I've been playing osu! for 7 months now (4 actually), so I'm not exactly a new player nor do I not know about streaming, but this is my first post on the forums so I might as well just say "HI! 
".
Now, before I proceed, I play offline for the majority of my time in osu!, so my rankings and playcount might seem a bit low. This post is also related to a few other threads such as "Stream Skill Loss", "Streaming with your forearm", and "Finger locking/stiffing up".
Simply put, I've "lost" the ability to stream and I have a lot of problems preventing me to stream, possibly both physically and mentally. I've tried many various streaming tips and techniques but this is the only time when I've seem to have "lost" it. My singletapping is fine, my reading ability is fine (I can keep up with AR10 and do OD 7-9), but it's just my fingers.
My fingers don't stream like they've used to. It's like they've gone really really "weak". It's not RSI, that I know because I even took the time to see a doctor. It's just that my fingers end up not wanting to press sometime during the stream and I end up failing it. It sounds like fatigue, and yes, I've taken a break, but there was little to no change. I've taken a longer break (we're talking a 2 month break here), and still nothing. I used to be able to stream 160 BPM at average 73% accuracy with 200-220 bursts and last for a long time before my fingers tire out. Now, I can't even do half of that. My fingers have degraded from having so much stamina to tapping non-stop to not even managing 30-40 notes before one or both of my fingers "die" out. I fail most streams because of that, and I've stopped playing 3 months ago because of that as well. It's like the coordination isn't there anymore.
I only picked it up again recently which was almost a month ago but the problems still persist. I'm starting to think it's a mental problem combined with a physical problem, and that it originated when I started working on accuracy for my streams which was around 4 months ago, because I was kind of "mashing" it out but . Sometimes I'll get a really good accuracy on a map with a few streams in it in one try along with good score while I do worse the next dozen tries after. Sometimes I'll perfect a stream in some parts of a beatmap while I fail on others. Sometimes when I focus on a stream, I'll either do good or do crap. If I force my fingers through a stream I'll tense up faster and obviously miss a few. If I keep it relaxed they'll just "die" out on their own, tensing up or no tensing up. I can read the stream, it's just that my brain probably isn't relaying it to my finger response.
The problem also seems to come from how I tap. Bottoming out would just lead to my mashing habits again but this time without the stamina. I usually tap the keys lightly (how I play the piano), keeping a small distance between them so that my fingers just "hover" over the keys, when often during a stream whenever or not they tense, they just bend and curve in so much my fingers "stick" to the keys. It's probably because I have a laptop and playing on a flat keyboard is different from using an actual keyboard, along with my Z and X keys being worn out after much constant tapping. I've tried playing with a mechanical keyboard with brown switches for an hour or so (Blackwidow Ultimate Stealth, orange or "brown-like" switches), but it only seems to alleviate the problem for a while. It feels a bit better because I'm actually receiving feedback from the keys instead of a flat surface but my accuracy goes to crap when it does and I miss a few times in streams. So it's partially hardware but not entirely, since if you can't stream with a laptop keyboard, you can't stream with anything even if it's made to be "best keyboard" in the world.
I don't feel any use from my forearm in streaming too, there's little or no "burning" sensation, just my hand muscles tensing up. My forearm is relaxed whenever I stream although I do feel a bit of tension in it when I do. My desk is a bit raised so that along with my laptop itself being raised as well never allowed me to actually get my forearm level with my keyboard. The posture was the same as how I played before I started failing streams.
Sample of before I started doing horrible:
(I don't own the pack nor it's sprites/materials, it was just for my private use)
It's gotten to the point where I don't even know what's creating my terrible streaming abilities and what I'm even trying to do to fix it. Any suggestions are appreciated.
It used to be fun. I really want to get back into osu! again, but not like this.
".Now, before I proceed, I play offline for the majority of my time in osu!, so my rankings and playcount might seem a bit low. This post is also related to a few other threads such as "Stream Skill Loss", "Streaming with your forearm", and "Finger locking/stiffing up".
Simply put, I've "lost" the ability to stream and I have a lot of problems preventing me to stream, possibly both physically and mentally. I've tried many various streaming tips and techniques but this is the only time when I've seem to have "lost" it. My singletapping is fine, my reading ability is fine (I can keep up with AR10 and do OD 7-9), but it's just my fingers.
My fingers don't stream like they've used to. It's like they've gone really really "weak". It's not RSI, that I know because I even took the time to see a doctor. It's just that my fingers end up not wanting to press sometime during the stream and I end up failing it. It sounds like fatigue, and yes, I've taken a break, but there was little to no change. I've taken a longer break (we're talking a 2 month break here), and still nothing. I used to be able to stream 160 BPM at average 73% accuracy with 200-220 bursts and last for a long time before my fingers tire out. Now, I can't even do half of that. My fingers have degraded from having so much stamina to tapping non-stop to not even managing 30-40 notes before one or both of my fingers "die" out. I fail most streams because of that, and I've stopped playing 3 months ago because of that as well. It's like the coordination isn't there anymore.
I only picked it up again recently which was almost a month ago but the problems still persist. I'm starting to think it's a mental problem combined with a physical problem, and that it originated when I started working on accuracy for my streams which was around 4 months ago, because I was kind of "mashing" it out but . Sometimes I'll get a really good accuracy on a map with a few streams in it in one try along with good score while I do worse the next dozen tries after. Sometimes I'll perfect a stream in some parts of a beatmap while I fail on others. Sometimes when I focus on a stream, I'll either do good or do crap. If I force my fingers through a stream I'll tense up faster and obviously miss a few. If I keep it relaxed they'll just "die" out on their own, tensing up or no tensing up. I can read the stream, it's just that my brain probably isn't relaying it to my finger response.
The problem also seems to come from how I tap. Bottoming out would just lead to my mashing habits again but this time without the stamina. I usually tap the keys lightly (how I play the piano), keeping a small distance between them so that my fingers just "hover" over the keys, when often during a stream whenever or not they tense, they just bend and curve in so much my fingers "stick" to the keys. It's probably because I have a laptop and playing on a flat keyboard is different from using an actual keyboard, along with my Z and X keys being worn out after much constant tapping. I've tried playing with a mechanical keyboard with brown switches for an hour or so (Blackwidow Ultimate Stealth, orange or "brown-like" switches), but it only seems to alleviate the problem for a while. It feels a bit better because I'm actually receiving feedback from the keys instead of a flat surface but my accuracy goes to crap when it does and I miss a few times in streams. So it's partially hardware but not entirely, since if you can't stream with a laptop keyboard, you can't stream with anything even if it's made to be "best keyboard" in the world.
I don't feel any use from my forearm in streaming too, there's little or no "burning" sensation, just my hand muscles tensing up. My forearm is relaxed whenever I stream although I do feel a bit of tension in it when I do. My desk is a bit raised so that along with my laptop itself being raised as well never allowed me to actually get my forearm level with my keyboard. The posture was the same as how I played before I started failing streams.
Sample of before I started doing horrible:
(I don't own the pack nor it's sprites/materials, it was just for my private use)
It's gotten to the point where I don't even know what's creating my terrible streaming abilities and what I'm even trying to do to fix it. Any suggestions are appreciated.
It used to be fun. I really want to get back into osu! again, but not like this.
