I want to talk about an alternate use of Cammy’s back-fist move that many players are unfamiliar with. The properties of this move are extremely complicated. Therefore, I’ll only talk about the applications of this move in the Ryu match-up. The move works differently against all characters. I just performed this experiment on an ST emulator (on my computer) but it should work on HDR as well.
Here’s a little experiment for everyone to try: go to training mode and pick Ryu and Cammy. Throw Ryu with Cammy’s fierce throw and then immediately do the jab back-fist move. If you hit the other opponent, you’re doing the back-fist too late. If you performed the back-fist as soon as possible, the move will barely whiff your opponent body while waking up. After your back-fist whiffs, attempt to throw your opponent. Most likely your throw will whiff, and you’ll get a poke like standing fierce instead. At that range, you’re also in the perfect range to perform a cross-up.
Now try that experiment with the fierce back-fist. Immediately after the fierce back-fist whiffs, wait a split second and then try to throw them. You will be in range, and your throw will connect.
So why do i consider that mix-up good? What are some applications of that mixup?
First off, using the back-fist move is a lot easier than manually walking inside/outside Cammy’s throw range. Since it’s so easy, you’ll rarely ever mess up.
Secondly, and IMO more importantly, **this mix-up is much more ambiguous **than simply walking inside/outside Cammy’s throw range because the move has unique properties. As Cammy’s character is performing the jab/fierce backfist, her front leg extends further forward; As the move is ending, her front leg retracts backward. When you’re performing the jab/fierce backfist, it always looks like you’re closer to the opponent than you really are. It’s not until much later -when the backfist has completely recovered- that your opponent can determine weather you performed the jab or fierce version of the move.
Whenever I feel my opponent is going to try to tech throws, I perform the jab version of the back-fist. Immediately afterwards I usually will combo crouching medium kick into a cannon drill. If I think my opponent will try to reversal me (say Ryu’s dragon punch), I’ll do the fierce version, then block, and go for the throw break (late throw). I’ll also occasionally do the back-fist late for a meaty backfist, just to mix things up.
I personally think that this is the **original **purpose of the move-the reason the original programmers added this move to the code. But, I’ll concede that I’ve never seen a Cammy player use the back-fist in this way in SF2. Although, in later games, lots of other players use similar setups, with different characters. Interestingly enough though, this back fist mix-up doesn’t work on many charcters. For example, the mix-up doesn’t work on E. Honda which I consider odd lol but it does work well on Ryu.
i mostly use cammy now i hate HDR chun