Ryu's Fundamentals Part 1

Knowing Ryu:

Ryu's Tool:

Do you really know about Ryu even though you are a Ryu player? As a Ryu player myself at certain situations (range, life and time) i use different normals just to distance my opponent or combo with a sweep for mixups or just for the knock down so i can get out of that "bad" situation. Another example, let say i have Ryu, Ken or Akuma in the corner and most likely he'll do a crossup tatsu or an escape tatsu...then here i either punish them with an early jump fierce against escape tatsu and a low fierce against crossup tatsu for better results. (Crossup tatsu r usually hard to counter with SRK) Of course i am not here to explain every single use of his normals, but i will mention some things that u might not know about. *NOTE: This is not a baby sitting guide, i am not going to explain things step by step or list everything single thing.*
 Allow me to elaborage more about Ryu's normals. Low jab and low short..comparing these two light normals.

Low jab: cancelable to anything, pushes your opponent farther
Low short: cancelable first hit, pushes your opponent lesser farther

Ok....so what about it.....? Taking Daigo's Ryu as an example. If you ever watches his video against any Rufus you will probably see him do a low shortx4 poke string. This is a safe pokestring without holes in between for Rufus to mash on his ex messiah kick. On the other hand, if you use low jabx4, the last hit might not hit since jab pushes your opponent farther then short.

Ok, so let's talk about his low strong and low forward. I don't think i need to talk about the range difference.........anyways,  low forward OS > special move, if the low forward doesn't hit never comes out (of course you r not canceling your move late). And if you ever uses low forward's OS timing applying with low strong, the special move comes out whether your low strong hits or not. Therefore if you want to successfully pull out a low strong OS, you have to do the input extremely fast before the low strong disappears.

Now the fierce punches and roundhouse kicks. Standing fierce's hitbox is longer than it looks, and can counter a lot of things. (Eg. Balrog's jump fierce, Cammy's dive kicks, Zangief's jump fierce, and more) A counter hit fierce can combo into sweep or super, it's a very good tool which is lack of used by most of the
Ryu players.

His st.roundhouse kick is a very good anti air normal, but it's also an outstanding normal as footsies against certain characters like Gief, Akuma, T-hawk, big characters that jumps often.
Using and Building Gauges:

I've been playing in North America for almost a month...and I realise 90% of the players DO NOT know how to use gauges properly or save gauges for the next round. I am going to take a Ryu mirror as an example, perhaps the BEST EXAMPLE.

Alright, so first round, i am already beating the shit out of my opponent's Ryu. I had prob 3 gauges and he had ZERO...WTF?! YES, he threw full screen or random ex fireballs which retards can block or evade easily.........Ok fine, i have like 70%life and he has 10% life...he built ONE gauge, and YES, he used it in the end of the round right before he died. I mean people, do u think that one gauge of yours can make a 70% come back? I mean, save it for next round so you actually have at least one gauge when i can FULL SUPER already. Guys, i mean...really, use your gauges wisely. As a Ryu, at least have 2 gauges for a SRK > FADC > ULTRA please? Ok, so this leads to the next thing i wanna talk about, "Ultra gauges". A lot of players tend to use their ultra gauges whenever they have the opportunity to, even when they have only half of the meter. Ultra gauges are usually use for a COME BACK (If you have only half a meter, which means you still have around 50% life.. using half meter doesn't do a load of DMG and once you use it when you need to really make a COME BACK, you have nothing scary to threat your opponent with)

So how do i build meters? You don't have to whiff a special move to build meters...when you hit somebody..even though they are blocking you build FASTER meters. Ok, so first you gotta look at your characters...hmmm..i'll choose Zangief as an example..alright, full screen, whiff some srk to build easy meters..he can't hurt u at that distance. Now let's take a look at Akuma as an opponent. Trying to build meters with random srk can be a bit risky in this matchup...so maybe some footsies > fireball can help you build some meters. Alright, so last example...let's use Abel. Beginning of the round, you get a knock down on him, he is meterless...so basically he's free to jump in at him. Once you land any jump in attack, do some safe poke strings comboing into fireball, you get probably over 2/3 gauge + a free chip.

You never wanna leave with empty gauges, make sure you always have at least one just to open up more opportunites when you have the chance.

Holding your lead ( when to attack and when to back off):

I will use Ryu mirror as my example again ( it's just easier to understand and explain imo :D ).
You might not want to be the first one to jump in that will probably cost you some life and put yourself in a bad situation. So ok, maybe you should probably play safe in the beginning and try to land your first attack. Ok , good job, you did it! You are in a 40% comfortable lead with some meters. Hmm..so how do i hold this lead? THE ANSWER IS TURTLE! What i mean by that is DON'T jump when you aren't suppose to. Ryu can't really land damage on you if you guard yourself right (Sounds easy...meh..i'll explain how to guard yourself better in the "Defending yourself" section.) However, if you jump on Ryu, you are WIDE open and prepare to eat a SRK and slowly the momentum will slowly be on your opponent's side....
Some Ryus i played online tried to be smart when he was 40% leading...he tried to predict my fireball and did a hurricane kick which FAILED...then i countered it with a SRK, my comeback starts from there. If he didn't do that hurricane kick, i still had to work my way in, but nevertheless, he gave it to me.
There are also things you don't want to risk doing while you are turtling. Risky/predictable fireballs, mashing SRK while guarding poke strings, a sweep that you don't even know if it's gonna hit or trying to throw whoever you are playing when he has FULL ULTRA GAUGE / SUPER GAUGE.
 Apply this strategy when you are in the opposite position. Think as your enemy and make up your gameplan/ decision and good luck with your come back~

*I didn't edit this, too lazy, let me know if something doesn't make sense*