Ryu's Fundamentals Part 2

Footsies and Spacing:

     Ryu's low forward / crouching medium kick is his soul when it comes to footsies. It's long reaching, fast, special cancelable and low risk ( hard to be punished ). Though it's hard to punish, it's punishable especially when you play against a good player or characters with dive kicks like Rufus and Cammy, who can just step on your foot for free. In which case, just use low strong / crouching medium punch when against dive kicks. So basically, make sure you don't abuse this move as if it's free. Space yourself, know the length of the hitbox and use it when you think it's going to touch him. However, you might be saying to yourself, "But..but...my spacing suck balls...what should i do and how do i improve it?!" ONE WORD! EXPERIENCE!!! "But but..i never trained in Japan like you!" Alright alright...calm down...there's more to it. Experience does play 70% of the role here, but not all. Maybe you guys never really hit up training mode or even if you guys do, you guys just go there to practice execution.

Anyways, ever notice there are gridlines in the training stage? These lines are for you to measure your distancing and length of your normals - in other words - SPACING. In training mode, you can use your MAIN character and the character who you want to practice against, then simply test things out and learn your spacing. An and example, Ryu vs ahhhh...Ryu…sweep is a longer range then low forward...so, in training mode you would want to make sure you know the distance of the sweep. Once Ryu whiffs his low forward or sweep, punish with an accurate sweep. Alright...not enough eh...saying shit that everybody knows already, fine…another example..Ryu vs Bison. Bison's st.forward has a longer range than Ryu's low foward..and yeah..you probably dont want to use sweep against Bison since he can punish you with a scisscor kick on block. Anyways, footsies wise, Bison has a slight advantage in my experience. Most of the Bisons would use his st.forward to keep you on the ground and to deal damage. You might want to hit up training mode and test out what can beat his move and match the distance. Have Bison use st.forward at his best range and have Ryu trying to punish it with his normal(˙ buoɹʇs ʍoן sı ɹǝʍsuɐ ǝɥʇ ) *NOTE, not a baby sitting guide, test shit out yourself*

 As I mentioned previously, 70% of spacing is pure experience. Matchup wise and most important to note is that YOUR OPPONENT CAN MOVE! Using the Ryu mirror as an example again. ( It's just easier for me to explain, I am sorry! ) When Ryu pokes his opponent with a low forward, majority of the Ryu would try and poke back with low forward. Here you can walk back a little ( if you know your distance you can do this ) wait until he whiffs his low forward, then punish with your sweep. Make sure you don't walk back too far and miss your sweep. One more example, doing a poke string on your opponent, low jab x2...walk back and you'll probably see him mashing on low jab or low short because he's trying to tech throw or poke you back. Here you don't want to walk back too far, just move to the distance where his jab will miss and punish it with your low forward or low strong.  

Alright, its not over yet. Do you know throwing HADOUKENS is also a part of footsies? It's just not a special move, it's a flying object with chip damage that is considered as part footsies. It's really hard to know when to throw fireballs and you cannot just one day master it, trust me. Hadouken forces your opponent to block or jump ( I consider focus a block so SHHH ). Ok, so how do you throw good fireballs...to be honest..I DON'T KNOW! But I will share my knowledge of HOW I throw fireballs. But you’re going to have to stay tuned into my blog until then!!!