Starting over

Hey guys,

I've decided to go ahead and start the blog up again. I took down a few of my previous posts as I kind of felt they were really long winded and idealistic.

So, I've picked up Ryu as a main. I've been working on dhalsim now for about 6 months, and while I've gotten to be ok with him I think he's a rather tough character to learn as a beginner. I was hoping that Ryu would help me break down some of the fundamentals of the game that I'm most likely lacking. So starting from scratch is kind of tough especially with the heavy constraints that are on my time right now, but in the long run it will help my game, and all I really have is time right? It's not like the game is going anywhere.

I've broken down a few of the things that I need to work on to become a competent Ryu.

C.mk xxx hado while moving forward

The majority of the time a shoryuken comes out instead of the hadouken and I get punished a lot for it. I read on SRK that there must be 35 ms between the first forward input and the final punch input, so I'm trying to get that timing down in training mode.

Using the fireball properly

The fireball is Ryu's best tool. I'm trying to look at it less as a damage dealing weapon and more as a way to build a thought pattern in the opponents mind. If I can make the opponent believe I'm going to be throwing another fireball then perhaps he will try a psychic jump in. Conditioning the opponents mind with fireballs are really the basic reason that these are so effective.

Calming myself in the clutch

When I get an opportunity to combo and do damage I can usually hit confirm into shoryuken fairly well, even link into lk tatsu off of a hit confirm. But if I have a small amount of health and two ex bars and I'm waking up I have a hard time pulling off the FADC 'get out of jail free' card. I also will sometimes mash out moves, throws, instead of blocking and being patient and attacking when the time is right.

Predictability

I have to remember that I can't always attack after the opponent attacks. Some moves aren't punishable at certain ranges or based on certain frame advantages. A good example is akuma. If I throw out a c.mk and he blocks it, its a free sweep for him. If I get predictable with my pokes or with my game after a land a poke then I'm basically opening the door. Its ok to be predictable with the intention of using that sort of conditioning later to your advantage, but its not ok to be predictable unintentionally.

Well, thats it for now... more on my progress later.