A noobs ranked match debut. The bad people hurt me

So after playing a ton of player matches, I decided to finally dive in with the sharks. I am new to VF by the way...in case you didn't know. So the first thing I notice is that everyone is like frigging 10 Dan and above with no less than two thousand some matches. I think I lost the first ten matches in an eyeblink. Not a single match lagged either so it was all 100% my fault.

Some observations:
The Akira's I played were all psychic. Seriously. Those blasted open double palm strikes were coming out of nowhere the instant I flinched.
Japanese players will quite often let you win the first match to feel you out and then BLAM!
A bad habit I got into playing the computer, was doing high or low kicks on get up...BIG MISTAKE. They blocked me everytime and then finally I wised up and knocked it off. I also cranked my "abare meter" down from 11 to about 2. That helped a lot.
In the end I came away with eight wins and twenty losses. On my last win I made it to 8 Kyu so I decided to end on a high note. To be honest, I haven't had this much fun playing a fighter in many many years. I figure over the holidays I will work up the courage to head to an arcade and waste some money there. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
Well, it is 1:30 a.m. here in Tokyo town and I got a party to go to tomorrow. Nighty night.... /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/sleep.gif