Footsies is how you manage your character as a whole. It’s not just about spacing and using pokes. It’s about every damn decision you plan on making in this game. I can whiff a cmk with ryu which would lower my hitbox to dodge Fei’s Chicken wing, and immediately punish with crouching heavy punch into DP. When somebody jumps and lands, I can immediately jump at them for some free pressure. I can get my opponents to fear my pokes and then just walk up to grab them. Footsies is everywhere and consists of everything. It is applicable EVERYWHERE. It’s just dependent on whether you are aware of using your options when playing footsies.
Thank god a couple of the more respected posters and better players (such as illitrit and HNIC Mike) got to this thread because some of the responses I am reading right now are rather eye opening about the SRK SF4 communities understanding of footsies. What happened to the days where, if you didn’t have the expertise, you kept your damn mouth shut and waited for someone with a better understanding to come along and answer the question?
This.
I was going to respond by saying:
No, they exist at all levels, but the “footsies” in low level play will probably be bad/unsuccessful, and when they are successful, it will probably not be due to great understanding or “skill.” What I understand “footsies” to be is, essentially, playing with time and space on the ground, using normals to counterattack, bait, punish, confuse, intimidate your opponent.
An example of high level footsies would be sticking out cr. mk from farther than cr. mk range and noticing that he stuck out his own cr. mk a moment afterward, with both attacks whiffing, and then with this knowledge, sticking out another cr. mk from a similar distance which whiffs, and then after a very brief pause you stick out a second cr. mk which either interrupts or whiff punishes his cr. mk and you cancel your cr. mk into super. God, doing that in 3S with Ken or Akuma’s SAI is just orgasmic.
An example of low level footsies would be frantically hitting cr. hk whenever your opponent starts to walk towards you.