Play in more tournaments. It's honestly really difficult to do much else than that. You need to do it a lot of times and get really comfortable with the whole atmosphere. I've been to, like 5 now? Something like that. Plus monthlies at CoCo before that died. And I only just got over it (mostly) at seasons beatings ascension.
Other than experience there's a few things you can do. One of the most important things you can do is create a ritual. Whenever you approach the station, always sit down and prepare yourself the same way every time. When you go into a button check, always prepare yourself the same way no matter what. Make that station as similar to your home as possible. If you're going to play in tournament with headphones, you need to be playing at home with headphones. If you're going to be playing in uncomfortable folding chairs at tournaments, that's what you should be playing in at home. Get yourself in a situation where as few variables as possible can change, and you'll feel far more comfortable and at ease. You'll get yourself out of your own head; your body will simply do what it knows needs to be done. When you get that cadence down, it's almost like a dance. You just kind of do things without thinking; there's a point where things just become natural.
Speaking from experience, I used to bowl in highschool on the varsity level. Sounds ridiculous, but I enjoyed it a lot because my only opponent was strategy; what my opponents were doing had no bearing on what I was doing (for our purposes -- they really did but it doesn't matter for the points I'm making here). However I'd always follow the following steps when it was time to compete, every single time. And every time that I didn't follow my rituals, I fucked up and did something stupid. Here's my list back from bowling; you can adapt it to your needs for competing in fighting games. I certainly have.
- When unpacking from my trunk, always pick up the top half of my 4-ball roller with right hand and place on my right side. Pick up the base with both hands, set at left. Attach top half to bottom half, close trunk with left hand. Roll the carrier with my right hand into the SIDE DOOR. Never the front door.
- Find my team's pair (lanes) for the day, drop off my stuff, order breakfast sandwich from the snaggletooth concession stand lady. Eat sandwich.
- Return to lanes, and change into bowling shoes. (Note: My shoes had flames on them because I'm a complete badass. Our school's colors were scarlet and gold, so I wore knee high yellow socks. Other members from other teams were in on "the joke" with me and did the same just to be assholes)
- Clean each ball off in the exact same manner with 3 squirts of cleaning solution. Pull each out in a clockwise fashion. Balls went in order from back to front of the side of the ball return I was beginning on.
- Take THREE (not two! not four! three!!!) practice approaches to get a feel for how slick/sticky the approach is, and adjust accordingly.
- Begin warmups. Only the last two approaches were strike shots; the rest were all spare practice. This I would have to play by ear depending upon how much time we were allotted for warm-ups.
- Whenever it is my turn to bowl, always stand behind and in the middle of the ball return and dry hand until arid. Rosin up as appropriate.
- Pick up ball, stand in appropriate location given the shot I had to make. Wait exactly three seconds to compose myself and plan my shot, then go into my approach.
- Bowl a 900 series and fuck bitches.
If I made a mistake on ANY ONE of these points, I was bound to have a bad day. But, when I kept to my rituals and stayed within myself? 10-0 Frothy favor.
Here's the point: Experience can only be gained through time. However one of the most important things you can do to put yourself in the best possible mindset to succeed and grow is to follow rituals. Do everything the same way every time. Every time. E-v-e-r-y-t-i-m-e. You'll be shocked at how effective this is. Eliminating variables is one of the most powerful tools you can learn to use in a very short amount of time. It's no replacement for experience, but an experienced player with no consistency vs. an inexperienced player with hella consistency often times goes in the inexperienced player's favor.
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