Why Losing Is Important (and how it helps you)

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Losing often doesn’t feel very good. Though if you see someone else lose and they rage, then it’s hilarious!

Since season 2 of Tekken 7 was announced, I back into the game after a year of not playing. Of course, I lost many matches starting out. Once I got my groove back, the wins followed. But at one point, the losses increased more and more...

One week, my record was 6 - 60. One of the losses made me so mad, I went full Sanford Kelly on my pad.

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Right here, I knew break was needed. Time away reminded me of something that was greatly overlooked: I was playing Tekken in Asia. And this is where many epiphanies about being competitive anywhere made sense.

Losing is just as important as winning (except when you REALLY need to win).

If that didn’t make sense, let’s break it down.

In competitive sports, there has to be a winner and a loser. If one were to win all the time, the game would be no fun. Same could be said for the opposite. The difference between the two depends on one’s mindset and goals.

When I first played Tekken 5, 6, and TTT2, I started off losing many matches. Each game had different mechanics from their predecessors but the determination to learn was there. The more I played, the more the wins racked up. The basics in air juggling, parrying, and countering were picked up quickly. While I was good at those things, that was also my achilles heel.

I played a Japanese player who had over 28k wins in unranked matches. We played around 25 games together and we went to final round at least 4 times. I still lost those games but I noticed my playing style changed and blocking and whiff punishing improved. Western casual players tend to focus more on being aggressive and looking flashy while Eastern casuals tend focus on playing with patience and finishing the job.

Losing is important because it shows what needs to be done and what doesn’t work either at a particular time or in general.

This may sound like common sense but let’s break it down a bit.

When I was 12-years-old, my dad taught me how to high jump. After each failure, my dad would show me what I did wrong. Each failure made me stronger and forced me to change my strats. Eventually I made it over.

In late 2009, I played The King Of Fighters XII against one of the top players in the nation. I never played KOF competitively but that’s when I would get a refresher in the importance of losing and turning them into wins. “Don’t rush in” “Take your time!” “poke” “Use guard break” “Bait!” These were things my opponent said after each loss. We kept playing until I won one.

After that, I stopped playing fighting games to focus on school. As a result, I forgot the things I learned. So much for all of that… or is it?

In 2016, I read Daigo Umehara’s book “The Will To Keep Winning” and two chapters, I felt, were the most important. Chapters 5 and 6, Keep Evolving To Keep Winning and Staying On Top respectively.

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Let’s look at chapter five.

Daigo stressed on constantly asking yourself ‘why’. The best way to do this is to watch game play tape to see what to do more or less of. When people are losing, you often hear questions like Why I did get hit despite blocking? Why can’t King’s command grabs be teched? Why couldn’t certain moves be parried? Why would damage after a parry do less damage than a punish? Why are there green mids and yellow mids? And so on and so on. Tekken is the type of game that rewards you for doing research on your own and being apart of a community that wants you to grow.

Let’s say you do a lot of research on the game and you become a natural at it. People would consider you talented. Having talent isn’t a problem but relying too much on it brings issues. Many players are talented enough to do bread and butter combos in practice. However, those same players get bodied during competitive play. Daigo stresses how talent alone is useless because if that determined how good someone is, they would be a pro overnight.

Another issue Daigo points out is relying on the same previous tactics. Earlier I mentioned my tactics of doing air juggles got me wins against casuals. Since experts were not have any of it, since then, i’ve been forced to change my tactics.

My favorite quote from chapter 5 is “fill the holes in your armor while improving your sword play”. Playing people that are better, studying tape, and playing matches often filled those gaps pretty quick. There are still a lot of holes that need to be filled but playing more against different people can either boost or destroy your confidence.

Let’s look at chapter 6.

Chapter six stresses on how to keep your winning momentum going. Practice after you win or lose (Ryu walking from SFII). Don’t fret over the fact you won or lost (salty anger). Everyone loses and they live to fight another day (Tokido losing). It’s okay to be emotional after losing (Punk crying). At the end of the day, you gotta get back on your feet and figure out how to turn a wrong into a right.

To summarize, recognizing why we lose exposes our weaknesses and how they can be strengthen. Winning only shows the benefits of practice and what works at a particular moment against a particular opponent. Talent alone means nothing. New techniques are necessary to win. If you want to avoid breaking your pad or stick after losing a number of matches, my suggestion is what Jinuyna said: "Take a break".

When are times when you lost a lot? How did it make you feel and how did you recover? Leave a comment below! Thanks for reading!
Peace and love!
Shaun