Veteran pro fighting gamer Daigo stops by Reddit for an all-too-brief AMA

Earlier this morning, Japanese Street Fighting legend Daigo “The Beast” Umehara held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on popular news aggregator Reddit. Though there was quickly in excess of 600 comments in the thread, he only got around to answering 14 questions total.

(See: EVO 2014: Asia still best at what it does)

Umehara was partly there to promote the manga series being written about him, but being one of the fighting game scene’s oldest and most beloved competitors meant the crowds of fans had a huge variety of questions to ask.

Below, we’ve listed the questions and his replies, helpfully translated from Japanese by some gracious Reddit volunteers.

What’s the secret behind the Umeshoryu? [Umehara’s seemingly out-of-nowhere uses of the risky shoryuken move, that seem to psychically predict his opponent’s mistakes]

I don’t think about the consequences, I do it when I feel it is the right moment to.

How do you prevent yourself from hitting “the wall” when training?

I try to find at least one point to reflect on every day. After I find one, I’ll think about what I can do better while I’m playing. But when you hit a bottleneck, it’s hard to advance past it quickly, so you have to be patient.

Do you ever see yourself stepping back from competing and moving more into an “Alex Valle” role of mentor/coach/team leader?

Right now I’m not thinking about [doing] that. But, I do also feel that I would like to coach (literally: raise) other players. Someday.

Do you feel you can still win EVO for Street Fighter, and if so, has it been your focus or just a “if it happens, it happens” kind of thing?