Help - learning stick -Jwongs hands

Tech Talk
1

I’m looking for some input/help/info from those of you that play on stick.

I’ve been training on stick for a few months now, I’m getting close to being as good as I was on pad, but I’m still not there. I mess up links and stuff too often due to clumsy button pressing. I have timing down.

My question is about what fingers people use to press the 6 buttons on their stick.

What I found extra interesting about the J.wong 3s character vids was how it showed his hands during play.

[media=youtube]8IEB40tl9zI[/media]

What surprised me was this:

He only seems to use his index and middle finger to hit buttons. He moves his hand around and generally hits the buttons in succession with his index finger!

Now I’m a Ryu player so I’m gonna translate this to Ryu:

His basic c.lk c.lp .cmk - fireball combo.

When I do this for the fireball I’ll use light punch cause at least that way if I wiff only a LP will come out (early on I used HP and left my self so open when I wiffed)

I’ll press:

Lk with my **thumb **

LP with my index finger
**
Mk** with my thumb again

and the LP for the fireball with my index finger,

if its ex I"ll use **LP **and MP with index and middle finger.

If I’m FADCing that FB I’ll then use my** thumb and middle finger** for mk-mp.

Finally, if say I was linking into HP > ex TATSU instead of mk.FB :

I hit HP with my middle finger, then HK and MK with the base of my middle finger and index if you get me?
Basically hitting the hp with the tip of my middle finger and then flattening my hand to hit the other two buttons with the base of my 2 fingers.

(I do the same when linking medium punch into ex tatsu, and this can sometimes result in unwanted focus attacks)

So looking at wong it would seem he’d do ryu’s B&B combo like this:

c.lk - c.lp - c.mk -> FB all with his index finger.

it looks like he’ll sometimes hit the same button with both his index and middle finger , one ofter the other (when doing supers) instead of double tapping for example (its still a double tap but he uses one then the other finger, instead of using one to hit twice.

I’m noticing what must be plinking when linking to HP too.

To me it seems odd to use only 2 fingers 90% of the time, when I thought the whole point was you can make use of more fingers on a stick.

But looking at my own execution problems, it seems a lot of it is too many fingers messing eachother up.

Where as his method seems … cleaner

So in conclusion to what probably seems like on overly detailed post on mere button pressing , I’d really like to hear from people how they press the buttons on stick.

Because this is one of the big things for me and I’ll have to almost retrain (yet again) what my hand does on stick do land my links and combos.

Cheers guys.

2

I use my index for light, my middle for medium, and my ring finger for heavy punches/kicks. When I double-tap the harder links I’ll hit it with my middle and then index finger, no matter which button it is I’m pressing. The only times that I use my thumb are for grabs and FAs, though I have seen people use their index and middle fingers to do these inputs.

However I main Chun and to do some of her piano techniques where I buffer her kicks between low jab links I’ll use my middle finger for jab and my index for short. It might be in my best interest to start using those two fingers to input grabs instead of using my thumb since it’d be faster to go for a tick grab when I confirm that the low jabs get blocked, but I’ve gotten too used to using my thumb especially for FADC.

My style of play is similar to what is seen in this video, although I’m no where near as good: [media=youtube]AyxqqhAlJ6M[/media]

In the end I say just do whatever works for you.

3

Interesting vid thanks. I think the way I’m pressing things at the moment. While it keeps my hand almost in the same place most of the time (as I’ll be folding my thumb under my palm to hit lk and mk ) I think using too many fingers is increasing the chances of my messing up.

From what I can see a lot of my wiffs are due to negative edge with one finger depressing one button while another presses in on the next button in the link. So I can see how jwongs method of moving the hand around a lot and using less fingers might help that.

I’m wondering how common this is though, or if what jwong does in that vid I posted considered unusual or normal or whatever.

4

Since I’m more of a Guilty Gear player (though I play a little SF4 too)… :

[K][S][H]
[P][][D]
( is taunt / respect)
first finger on P, middle finger on K, ring finger on S, pinky on H. I use my pinky for D as well. My fingers just stay hovering over the buttons when I’m not pushing anything.
Same thing for SF4… habit, I guess.

My hands are double-jointed in several places, both fingers and thumbs. If I have to use my thumb (rarely), I use the ball part of it, not the end. It’s faster.

5

Marvel players tend to use their two fingers to hit buttons instead of individual fingers. Playing marvel requires a certain amount of vigor to punch out commands, so most likely that technique transfered over to SF4 as well.

6

It is common especially for some arcade players to not use or barely use their thumbs. Your thumb reflex is slower and less accurate on an arcade panel than it is on a pad because your digits want to curl inward, but your thumb needs to hit sideways on a flat surface like an arcade panel. You can either use the weaker, slower sideways movement of your thumb itself, or you have to get your wrist involved. Using your thumb also puts your other fingers out of alignment for hitting the lower row of buttons on reaction, and things like double-tapping inputs are also more difficult when you get your thumb involved.

Personally I use my thumb some, but if I’m practicing combos or something and try it both ways, I usually do find that sticking with index/middle/ring results in more accurate timing.

See these vids; it’s not just Justin Wong:








7

I pretty much use my index, middle and ring finger. I only use thumb for throw/teching and Focus Attack. When I do linking though I then do do it with my middle and ring fingers on the right 4 and index and middle on left 2. It is something that I am not even aware about, it is something that just develops as you play more.

8

interesting videos

9

Yeah, it’s funny, I play with my thumb hovering over LK, but unless I’m playing Soul Calibur (Where LK = the guard button), my thumb doesn’t see much action.

There’s nothing too strange about Justin’s play, he just plays the way he is comfortable/used to/able to execute best. I do the same thing…only on bass guitar (use only my index and middle finger to fret, on occasion, i use my pinky, but my ring finger sees no action). It’s whatever you’re comfortable with. That’s the key.

10

Yeah its just as I began learning this is how my hand naturally ended up doing it, but I’m worried it could be a bad method, whole reason I moved to stick was to get cleaner execution.

I might try and re-train myself not to use my thumb so much, gonna be hard though.

Any ryu players out there willing to give input on what finger placement they use when doing his standard B&B combos??

(for example c.short - c.jab -c.forward > fireball )