The Unusual Story of ZywOo

If you don’t know who ZywOo is, he is certifiably one of the greatest players Counter-Strike has ever seen. He [INSERT CREDENTIALS] and [INSERT CREDENTIALS], so the man knows his way around a virtual AK, which is what makes this story more surprising.

In Volume One of The Professional Athlete’s Guide Series we note how important practice is for the development of one’s skills at a high level, but ZywOo’s story seems to fly in the face of that.

In this remarkable video from theScore esports we learn that ZywOo’s practice consisted of… playing the game?! Yay, another FPS virtuoso, apparently said he did the same with Valorant! According to this video from Elevated. What is going on? Let’s explore.

There are a couple of options, perhaps they are employing the Michael Jordan advocacy of “practice like it’s the game” a little too literally? It would seem so.

This begs the question, how are they approaching the game? Are they paying that much more attention than everybody else? Do they have a different approach, or all of the above?

Yay himself has a quote regarding this, “[INSERT YAY RANKED QUOTE].” Does this only apply to esports? Or might there be examples of this phenomenon happening in physical sports as well?

Up to your consideration.

See you next week.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: theScore esports, Elevated.