Need Fighting Game Help

I like to play fighting games (mainly Soul Calibur and Blazblue) and I have one important question to ask. When you play fighting games, do you watch your own character or do you watch your opponent? I usually watch my own character, but lately I have tried to force myself to watch my opponent so that I can react better in blocking. Thoughts?

I just mash buttons.

It's mostly a state of your mind. If you're focused on defeating your opponent and believe you have the self-confidence and character skill to do it - you'll likely see yourself watching your opponent's movements and actions.

As you continue facing the myriad of different character fighters and/or players, you'll eventually find something that WTFPWN you so hard that you will want to counter it somehow and simply go back to training more.

You should focus on your opponent first, and learn how to react. Once you can properly defend and take advantage of openings, then focus on improving your own offense.

Even with a game like BlazBlue that has a Challenge mode with dozens of combos (many of them overcomplicated and unoptimized,) believe me when I say it doesn't mean a thing if your fundamentals aren't there (I aced Hazama's Challenges in CS but in actual gameplay my positioning and my usage of his chains was embarrassing.)

Honestly if you can properly perform all your character's moves without thinking about it, and understand the game's basic combo system (gatling vs. links, etc.) you're gonna be almost average. As long as you're not mashing and you're actually testing these moves out and figuring out their situational purposes, you're going to improve.

Combos eventually become necessary for above average to high level play, but I think at an average level, knowing how to perform basic gatling combos into a special or super is enough.

Thanks for the advice. I will try to keep that in mind. However, I do have another question, out of curiosity. Do you prefer to attack first or do you always anticipate the other person to attack first?