I’ll bite.
Yes, it’s all about desire, if he really wants to learn SF, he can learn and at least attain a certain level. (I sincerely believe that everyone can) But if he doesn’t have the desire, then you shouldn’t bother teaching your friend.
However, I taught my good friend who developed A LOT of bad habits on how to play “thinking” SF. Don’t just throw shit out just because you can. He at least had the drive to become better which he improved immensely.
One obstacle of his was that he had the worst habit of getting trigger happy with the super. As soon as he’d get it, he’d try to find a way to blow it as soon as possible, rather than waiting for a good time to use it or just not use it at all (and use it as a mind game)
For example, if you have a super hadoken with Ryu, a decent opponent will know that they have to be more cautious with throwing fireballs against you. If they do throw a careless fireball, you can blow through his fireball with the super and deal a significant amount of damage. This consequence could feasibly make your opponent lose, and he doesn’t want that.
As a result, his gaming style will probably change and it’s just because you are “holding” on to this super. By not actually using is a mental edge you get over your opponent because you limit his options.
Okay, with that out of the way, notes about the video:
According to the video I watched, your friend just throws a lot of stuff out of the blue, and maybe his execution is off (I saw a mp srk, maybe a super attempt?)
First round he knocks you down with what I’m assuming is a lucky hurricane kick, but then his wake up game consists of a crouch lp, which he promptly backs off after a blocked hit. He didn’t go for a cross-up, no tick-throw, no tick-pause-lp srk, not even meaty fireball AT LEAST.
He’s not thinking about what he can do to make your life harder. He just backs off, gives you breathing space and “resets” the match. As Sirlin’s video said, press the advantage (something to that effect). Now that your friend has knocked you down, if he crossed you up and you blocked wrong, he could’ve knocked out half your life with a cross up combo (in which you would probably be knocked down and he could repeat it or, go for tick throw etc…)
If he did the stuff I said above, he would be well on his way to winning that round. Look. He has A LOT of options, but I don’t think he sees it.
Okay, so after the hurricane kick, crouch lp -> back off routine I just saw, he then gets into a fireball fight where he walks into a couple of kikokens and does lp srks.
WHY is he doing those srks?
1st, you are Chun-Li, you cannot hit him from that far with anything but your fireball, so if he’s trying to hit you, he’s doing a horrible job.
2nd, if he’s doing it to go through your kikoken, he needs practice. A LOT more practice.
So basically, the only reason I could think of him doing srks at that distance was to build meter. If he’s anticipating a jump, he could seriously do it on reaction instead of doing it super early like he is now.
I see that he also has no idea how to play the fireball game, and you should tell him to start faking fireball motions (qcf, very slight pause pause, performing standing medium punch, if the opponent falls for it, then jab srk) Mix this up with real fireballs and he can bait aggressive/impatient opponents that try to jump in. This may not sound like it works, but if I throw 2-3 fireballs in a row, and I do this, I’ll probably trick you.
So yeah, after watching that, I cringe through the rest of the match and I’ve seen enough. His fundamentals are essentially non-existant. He knows how to do the moves, but doesn’t know how to apply them.
In my opinion, he’s the person that’s “almost there”, with the right teaching he should start understanding ST on a deeper level, primarily at the mind game level. Yeah he can do the moves, but if he can start tricking you and mixing it up, that’s when he becomes a lot more dangerous and can start fighting mentally with other opponents.
So first is execution, once he can perform a majority of stuff consistently, that’s the first step. After is mind games/mixup. Once he can start tricking people and mixing it up well, then it’s match-ups. Match-ups are HOW to play against characters. The way you fight against Zangief with Ryu and the way you fight Dhalsim with Ryu are 2 TOTALLY different games and mindsets. That’s the overall player progression, (of course you can improve these qualities even more with practice/experience) and your friend can at least pull off all Ryu’s special/super moves so now he’s just got to apply them correctly.
My advice to you is tell him to watch this video and tell him what he’s doing wrong. Tell him what you were thinking when you guys watch the video and explain how you managed to beat him. I saw that you jumped over the shinkuu hadoken in the second round like you knew it was coming. Explain that to him. Say, “Hey, I knew you were going to chuck the super because you get too triggy happy with it and I punished accordingly”
If he’s a decent problem solver he should be like, “Wow, next time you try to pull that and I have a super ready, when I wake up, I’ll fake a fireball, have you jump straight up and shoryuken your dumbass, after which I’ll cross you up… etc”
He needs to at least be able to think at the “next level” or “yomi” as Sirlin says. This is key to mind games and is VERY VERY fun when both people try to outsmart each other. That’s when you see great matches and great moments like Daigo/Justin 3rd strike movie. Daigo anticipates that Justin is going for the tick-damage kill and parries, and punishes accordingly. Mentally, Daigo was at a higher mental level than Justin and with his amazing execution skills, he turned the match around with the crowd erupting in the background.
This, is the beauty of Street Fighter.
P.S. Your friend needs to learn how to throw, seriously, SO many times, he’s SO close to your Chun-Li and he doesn’t bother. Crouch lk, walk up, throw. Jump in round house, walk up, throw. Lk hurricane kick to throw. f+hp whiffed to throw. There’s just so many…
