ViciousCoder's blog

Competitive coding after a break.
By ViciousCoder, history, 5 years ago, In English

I took a break from CP. Now i am back at it because of quarantine due to COVID-19. But my last 2 contest did not go well and i feel like my CP skill level has dropped.

Is this thing normal?? What can i do to overcome my mental fears?

Thanks.

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5 years ago, # |
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Q1. Is this thing normal?

Spoiler

Q2. What can i do to overcome my mental fears?

Spoiler


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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -21 Vote: I do not like it

I suck at CP. No reason not to keep trying.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    It's not motivating to hear that from a GM.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      It's what I think. Should I lie to someone to motivate them?

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        5 years ago, # ^ |
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        One always has the option to not comment. Additionally, I am not saying you should lie or not comment, I just stated my opinion in the same way as you did.

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          5 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it -8 Vote: I do not like it

          It's kinda pointless to have a blog where nobody comments, though. It's an option, but not necessarily a good option. There's also the question of how motivating or demotivating it is to hear nothing from any GM. I'm offering my perspective and if you finds it demotivating, all I'm gonna do is shrug and say that people are weird.

          I'm not some kind of CP demigod, I just keep trying despite failure. That's all.

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            5 years ago, # ^ |
              Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

            Hey man, My intention is not to offend you.

            You wrote something, I found it demotivating, I mentioned that. I am sure giving feedback on what one writes doesn't hurt anyone.

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              5 years ago, # ^ |
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              Yeah, I have no problem with that. Just explaining my side of the story.

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5 years ago, # |
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Fact: CF rating is so inflated that if you saw a drop in your rating, that means you are so washed up.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +50 Vote: I do not like it

When has it ever been about a few contests? You have 90 pages of submissions on CF. You have solved close to 2000 problems here, and you're still worried about fears and what's normal :p. You know your answers :)

It's pretty common to perform less after doing something which you haven't done for a while. Doesn't mean you're bad it at. Simply means you need a bit more time and you'll be back in your form. An example would be a body-builder, who was all bulked up 4 months ago, but stopped going to the gym. He goes to the gym now, and sees that he's unable to perform his usual sets now. But is that a surprise? No. Obviously. He didn't perform those sets for months.

We become better at something only when we do it frequently. Our brain and body adapt when they see that this task is being done frequently, so it must be important for survival, so they must find a way to do this more easily, with less and less efforts. Breathing, walking, talking are all effortless because we've been doing them practically since we were born. Our nerve connections, muscle memory for these actions are strong af.

When one doesn't do it for some time, they think that it's not so important now, so they try to adapt according to other things which we spend our time on, as they think that probably they are more important for survival now. Our nerve connections and muscle memory for them is no longer given the priority, so they slowly grow weaker.

But does it mean that we've lost that skill? No. Obviously. Ask any gym guy who didn't go to the gym for some time, but then started again after a while. How much time did it take him to get back to what he considers his peak performance. A lot? No. Hardly any. A tiny fraction of the time it took for him to get to his peak the first time. Those connections had simply grown a bit weak, but they were still there. And so, it took very less time to re-strengthen them. Learning a new skill takes a lot lot more time than revising an old one.

TL;DR : It's not about a few contests. And you know that.

I'm sorry if I sounded lame, but if this helps even a single person, then I don't care.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    This should be the comment of the month, or at least this week.

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