So for those of you that don’t know, the “shimmy” is a technique with Balrog where you fake a throw by putting the opponent into block stun either from a crouching LP or a jump-in attack then you walk back (instead of walking in for a throw) and punish their whiffed throw or crouch tech with your crouching MP canceled into a rush punch and even into a super if you have it. It is a very powerful technique because if it is mixed in to your pressure properly, it will make the opponent afraid to press any buttons or tech throws. The purpose of this thread is to teach players how to get the most damage and stun from a successful shimmy.
Most good Rog players only start going for the shimmy once they have a super but you can actually get more from a shimmy with less meter. The common shimmy combo is walk back cr. MP xx LP dash straight xx Super (446 damage / 200 stun). While that damage is very good, the stun is low and Balrog is left with no meter after it so overall it doesn’t have as much utility as the shimmy combos I am going to post which use less meter, deal more stun, and still deal good damage.
2 Meters
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, St. LP, Cr. HK (333 Damage/570 Stun)
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. MP, Cr. LP, Cr. MP xx HK Rush Upper (350 Damage/570 Stun) ** You can end the combo in MK rush upper instead of HK rush upper because it recovers at point blank distance for a throw reset **
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, St. LP, St. HK (343 Damage/610 Stun)
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, Cr. MP xx HK Rush Upper (378 Damage/640 Stun) ** You can end the combo in MK rush upper instead of HK rush upper because it recovers at point blank distance for a throw reset **
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, Cr. LP, Cr. MP xx HP Buffalo Headbutt (332 Damage/535 Stun) ** You can combo into Ultra 1 after the headbutt for a little more damage if you need it **
3 Meters
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, Cr. MP xx EX Rush Upper, Cr. LP, Cr. MP xx HP Buffalo Headbutt (435 Damage/730 Stun) ** You can combo into Ultra 1 after the headbutt for a little more damage if you need it **
4 Meters
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, Cr. MP xx EX Rush Upper, Cr. LP, Cr. MP xx EX Rush Upper, Cr. LP, Cr. MP xx HP Buffalo Headbutt (454 Damage/765 Stun) ** You can combo into Ultra 1 after the headbutt for a little more damage if you need it **
- Cr. MP xx HP Dash Straight xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, Cr. MP xx HK Rush Upper xx FADC, Cr. LP, CL. HK, Cr. MP xx HK Rush Upper (442 Damage/760 Stun) * You can end the combo in MK rush upper instead of HK rush upper because it recovers at point blank distance for a throw reset **
The reason these combos are possible is because the HP Dash Straight after the initial Cr. MP (the shimmy) forces stand on the opponent so follow up combos are possible even if you hit the opponent while they were crouching. The only drawback to these combos is that they require good execution but once they are mastered, they will definitely make Balrog’s overall damage/stun output much higher.
P.S. - For those of you that are wondering where the term “shimmy” came from, it actually came from “gootecks shimmy”. The actual Gootecks shimmy name was taken from a video of him dancing to some techno song but the technique itself was made known by Gootecks in vanilla SF4 when he won the first East vs. West SF4 tournament called Sinsation back in February 2009. Here’s the video when Gootecks first used it [media=youtube]AACvZ_LVkT8[/media] . Over time, people just associated the technique with Gootecks so they called it the “Gootecks shimmy” and now it’s just “the shimmy”.