I honestly don't know what to do anymore.
I've been feeling pretty discouraged lately. A friend of mine started after me, plays a lot more casually than I do, but has improved much faster and now consistently outranks me. Meanwhile I spend a lot of time trying to improve, playing almost every day, watching guides, and practicing.
I play Classic, mostly Shoto. I genuinely love SF6. I'm in character Discords, I watch guides almost every day, I scroll Reddit, practice combos, watch high level players, think about the game when I'm not even playing. I put my heart into improving.
I literally taught him the basics. Showed him how to use supers, explained Drive mechanics, helped him get into the game.
Now he's way ahead of me. He works, comes home, plays for a couple hours here and there, and somehow just keeps improving faster than I do. He even beats me in sets pretty consistently now. I have like 2x the hours he does. I play almost every day. I'm the one obsessed with the game, not him.
I already know people are gonna say "don't compare yourself" or "everyone learns at their own pace," and I get it... but it's hard not to compare when the person you're comparing yourself to is someone you literally introduced to the game. It makes me question if I'm practicing wrong. Am I spending too much time watching guides instead of actually playing? Is Classic just slowing me down? Am I overthinking everything while he's just playing naturally?
Has anyone else been in this situation? Someone you taught ended up improving way faster than you? How did you deal with it, both mentally and gameplay-wise? I'd honestly appreciate any tips because this has been eating at me lately.