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Leaving the old, starting the new
 

This is part 1 of a 3-part blog series about leaving home and coming to Europe to compete for a full season

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So I'm sitting here in the mYi house at my computer in the gaming room. We've just finished dinner and everyone is chilling out. Dot's sitting next to me flicking through twitter on her phone whilst waiting for a ladder game to que up. Botvinnik and Hobbit are watching streams behind me, Pengwin is watching the World Cup whilst playing 2v2s and Lilbow is playing CS. After less than a week it already feels like home here, the realisation of which is kind of crazy. In the past 3 weeks I've packed up my home and rented out my rooms to strangers, I've flown to the other side of the world to Sweden and been demolished at Dreamhack in embarrassing fashion, partied in a barn in a Swedish forest, experienced the horror that is EZjet customer service, had the most beautiful train ride of my life alongside Lake Geneva and now find myself in a gaming house - practicing hard, improving fast, and feeling like everything is just the way it should be. But before I talk about where I'm at right now, let's take a jump back to my experiences getting here.

Packing up

Packing up my possessions and my home was a bit of a surreal experience, both jarring and nostalgic. I've lived in the same house for 4 years now, renting with uni/gaming friends. The biggest move I've had was out of my (now) gaming room and into a larger room when Dot moved in with me. Actually moving out of the house for such a long period and clearing all my stuff up brought up a lot of nostalgia. I couldn't help but think back on all the times between now and when I'd first moved in.

When I first moved in - living off $20/week

When I look back at myself when I moved in there I was only a kid - 21 years old, trying to sort out a directionless life and a bit clueless. I was at the core the same person I am now, just with a lot less experience and much more ignorant.

https://twitter.com/x5_PiG/status/475126549801205761

I remember that first 4-5 months when I moved in, my student welfare payment which most full-time students get in Australia was stuck at a lower rate due to a bureaucratic mess up where they classified me as still living with my parents. As a result, after paying rent and my weekly train ticket to Uni, I had around $20 to live off each week. Imagining that now it seems ridiculous, but at the time it was like a game, and absolute freedom to game and do whatever I wanted was the ultimate prize! I had to be creative surviving on so little, trying to make meals out of the cheapest vegetables, rice and occassional mince-meat was awesome. I remember a regular dish I made was satay using just peanut-butter, milk and sugar to make the sauce ("borrowing" the sugar and milk off housemates). I'd throw this on a bunch of spinach and rice and bam, I'm happy .

As I cleared out my room I found a notepad from when I toured Europe in 2010 with some friends with some journal entries. One was giving a detailed description of Paris architecture when it suddenly was interrupted by:

https://twitter.com/x5_PiG/status/474036981446344705
Then again, maybe my reaction wouldn't be so different today :P

Diving into SC2

It was 2010 when I boarded a Korean Air flight to London, via Seoul,knowing very little about eSports. Outside of watching some pro replays in Warcraft 3 (ROC - not even Frozen Throne) and hearing that Koreans love Starcraft and play it as sport, I really didn't understand anything about eSports. I'd played RTS obsessively for years, but without having easy access to progaming I never worked properly to improve myself, nor understood how to go about it. I just played for that basic competitive urge to win, and most of all for fun. So on my trip to holiday around Europe I was idly scrolling through the sports tab when suddenly I saw a menu called "Starcraft".

"Damn Starcraft sports stuff! Awesome I can finally see what this starcraft sport is like!"
I was half amused, half excited by the idea of it.


2 hours later my jaw was through the floor and adrenaline was pumping through my body. Looking back I had very little comprehension of what I'd witnessed but **** my life it was beautiful. The speed, the multitasking, the amount of strategy, the back-and-forth, the micro, the rate they expanded. Holy shit! The VoDs had Korean commentary with perfect subtitles, and it was amazing! I didn't even know who any of the players were back then, but I thought it was the coolest most awesome thing I'd ever seen. I believe it was a selection of some of the absolute best games, including some golden mouse/OSL Final matches. I rewatched the same VoDs on the flight home, even more excited as the first time I watched, and this time trying to analyse and make more sense of the action. Just a few weeks later my pre-order of SCII arrived in the mail...


After watching some Husky and HD on youtube whilst playing the beta I was pretty into the game, but it wasn't until a friend linked me a shitty illegal re-stream of GSL that I shat my pants and dived head-first into SCII. I played every tournament I could, slowly improving, and asking advice from every pro that would crush me. I remember Desrow repeatedly beating me in the semi-finals of NA go4sc2 cups back in the day and always asking him for help! I eventually won my first LAN over the summer holidays from university, and maybe 6 months after that became a full-time coach whilst I strived to go pro. I put every hour I had free into coaching, writing notes, practicing and obsessively posting guides/advice across the forums. I worked harder at anything than I ever had before, and I remember with clarity how motivated and excited I would feel all the time.

I didn't have one of these back then :P

On another level, I can look back and see how lazy, inefficient and slow my progress was - having no experience or guidelines to go by. How inneffective I was at planning myself and divying up my time. This was something it took me a long time to learn.

Growing up, lifestyle changing and learning a little responsibility

Over the years my life changed. I had dropped out of uni to coach and practice full-time. I eventually got better to the point where I qualified for international events, and gained sponsorship. I had periods where I had more income from winning tournaments (WCS 2012 :P) or doing huge amounts of coaching (often over 30 hours a week around 2011). Dot moved in - and of course my lifestyle improved greatly, no longer sleeping on a single mattress on the floor in a tiny room, eating meat on a daily basis, having to clean myself and my house more often and so on (Anyone going from bachelor life to living with their significant other knows what I'm talking about). I steadily realised I was being turned into a Dad - the worst nightmare of every irresponsible gamer.




Obviously the responsibilities I had to take on were nothing compared to a Father raising children, but that was how I understood it. I had to actually look out for people around me, and that took effort... on things which don't serve my own interests, quite the new concept there. This was especially frightening to me, a young man that had whished through high school with good grades without an ounce of effort, become borderline alcoholic/obssessed with partying and avoiding responsibilities, dropped out of university, and had only gone back to university at 20. While I'd finally found studies I was passionate about in cultural studies, and to a lesser extent english and history as well, I still hadn't taken many responsibilities on in my life - and was violently allergic to heavy workloads, deadlines and bureacracy.

https://twitter.com/x5_PiG/status/475127498565353472

All of this happened in that house. And while I know I'll be back, it was simply very jaunting and surreal to pack everything up and leave. I remembered where I came from and reflected on my path to where I am today. I almost don't want to go back to the same place. I definitely feel like I'm entering a new stage of my life, whether that's retiring after an unsuccesful season and commentating/finding work in or outside of eSports, or finally becoming the player I always knew I could be.


Part 2 covering my journey to Dreamhack will be posted in 2 days!

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

This is such a good blog post. I've always liked the origin stories of pro players.

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

11/10 blog

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

crap an actual blog
and an amazing one at that. So interesting!

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

Thanks bros, wanted to share some personal stories, was really therapeutic writing this

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

very inspiring read buddy! Keep them coming!

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

Nice read, looking forward to part 2!

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

Great read

Re: Leaving the old, starting the new
 

We are cheering you on over there! Kick some ass, man!