After I effectively killed the small anime scene in Colorado (another story, another time), it needed a restart from scratch...
One friend, Chavelo, despite not being an anime player, welcomed us into his condo and allowed us to host "weeklies" at his place after the release of Persona 4 Arena.
"Weeklies," in the sense that it was myself and my friend Cyn, or username Hellfire at the time would get together and play for a few hours. Chavelo, wanting to be as welcoming as possible, set up a small little stream for us and gave us a couple headphones to effectively commentate our own matches while playing.
I believe having to both explain myself midgame and play got my mindset into the right place to explain more on commentary, but Cyn was amazing at being personable. It was something I was envious of for the longest time and wanted to embrace more.
As the years went on we got connected with a local small LAN venue, Safe House Gaming. They provided us a stream setup for our events and since we were still small and growing, we got to know our audience more intimately (again, Cyn excelled at this!) and commentate over matches. I had fewer opportunities because I was placing Top 1 most of the time, but I helped out where I could. Most notably, an Injustice tournament where "Niggas in spaaace" became a local meme for a while. 😂
Ultimately, a good friend of mine, Shorjewken, offered to fly me out and room me for the major he was helping organize: Northwest Majors in Seattle, Washington. He also asked me to do commentary to which I couldn't say no to (I wouldn't have anyway). I had the opportunity to travel while in college and it was exciting!
I had a block with Dacidbro, a great commentator even at that time. The commentary block went.... very ok from my end. 😅 At the end of the night, myself, him, and another friend within the group, MikeMuscles, were chilling together and asking Dacidbro for advice. He told me that I kept saying what the players were thinking but "you don't know that." That advice changed formed my ideas of how I understood commentary. That I was there to craft a story from what I have, not prove that I know everything or that I'm a fortune teller. That advice alone helped me build myself up as both a player and a commentator.
I was fortunate to get more opportunities over the years to both travel, but also commentate. After 2020, commentary became my main raison d'etre within the FGC; I'm happy to provide the support role now and possibly help others follow suit.