uh what's going on there how
did that opportunity come up and what do you do with them yeah so state space labs
they are based in new york um they one of their products that they're creating is called aimlab
and it's a free aim training program uh for you know pcfps gamers um
so during the creation of my course i wanted to use aimlab in some of the chapters to help people
practice their aiming motions with the program so i met with their ceo
uh safe space wayne and we we hit it off it was just like we had
a conversation it turned into an hour and a half you know just talking about all kinds of stuff so um definitely just clicked
and you know talked about our future kind of ambitions what we want to work on and
it was it aligned perfectly like you know we we both love the pursuit of trying to help
people get better um you know in video games or just in general so
using our platforms to to you know make that kind of positive influence so yeah it's i love what they're doing
the projects they're working on and i joined them about a month ago um and i've been loving every minute of it
so what uh what is it specifically that you do with them yeah there's a bunch of projects um one
is you know just trying to help uh better and optimize the uh aimlab so
uh creating new uh training tasks or modes um we've got some other things i can't
mention some big things but um you know trying to improve the product um from my perspective as a pro player um
and then there's some other things to other you know programs and projects outside of aimlab um that we're expanding upon
so um it's you got a pretty secretive but as of now but we'll be releasing some
big things soon that's awesome yeah i saw on the website they have i think there's like three project sections and two are like coming
soon so yeah i'm excited to see it because i it sounds or it seems like they are very big on
collecting data and trying to use analytics to help better people and i think that there's a lot of
opportunity for that uh at least in uh fps skills and actually all of esports to be fair so
i know i'm excited to see what happens yeah i mean it's you know uh been there now for a
month and learning who's on the team um i mean over half the people if not more all have phds and
doctorates and neuroscience or psychology or you know programming or scientists
so just insanely smart talented people in all kinds of industries so you know
working together and collaborating to to to figure out um how we can help gamers beyond just
simple mechanics and aim um but yeah so a heavy emphasis on collecting
data analyzing it and how we can use that to help people or or create certain
um you know values from that um i i think that's the the cool and
innovative part about being with state space that's super cool that's super cool um and then
i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna end up digging in a bit about just uh general
questions around aim a lot of things that i'd like originally uh message you on discord about but
before i get into that since we're kind of like wrapping up what i had as like the career section for you if if you were to think
Key advice for players who want to go pro
back to your career uh from being a player to being a coach to working in corporate
and let's say that there's like someone who's 16 years old who's really highly skilled they're
thinking about pursuing esports uh whether it's any of those avenues what advice would you want to give to
that person that that might help them avoid some obstacles or might motivate them towards that career um
so like the the career path of like an actual player pro player uh yeah we could start with
player um yeah i mean there's so many new jobs now
in the sports industry um even like the traditional jobs are now uh are developing in esports um
like you know social media graphics design video partnerships you know so many right um
but in terms of like a pro player if you're 16 um i mean the first thing is is that
it's even more competitive now than ever before so there is no getting around that you have
to put the hours in and the time um like any other competitive sport there's no shortcut so
you got to put the hours in but you should try to do it smart so just grinding pub games or grinding
games day in day out it's one way to do it but you could be more efficient so i would say try to develop a routine to provide some
balance in your life so if you have school work or whatever chores or errands
you know try to fit that in and try to structure your day where um you're able to block out
times for practice but then taking care of other stuff you need um so for example like you know if you
know you have five days a week to play and you have x amount of hours we'll kind of plan that
out ahead of time so that way you can be like okay i know i i'm going to practice from like seven or six to nine o'clock or
something or five to nine i could really um kind of take care of
what i need to before then so i could really focus on those four hours so you know maybe i'll take a nap before
that time to make sure i'm focused or i'll have dinner before so i can sustain myself through those four hours so i'm not
you know taking a break and my team has to miss practice or um i would say yeah and then try to
um put in some amount of time to stretching and taking care of your body
um because like take it from me like um i still have like a kind of a right
shoulder like a tear ligament thing because i was playing with such rolled
uh short rolled forward shoulders and not doing posture exercise and fixing myself
so i was doing all this damage over time that i didn't know about so um got to balance all that sitting and
bad posture if you do so yeah i'll say figure out schedule find some kind of routine um
also what that helps you do is like let's say you practice those four hours a night five to nine or whatever
um your circadian rhythm will also prepare for prepare for that so instead
of waking up at eight o'clock and eleven o'clock and ten o'clock it's just this fluctuations every day that's very
difficult to have any kind of consistency to know when your focus level is at its max
so you kind of want to fit in that practice schedule where you feel like you're most focused and not play when you're at 50 energy or
focus right it could be detrimental it might go backwards so i would say think about the structure a
little bit more in a routine that's really good advice i like that yeah and i i'm a big uh
big fan of sleep i'm kind of crazy about my sleep so i i think that's a key point too is getting your circadian
balance right circadian rhythm right and uh also i think it's important that um some
people are like morning people some people are night people it's just for different chronotypes i think that's another little tip that i
always mention to people is try to figure out like when you're at your maximal focus and i guess like add that into your routine
like playing around that um yeah a lot of it is just understanding sleep and
i i'm curious to dig into sleep a little bit after but yeah i think that's a good point to like add a timestamp to you
yeah well i mean sleep is is directly proportional to how well you're focused
like for me one of the worst feelings in the world is when i feel tired and if i got crap sleep and i wake up
and i'm just my whole day is groggy it's cloudy i can't focus um i can't think um it's the one of the
worst things so yeah um yeah sleep is precious uh sets your whole day up for success um
yeah and then second thing i want to mention kind of like the young guns out there just any ages um just a quick thing i
mean like there's so many resources out there to get better especially demos and vods so being able
to sit down and really watch the best pros and analyze them and figure out what they're doing right where you can see
yourself like if you see the end goal it helps you get there so observe all these different types of
pro players and different play styles and it'll expand your mind and your game play you'll find new timings new
positions new ways things you've never thought about so you can just rip them or copy them yeah the second thing is is like
um you you want to be a person that your teammates will
like recommend um or speak highly of yeah if you play a team game it's like
networking and having that kind of voucher where any teammate can say oh yeah he was a great teammate
he didn't have an ego he didn't he didn't he showed up on time um you know i would recommend to enemy
team like if you can build that kind of resume and personality it'll help you find teams much easier but also if you
do get to that semi-pro pro level those are what the orgs and players and in-game leaders are looking for
they're looking for those players that are willing to take criticism that have a student mentality that that
sponsor will be proud to sponsor right like you're going to be putting on a jersey and representing
huge orgs sponsors you got to be a person that they've got a trust to to represent them well so you got to
have development both in game but also as a person out a game as a teammate and as someone that can you know be a
professional athlete and and you know play on stage and and play on stream and rep
all these companies and orgs well do you think um to develop that it just is kind of like
a mindset shift that people need to start identifying where they're maybe a little bit toxic or where they
get tilted too much like is it start with identifying their negatives and kind of work back from there
i definitely i think it takes some self introspective uh ness like being like
being like the pursuit of being a little bit more self-aware and being real with yourself and
once you're aware then it helps you kind of work on it and it takes and it's difficult it's
it's not easy because some people through their uh upbringing or environment or parents or
friends or whatever it's it's different for everyone so some people like me i did super easy i got super lucky with my parents my upbringing it
was like perfect kind of set up for me so whereas other people it's not that easy so
um um you know i don't have like a one answer for all but
i think if you kind of if you do at least try and put in some effort it'll eventually
get there right um and just the big thing is is just trying to shed
the ego you know the ego is such a a killer for young gamers that try to get at the top level
but they never can because they can never find a team to stay with um they
it's just you know when it's always just about them so you know whether that's you're trying
to show off or maybe they're um uh just have problems um
working yeah so it's the ego um i've tried something profound to say
right now um but that was a huge thing for me um
and i see in young people so just trying to work on not thinking so much about you but how
you can help the team how you can be a better influence overall externally
yeah yeah and i i think a lot of players who are kind of on the rise in a
sense are always worried about looking bad themselves they don't wanna they don't wanna take the blame because
they think that it hurts their career but i think a lot of times uh it's the opposite it's worrying too much
about themself that that causes the most damage yeah yeah
yeah and it's like if you have a team first mentality instead of a me first mentality
that's one of the first steps you know like if i make a mistake and i say sorry guys i messed up
um that's probably the best thing you could say but if you say oh i messed if you blame someone else like why'd you
you know peak you shouldn't have peaked or i died because of whatever because of john um but yeah if you just
say hey i'm sorry i made a mistake like it's over like it's done it's you know it so it's kind of like a small
you could go either the route of um the ego or you could go for team first
mentality if you kind of gradually kind of shift towards the team a little bit more and more and more and more
um eventually you know you'll eventually work yourself into being like that that teammate that everyone wants to
play with yeah yeah um kind of like a side tangent i also saw that you
fingers this summer you did like a valorant boot camp right um how did you
how did you kind of establish like a team thing with completely new players who weren't even together
physically yeah so i was running these like week-long boot camps to my community or whoever um
wanted to join so i would have this google docs form where people would uh
submit with their information their age location skill level uh the roles they played
um which where they like to play on offense and defense on all the maps so i had all this information of all
these players and then i would find the five best players that i felt like would match together well
so no overlapping positions generally the same skill range and then i would create um strats for
them and then and i would teach them defaults and how to play the game as like a structured team so um you know we'd spend a few days of
do one-on-one lessons with them prepare them for their role in job and then we'd get together as a team
and like the second third day i'd go over all the strats and the systems and positions we would play
and then we would actually scrim so i would take them i would just really compact my coaching philosophy into a week
and prepare them for you know scrims or matches on the weekend so we would have we'd play on each day
we'd talk about the strats we want to do and then we would scrim that map all night then i would provide feedback with vod
analysis and stuff and yeah we'd do that for four four nights on all four maps
and really try to compact as much competitive structured team experience as much as i
could because i know that's something that uh gamers have trouble um or not trouble
but uh they're just not able to do because it is so difficult to
find a team and get to a point where you can you know play that structured style so yeah um yeah
very cool do you feel like uh all those players you taught are kind of like on a completely new level
now well um
i mean it it was an eye-opening experience for them because again they
never got to play that team experience yeah um and some of the cool things was is you know one of my boot camps we had
like average silver players like low gold um but by the end of the weekend we're beating like immortal teams
wow so them able to get the glimpse and taste of like it's not
it's not individual skill level it's about how you play as a team right how are you you know how you can
complement each other and how you have setups and everyone's on the same page how powerful that can be um so
that that was that's the coolest part for me is being able to show them that and have them experience that yeah
very cool that's awesome um i'd also like to i'd like to dig into
kind of just aspects of aim training how to improve aim because that's uh that's a topic that i i want to cover in
some some upcoming videos on our channel um but the first thing that i'm curious about is if you think something like
How to Improve Your Aim
aiming skill is largely about just hard work or genetics and and where you think the that kind of
balance lies i think there's definitely a natural
element of hand-eye coordination some people are
just more coordinated more athletic while other people may be more their
strengths are more on the creative side or analytical side so like everyone naturally genetically has their own strengths and weaknesses
um i think
i think i mean how much time and thought you put into something too will
impact your improvement rate so someone is the most important thing to them is getting good at aiming they'll figure
out a way they'll put the hours in and they'll they'll put all that problem solving and brain focus and energy into
it um where other people are just casual there's not you know it's not a big thing they just want to
play so yeah they're not going to get that return so um
i i mean essentially aiming is well there's a lot of things aiming but let's just say like the the base roots
of aiming is being able to aim the crosshair with the mouse
so that you know just baseline that's what the definition is right like how do i move this mouse to aim the crosshair
uh where i want on the map so uh but aiming is a lot more complex than
that like it's it's positioning it's putting yourself in in advantageous angles
timing there's movement involved you know there's so there's game sense
all kinds of things right i think something that i mentioned in my
course is that most things that people are overlooking is how influential
their body positions are or their body alignments are so their posture the angle of their forearm
how much of the form is on the table um the grip style like just physically aligning and
positioning yourself their body influences how you use the mouse right so um those like a basketball
player there's like certain key positions and mechanics you want to get with like raising your elbow
having your elbow and hand in line right so um and there's there's form and technique
um it's a little bit more nuanced for amy because it's not like a f
uh there's no physics involved in terms of like throwing a ball into a hoop like there's
certain like set physics and alignments and stuff um so you know a little bit more
personalized with aiming but that's where i could see people experimenting more with is to figure out
hey well i'm making certain misses to the right a little bit why is that like it's happening every
time well if i angle my form a little bit differently or position it might it's going to shift the entire rotation the
angles of um so that might be a quick fix so it's it's a puzzle it's
you know there's it's a puzzle of solving missed shots miss errors things that
don't feel right using the feedback from the game and in your sense to
just to kind of work off of and then
yeah so there's so many variables and factors
but if you put the time in you really think about trying to problem solve your biomechanics and then
matching your sensitivity yeah you can do it and when it comes to something like alignment
uh what at what point did you realize that that was so important did
you realize that as a player oh yeah absolutely um like when i would
compete and travel to tournaments we were on you know picnic tables we're on uh
you know just hotel chairs um all kinds of random setups uh
some tables are way too high so we would have to stack two chairs um or tables that were too low and we
had to like physically slump over to get to it the surface so
i noticed early on how just impactful that changed everything so um
massive influence so even if the chairs like two inches below than what you're used to that you're practicing at home
for months that two inches you can like like you set up and you're like
something feels completely off like my sense is the same like what's going on and so um
you know in a game where in fps games where precision is everything and you know missing by five or ten
pixels is killer death every time that two inches throws off all your alignments and your angles and your
feelings so yeah um yeah makes a huge difference yeah that makes sense and um i guess that that kind of ties
into what a lot of people describe as like muscle memory is that a term that you use a lot
um not anymore i've i've learned from state space that muscle memory is not
it's not an actual term i just use it because it's something that everyone can understand
um the technical term um is motor memory so motor memory is um there's like
section of our brain that controls like our motor mechanics yeah excuse me so like you know
if we need to draw something or throw something part of our brain coordinates what that feels like um in our hands and
yeah it's like right over where your headphones are sitting okay yeah so i just recently learned
about that but yeah i'm a huge believer in that i think to have
consistency you need to develop that kind of doing something over and over again
and then your body your mind kind of the more you do it the the more easy for
me it is to replicate um so i'm a big believer in it i think
the there's definitely pro gamers you can change your sense you can change your mouth and mouse and still play
fine um pro players do it all the time but i think in order to get that true like you
play at 95 percent but um if you want to get 100 percent and if you stay with one thing
say with one thing and repeat it over and over again um it's a small difference that i think matters so big believer in consistency
and repetition i think that that's a good way to phrase it too is like you can still be good changing those things and
get to 95 but to get to 100 it's important for consistency
um and so i i'm also curious like when you were a professional player
there weren't such thing as like aim labs or kovacs or any of these aim trainers it's like what do you think is the value
of aim trainers uh for players that might not use them or are kind of on the arguments of just
playing the game might be the best way to improve their aim like where do you think aim trainers fit into that
i think aim trainers are useful because you can compact your training
and they have you can isolate your training as well so there's certain aspects of your game
you can work on specifically in these aim trainers because of where they're designed so let's say my my flicking
is is not that great in the y-axis or something or x-y-axis or maybe it's a certain
spawn area or maybe um uh yeah so it's targeted um selective
practice uh because there's so many different types of game modes that you can or tasks that you can train um there's
also like our aim labs it gives you data feedback so as soon as you finish a task it tells you you missed more towards the
left or more towards the right um and it shows you graphs and and data that you can actually see
and see okay well this is a fact this is you know factual stuff so you get that real-time feedback
um i think in game nothing beats in game in terms of like matching the feel
because it's the game engine it's the game you're supposed to play but there's no data but and sometimes
too you don't get that isolation practice so um aim trainers are also super helpful
for beginners or intermediate players that haven't really developed that hand eye coordination
so when they go in a game it's like well when i'm playing you're not really practicing your aim
you're practicing playing the game so you build your game sense but you you know how much aim training are you
getting if you're just like walking around a map not seeing anything and there may be 10 15 seconds or you're just holding an angle and there's
nothing happening so there's an aim trainer you could in a minute you're flicking and shooting 80 90 times so you
get this like instant feedback you see where you're missing and stuff so yeah uh yeah that's that's the advantage
yeah yeah way to phrase it um and then when it comes to the things like isolating a
specific aspect of aim in your mind how do you kind of break down aiming like what are the subsections of
aiming that you like to think of it as um i like to think about it in
distances so if you're aiming just a small box around the crosshair it's
what i call micro motion so there's not much wrist or elbow or forearm
involved but just more of your hands and fingers like precision stuff and then beyond those micro box would be
what i call flicking um so just gradually building out um from distances so if you do 180s and
stuff it's what i call swiping because you start up to now you have to aim beyond your wrist flick so you're
using your forearm and elbow um and then there's vertical motion so when you aim up and down
it's completely different biomechanics compared to flicking or swiping which is naturally anatomically easier
like going left to right then is up and down like shifting the elbow and i think that's a huge
differentiator um the the x and y axis of like tactical fps shooters and like
arena shooters so for example like csgo and valorent most of the aiming work gets done in the
x-axis so i'd say you know left to right there's not much up and down whereas like fortnite overwatch diabolical
there's it's like 50 50 you have to have just you know amount of skill to look up and down so yeah um so
yeah so that's how i break down those emotions um so yeah it's like how to use your fingers and hands how do you use your
wrists and then how to use your elbow and forearm that's a good way to think of it i like i like that you use the the biomechanics
of it to think of it um so that makes the most sense um and then
when when it comes to a player who says i want to improve my aim uh how would you recommend they figure
out what aspect they need to improve on uh the first thing is
your game of choice so you know whatever your game is um there's going to be certain aiming
motions that you're going to need to perform um so yeah if you play cs go
there's you know 80 aiming happens in the x-axis usually happens in like a 90 degree uh
cone or range in front of you like you don't have to aim you know 180s and all the way to the
right and left it's just very you know there's like a cone you work with so
yeah i mean based off your game of choice you'll need to know if you need higher sense or if you need to use more mousepad space
or not um so try to just work on those aiming motions right
and your your playstyle too so you know if you're like a aggressive entry-style player likes to
go in first and um you need to be able to have a little bit snappier aim and clear a bunch of angles at once compared
to let's say a sniper a lurker who plays more in the back plays more distance
you don't need that kind of range of motion right right okay that makes sense um
and then i i was also curious to hear your take uh there's in the the aim training community
there's a big uh versus battle of like what aim trainers are the best do you think that rather than saying
one's better than another some are better at specific aspects of aiming or training uh specific things or do you do
you prefer one aim trainer versus another to be honest i haven't tried any other
aim trainer to give an honest input other than aimlab i tried kovacs for a few minutes
and they've been out for longer than aim labs so they've got um more tasks
but it was kind of for me it was a little bit all over the place there were just like too many and i didn't really know what
like playlist to go to um i know there's a lot of customization which is cool um so but you know aimlab i work for
them so i know them in and out and the data feedback that we provide i
feel like was better and then the things we're working on is going to be
uh i mean our goal is to be the best most complete aim trainer out there um and i think we have the
advantage of liking all the scientists and the data team and the programming
so yeah a little biased but that's going to be our goal we want to be the you know both
training specifically for games or play styles but also providing that feedback to
help you determine how to improve your aim yeah it's just not like you don't have to figure it out we'll do it for you
based off the facts yeah yeah i really like that approach i think game labs has a has a lot of
potential there for sure um and then i'm curious
like aim training is kind of becoming almost like a trendy thing where a lot of people playing fps games
are almost putting too much emphasis on it for those players uh how would you
what like i guess i guess the question is why why doesn't aim training all day
every day not necessarily make you good in fps games um yeah i mean you've there's aiming
there's mechanics but then there's also game sense so that's a whole different
element of gaming that is that you have to have so
[Music] you know making the right decisions at the right time knowing when to take risk and rewards
knowing timings and rotations um how to support your teammates um
[Music] there's there's the whole strategic side of it you know the smartness um and that you
can't learn from name trainers so you know there's pro raw mechanics aiming
and then there's the brain brain and aim basically so um yeah you need both
yeah and earlier you mentioned that nowadays there's a lot of resources for for learning those other aspects like
Watching Demos & Breaking Through Skill Plateaus
watching uh like pro players watching their own vods things like that when people are trying to work on those
other aspects of their fps skills and they're watching say like a professional player and trying to
learn for them um what what do you think they should be watching for because i think it's important that they don't passively
watch they kind of actively look for stuff so what kind of things should they be like asking themselves or writing down
uh i think you should be looking for things that they're doing that you're not um one of the the ways i like to watch
demos is i play along with them in real time so as they're playing i'm also pretending i'm in their
situation and i'm thinking about what i would be doing every second so every second you play the game
your mind is updating new things that are new ideas or solutions or options that you can do so
i think along with them and then sometimes they do something differently than that i wouldn't have
and that's something that i learned there so you could work on your decision making like that um
and then just like the very basics like you could steal strats you can steal you know these pro teams
if they're doing set executions or whatever um it's damn well that they spend a ton
of time picking that one and figuring out the timing and where to throw the exact needs and
everything right so that's you could just rip that one for one um you could see how certain players are
defending or playing certain positions on a map so you could see why are they
picking this angle or um you know what do they do if they if someone rushes them how are they how
when are they finding their peak timings you know so you could go a little bit
more granular in specific positions or roles
yeah so those are like the main things i look for it's just really really picking apart
their game play you know not so you can watch the demos for like entertainment and fun right you can also watch it for studying
which is completely different mindset and uh yeah
and then uh i'm also curious what you think like a lot of people get to a certain
level where they're maybe near the top ranks and a lot of times they'll hit kind of like a skill plateau why do you
think a lot of players kind of hit that plateau um i think this is a question i often
get a lot of players hit plateaus especially as individual solo players if you ever get
to that point that's when you start should start looking for a team that's that's where you could start developing
a whole new area of game sense and experience um and when you do start playing with
teams and organize scrims and matches the environment and the pace and the the
quality of opposition is different it's a whole new level so um
yeah that would be the next transition or step for those players um and if you still like let's say you
are on a team and you feel like you hit a plateau um it's kind of subjective you know it's
um it's like the the experience i had with complexity
when we boot camped in germany before face atlanta major it was the opposite of a plateau
it was like you know we were we're like we're under earth
like it was uh like we you know it was devastating but through that experience it's like once we
sometimes you don't see one for one improvement as you're playing day by day you know it happens over a period of
time and it's like sneaky you know and it's like you enter a tournament a few weeks later and you
thought this whole time you're plateaued but actually the whole time you're actually learning and and like
passively learning you didn't know it so um i don't think you should try to look
for that one for one improvement every day because it just doesn't happen like that okay that makes
sense and it sounds like uh like in that specific example when you guys are in that boot camp
you you're put up against like a pretty big challenge do you think just constantly being challenged is a big
part of that yeah absolutely i mean it's good to get whooped you need that you
need that check you need something to drive you um when things are easy that's
that's not the air the times when you grow so yeah definitely you know just in
general like times i've grown the most or the challenges i've faced that's has pushed me to strive to be better and
it's provided me tons of new opportunities and experiences and um you know growing growing right so
yeah analogy of when you work out you know the purpose is to to feel that pain and that
that kind of pushing yourself and then you get stronger so um the firm believer in that you do
need a challenge and push yourself and be welcoming to it and then use those opportunities to learn from it
yeah that makes sense um and i'm also curious then to to hear a
bit about so there's in the in the aim training community there's like advanced techniques and
advanced ideas around how to kind of uh i guess push the plateau specifically
around aiming so if people are playing like an aim trainer all the time they're trying to get even faster and the aim trainer is
not working for them they'll start looking for other methods to improve their skills so like
as an example there's a it's kind of like the the idea of if you're shooting a
Sensitivity, Equipment & Other Ways to Boost Aim
basketball from the same position over and over again you might get good at shooting it from that position um
but if you shoot it from different positions you might develop your overall shooting skill a bit better so some
people use things like sensitivity randomizers or changing their sensitivity
in order to improve an overall skill they'll still use the same sensitivity in game but they'll change it just in
training when it comes to something like that like what do you think about that what are the first thoughts that come to
mind do you think that might be effective or i've seen an article about that
how adjusting that variability forces you [Music]
to adapt and adjust which gives you new ways to use a tool
like a mouse or an equipment instead of just the same repetition um i think that specifically makes sense
to beginners um where they haven't actually tried different ways to use an equipment or
piece of tool so that changing a sensitivity like a mouse forces them to use other parts of their arm or wrist or their grip in
it um you know that that new that that um
forced adapting um concept i guess makes sense in that
aspect yeah um i think the better you are and more skilled you are i think
there's a um [Music] sort of good for like disproportionate
or um it scales downwards and improvement you know like you don't want you to give michael jordan a basketball
that changes weight right like if you're already at that level um you already
you know so there's a reverse curve to it i guess so it makes sense for beginners for sure um
[Music] i haven't tried it myself um
because like for me i already like i'm i'm happy with my aim i don't i'm already you know at where i need to compete so
there's no i found my aiming form that's what i call it i have my my motor memory my
sense my setup so if i start tampering with that it could put me in this downward spiral where now
if i throw things off too much and i can't find my old feel again it's it's devastating right like all
that work i've built up it's thrown out the window so um yeah i would say the better you are
stay away from it but for beginners i could see it working okay interesting uh do you think that
there's any other like advanced tips or like crazy ideas that you've
heard me thrown around in the community that you actually think might have potential
um can you repeat that question again like
uh are there any other like advanced training mechanisms that you may have
heard theories about or that you maybe tried yourself
uh well i mean there's all kinds of things um i would say the first thing is experiment with different alignments and
positions um how much form is on the table the angle of the forearm
there's all kinds of grips you know claw grips finger tip grips overlap palm grip
having different side pressures having the ring finger and the pinky on
the side of the mouse or just the pinky there's you know how high or low you sit
um how close your chest is table like all these factors just not even talking about sensitivity or technique
they have a huge influence on you know how you control the mouse and the angles that are set and how you
perform the aiming motions yeah so that's where i would say a lot of people can make improvements and
optimizations um i mean i would say just kind of high level blanket
in-game sensitivity it's like when you play the game and you're aiming at something you know
where the crosstalk should go in your mind because you're trying to aim at that point and
if you're consistently missing one way or the other you could use that as feedback
but um yeah so it's like you you know where the crosses are supposed
to go so use your trust trust your hand-eye coordination to kind of make the adjustments needed whether
that's to your body alignment to your sensitivity and then the other big thing too is that again because these
body alignments are so important if you're not able to consistently set up to your computer
every time the same way every time to your mouse pad and your mouse if i'm sitting two inches closer than
yesterday again that throws off everything and it feels like my sensitivity is different although it's the same
so say work on that work on the consistency of those positions and then finding ones that
could work for you and uh going along those lines what would you say are maybe the best
ergonomics or best uh aiming positions for for health
and preventing injury uh i mean posture is big so
you know trying to prevent rolled forward shoulders slouched back um s curve where your you
know neck's kind of you know cocked upward um [Music] so that's one um so i'm a firm believer
in back posture braces okay um so um shout out to back armor shopback
armor.com it's when i use it it's just like two backpack straps that you velcro and
tighten and it forces your your shoulders kind of in that healthy pack position
instead of rolled forward so it helps me i wear it when i play because
one it um you know keeps me in healthy positions but two it keeps me in consistent positions
sometimes i could be slouching forward more than it just creeps right like i get focused i physically can't so helps with that
um the other big thing too is that i mentioned my right shoulder um i still have like a minor tear that's
never healed or something um so that's why i use this product but um if you have your like forearm on the
table and you put too much downward pressure like you're leaning too much on your forearm hand it puts stress right here
so yeah try not so i had really bad posture when i played back then i rolled uh four position um hunched back
and again like probably like 20 30 pounds always constantly on this right arm and
forearm because i was you know leaning forward so um that that's a huge one so be careful of that
yeah yeah it's a good tip um in terms of peripherals how important do
you think it is to have like god tier peripherals like what do you think the role of that is
um equipment's very important i would say you know frames per second is huge so
just a good cpu um in terms of like mouse
like if you stick with any of like the top five gaming companies you should be all right um the thing is that you just want a
quality sensor um the you know tracking system on the mouse so generally you know the top gaming
companies they have some good decent ones that that can work with so that's important a gaming keyboard
[Music] faster input or less input lag so you
know as soon as you hit a button it registers there's also something called anti-ghosting
so like on non-gaming keyboards if you hit more than like three or four if you hold three or four
keys down um anything after that won't register so gaming keyboards you can the good ones
you can hit every key on the keyboard and it would register yeah so something to watch out for um
really big in games is where counter striking counter strafing is required like csgo invalid where as soon as you let go of a strafe key
you have to tap the opposite strafe key and that you know half a millisecond is everything so
um yeah that and good good microphone is big it's huge there's too many people out
there it's just like as soon as i hear him talk i can't even play the game so being able to communicate with a decent mic
is big time that makes sense and uh what's what keyboard and mouse are you
using i use the hyperx alloy fps
keyboard yeah that one is is pretty good i haven't tried more
than like three or four in my career i usually just get one until it breaks or something i stick with it
but that one has been pretty good um right now i've been trying to do a few different
mice um the z812 is i love the z812 from zowie um
logitech g pro wireless is a solid mouse um i just got this zygen mp01 mouse by vexi
it's a brand new one so those are the three i've i've been messing with it's nice and um what kind of mouse pad
do you use to use a cloth or heart um i use cloth um i in my earlier career i tried all
kinds of mouse pads um we're on man we tried the steel pad it was just
like a flat rolled steel surface um played with that in some
tournaments um ratpad which is like this just plastic
pad um funk pad and it had like it was a reversible mouse pad
so it had two different textures on both sides um used uh yeah so and then now i stick
with cloth pad um but they all have their pros and cons you know they all have like different surface
frictions and depending on your game and sense they could be an advantage who do you think would
benefit the most from a hard versus cloth as example i think
uh higher sensitivities will benefit from hard pads generally they're not big as big in size
so you're kind of forced to do that but the benefit of a hard pad is is that because
there's no fiber sticking out of it like it's just a flat hard like waterproof material the
initial movement as soon as you move the mouse is super easy there's no like initial resistance so
for micro uh distances like medium long range fights where you just barely have to move your mouse
it's like super clean um they're a little bit more high maintenance because if like moisture
gets on it you have to have like a towel to wipe it off or if there's a scratch you'll feel it immediately um
so there's some it's more high maintenance um cloth pads are just great it's more comfortable
lasts longer uh you know the extra padding um there's on all kinds of different caulk pads too with different surface
frictions so there's ones that are like super slick like hybrid style or there's like you
know um like k sharp he was one of the best aimers um he used like
the same mousepad for years and it was like i mean it took a good amount of push
just to move the mouse so um it was kind of grimy and it was like fibery but
it worked for him so um yeah i think that the crappy thing with
mousepads is that you don't know if it's good for you until you try it it's such a personalized feel
so um it's kind of the same with the mouse you know unless you put your hands on it you play it that
you don't actually know if it's good for you which is the sucky part so i would say you know try to experiment as much as
you can um unfortunately we don't have gaming events and tournaments we could go to and just try out our friends or whoever's there
so but you know if you could go to electronics store if you could if they have open box section you could
just put your hand on every mouse that'll be great for you um and then yeah when events do pop up yeah just
getting yourself out there and just you know going to the gaming booth you could try everything they have that way you could actually see for
yourself okay well i've tried you know 15 mice five pads now i can
honestly say okay this out of all those is the best one yeah yeah yeah uh
i i like that uh a perspective on mouse pads that's i i i use a cloth nose patches because
my hand sweats a lot so i think that would be a an issue with hard but um
i also noticed that uh when i was in korea every time i went to a different uh like
pc bong they had different mouse pads and different mice and that was like i wish we had more of that here because i tried
out so many different mice and mouse pads there and i i feel like that's where i realized what mouse i liked the most so i wish we
had more of that here um yeah yeah yeah i love that about the culture there
yeah you'd go you'd walk in and then they'd have a whole box and you could choose whatever you want
um i noticed there's some big land centers in the states that have partnerships they kind of have that so you know just
look up you know look on google and see what what's available in your area yeah i'm going to call it be like hey what kind of equipment do you have to use
that'll help with the shopping yeah is that uh is that more pop like more popular these days around the area
that you live yeah uh there's some pretty established you know well like good quality land
centers in my area for sure oh nice i i think uh i guess that shocked me
when i went to korea because where i live in canada it's pretty rare i think i live relatively close to toronto there's
maybe like two in toronto but this the city where i am no such thing as
like a land center so that was something that was really nice that on every street corner i could go to a different one when i was in korea
kind of fun yeah it's huge i mean uh yeah there's literally one within
like a baseball throw um wherever you went so uh it was a cool thing about the cultures is that
um esports is so embraced there um and when i went there too i think they had like two dedicated channels for
gaming so there's always a starcraft match or something you know uh some some gaming
uh replay to be seen yeah yeah yeah i can't wait to go back there once uh events are on again i it was really sad
going to lull park there and then seeing that it was completely blocked off and i don't know made me want to cry but um
i'm also curious what games you're playing these days like what uh what do you have your attention on right now
uh i'll be honest i ever since i joined state space about a month ago i haven't played a game
i've just you know the projects i'm working on um i'm putting all my energy and focus into
it my brain juice so by the time i'm finished i i don't have any left to really focus on
games and i have a rule where i don't play matches or games if i'm at
unless i'm at 80 percent because you know i only like to play ranks so
i i don't want to let my teammates down and i just you know it's much more enjoyable when i know i'm all there
so um yeah just just join my my time at work um and then you know
when things settle down i'll probably play valorent that's my game of choice right now um yeah awesome and
uh i guess that reminds me of uh a question i like to ask a lot of people is what what they think a person like
let's say someone has all day long to play and they're very serious about their game how many hours should they actually be
playing the game before they think you think there might be like diminishing returns
i think three hours is a good time to take a break that was this the same amount um i used
when i was coaching my teams i i generally see a drop-off in focus level then
so yeah i would say three hours we take a break for an hour and if you want to go back for like another three um that's
what we worked with so um yeah i would just say every three hours that's that's where i definitely see dimensioning
returns and focus level yeah would you say that like uh at very max do six total hours in a day or do you
think that people could do more than that if they have the time yeah i can you can do more for sure um
you gotta throw in your food breaks and just to let your brain cool down so
if you throw those in wise you know or timely and selectively some people you know can go more than
others i guess it depends on your focus level and your energy maybe your age so
more or less yeah you could do three i mean you could technically do 12 i mean there was days
i would play 12 hours a day when i competed so i just absolutely loved it
for me it wasn't it was never work um so i i didn't want to take breaks so i
kind of had that in me um yeah i mean i would say just like listen to your
energy level your mind and your mood try not to focus playing um if you don't
want to if you feel like you're a little burnt out because you can never you generally never can play through it like you never
play good when you're already that kind of you're already at like one minus one point when you start right so
um trying not to force it when you know you shouldn't that makes sense that's good advice um
i think that that might just wrap it up for uh all of the questions and topics i wanted
to to kind of cover with you but uh is there anything else that you would you'd want to kind of give advice to
players who are aspiring to play professionally yeah um yeah just kind of the key things
i mentioned in this interview um tons of resources out there to get better
um the free ones are like vods and demos so learn from the pros watch your demos
too sit back and and watch with like uh you know when you play it's very difficult
to know in real time where you messed up but if you can just sit back with the you know bird's eye view and
really pick apart your game you see things that you don't notice when you play so demos and vods
try to create a routine and schedule to create some consistency so you have some balance in your life
but also efficiency in terms of like how you use your practice time so it's not necessarily how much time
but how you use your time if you're aspiring players looking to
join a team you know try to work on yourself out of the game as well as your in-game
so doing things that um to be a good teammate and someone that people want to be
around sponsors want to represent so trying to work on that ego trying to be more professional
trying to mature a little bit um if you can um i would say
in terms of like your mechanics um you know it's it's problem solving it's
it's figuring out using your hand-eye coordination and your intuition to just use that feedback of
make the fixes or tweaks you need to make in terms of sense or small little body alignments and adjustments
um oh another thing too is um if you're in a team and you're trying to
look join another team i have a video called gaming resume so i would highly recommend
using that template that i have or some variation and that's really gonna
shortcut your process in finding a team so if you can just send a file to a team or a coach or an igl
like here's my time is available here's my experience here's the spots i want not only does it ensure that
not only do you save time because you can just send that the link to everyone you can spam it essentially but two if they have all the information
then it's the right team for you because you also don't want to just join a team for the sake of joining a team
it needs to be the right fit for you and them to have a success in um sticking around in the long run um
so i would say that um yeah i think i think that's it awesome
well i uh i just want to thank you for i you you gave so much wisdom in the past it's almost been like two
hours so thank you for your time first of all thank you for all the lessons uh and thank you for
kind of uh inspiring me as well i love hearing about your career and i like i'm obviously very passionate
about esports and not sure how familiar you are with our channel but we always love to just work
on like how to help people become professional and and that's helping people is something that i think
we both love to do so it was really cool to chat with someone like mine did yeah my pleasure yeah i've checked out
your channel i like the work you're doing you guys been around uh longer than i have so
um yeah i mean it's it's uh i think it's fun being in this kind of new space
where we see just rapid growth in esports and the competitive scenes so
you know doing doing what we can to to help it grow um yeah it was my pleasure awesome well
dude i i hope i get to talk to you soon and maybe eventually i can get decent enough at valor and that
i can play with you yeah yeah or maybe we'll we'll meet in career or something sometime
and so that's good that'd be awesome that'd be awesome all right well for now thank you again and uh
take care now this conversation made me feel super inspired not only right after the
Outro
conversation but for days afterwards uh so definitely check out everything ron rambo kim has to offer from his
social media his youtube channel and even his fps course and if you guys feel that this conversation
has enough value to help impact someone's career within esports then i recommend
sharing it now i imagine that you don't usually just tweet stuff out or share stuff on
discord or even share stuff on reddit but if you do that and it has the kind
of impact that it had on me or perhaps on you then you might be able to alter
someone's career in a completely new way so definitely consider the idea of sharing this conversation and and see if
you can help to impact someone's path in esports but of course as always i hope you guys keep
on grinding and keep on improving i'll see you all in the next video