The Biggest Loser or How Street Fighter Taught me to Lose with Tact

You're going to have to look up what the fuck the term Oki is after this.

I have a good amount of friends to thank for growing up in the Fighting Game Community (further noted as FGC). As a teenager, one of my good friends was so into it before I even knew it existed. I had always been to local cabinet arcades and played Street Fighter 2 and Third Strike. But this guy was utilizing internet knowledge far before I knew how to. By the time Street Fighter 4 came out, I was still button mashing and he knew every set up for his favorite characters, and made me suffer. Ironically, getting my ass absolutely tossed for years made me realize something about myself way way later into my life, trial and error is amazing.

I played a lot of Tennis in high school and college, but I was an angry tennis player. I always thought I knew what to do. But I could never really execute any of it correctly. While peers were literally ranking up in the youth tennis ladder, I sat there and was the kid that would slam his racket into the ground and cry that my opponent was taking advantage of something I didn’t have enough information about. Getting upset because someone who had way less experience than me could take advantage of a weakness in my game plan. I was a bad sport and I took no agency to actually get better. I’d go to lessons and go through the motions, but always had a sore ass about going to tournaments and losing. I’m fat now and don’t play as much tennis, but I do yearn that I had learned the lessons that I learned from Street Fighter when I was much younger and playing Tennis.

For anyone who isnt playing fighting games. They are an exercise in rock paper scissors to an extreme degree. You knock your opponent down and during those moments are a magical time called Oki. Where I’m in control and standing over you. All you can do is guess based on how you have seen me act in previous interactions in the match. You could guess correctly and punish me into oblivion. But the interaction that is happening is entirely based on assumptions you’re making about how your opponent has been acting.

Much like fighting games, tennis is an exercise in psychology, primarily in conditioning. When you rush the net in tennis, you are making moves primarily based on how you believe your opponent will act based on the numerous points you’ve played during an hours long set. If you’ve approached every single point after serve, your opponent is going to lob the ball over your head so you cant slam an angle for the 10th time at him. This is vital knowledge known as conditioning, and you can use it to abuse basic human psychology. Maybe this turn I just pretend to come in, and my opponent lobs me an incredibly easy shot to the baseline that I can crush into his backhand. Maybe my opponent reads that im reading him and he shoots the ball short, assuming I would never come in for an 11th time. And further more, maybe I do come in for an 11th time and crush his mentality by hitting that same volley angle. I write these scenarios only now as a 30 year old man. As a kid I just wanted to hit the ball hard, I wanted my opponent to be crushed by my form alone, even though I wasn’t even that fit back then. I literally was not playing the same game that these tennis champs were playing and I did not blame myself for that short coming.

Lets just jump to 2023. Im older and had been fired from a job for drinking too much during covid. I’m almost 30 and on unemployment, and all I have is Street Fighter. Street Fighter 6 has just dropped, and I really want to hit masters because I have nothing better to do but drink and learn this very complicated game. But I’m doing the same shit again. I learn how to hit an awesome forehand in the game, but it doesn’t matter because my opponent keeps jumping and I have no idea how to adjust to such a low tier game plan. I’m getting mad again for cheap tactics, telling myself there is nothing I could do to figure this out. I’m back in the lab like im 18 at tennis lessons. I can hit the 100 mph serve, but have no idea what to do when it gets dinked back to me in a way that shoves me into a bad position. I’m executing things perfectly in practice but have no adaptability in my play, and I blame that on external factors.

During this stint of unemployment. I meet some new friends who are playing a lot of fighting games. They are good at these games, and consistently do well at locals or in 1v1s in their own communities. They want me to play and i’m terrified. Im back at my mom asking if I want to sign up for a local tennis tournament. I know im good but I can’t perform. It’s better to be good in my mind than test my mettle and lose, to shatter the illusion ive created in my mind. But something happens that night. I’m playing against a guy that knows the same character at a similar level to me. We are trading wins and its positive. I’m losing rounds and we are laughing about the mind games. Trading ideas about how we would have approached a knockdown, and even though I’m being demolished, I’m learning something about the game. I’m finally losing at something and I’m not angry at all.

Playing Street Fighter with this community fundamentally changed my mind about success. Mainly about how losing is the only way to be successful at something. I have peers in the FGC that I would have hated as a kid playing tennis. Exclusively because they would have beat me to a pulp and my hubris would write them off as douche bags. Losing was just not an option, and learning from losses was unspeakable because my parents were spending 1000s of dollars on lessons. But constantly now I lose at things, and they aren’t failures anymore. By holding people who are your better than you close to you, letting them smash you into the dirt, you start to adapt. And once you adapt you realize this is it, I’m stealing your knowledge for me. This starts to enter into my ranked matches in the game. I’m losing a lot but I’m not tilting anymore, I'm watching replays and figuring out why my original thought process was tainted.

I guess this is just it in life though. I think some of the most successful and thoughtful people I know don’t really get angry, they may get frustrated, but they never use external factors to excuse their failures. It’s an incredibly calming place to be when competing in things. I know I won’t be the best at this, but I also know now that I’m learning in a positive way about improvement. Being bad at things is transitional and you have to accept failure as a tramway to being good at something. I think constantly about me in high school, slamming my racket into the court. Holding my fight stick and knowing I would never do the same thing to it because I’m happy to get my ass kicked. I’m in the top 10% of Street Fighter players in 2026 because I let myself get destroyed and learn from it. Bet your ass I’ll do it again.