P groove just isn’t about parries. Its about what you need in every other groove - Footsies, zoning and etc.
What you need to do is know the range you are at with your opponent. Would you throw a fireball from point blank range? Of course not! So don’t. When you throw out a move, make sure it hits, or is at least blocked. Don’t whiff an attack unless you want to set up a baited move (such as a dragon punch). If you look at some of my matches, I whiff a lot of standing jabs to bait out an opponent.
Next is BnB’s off of a parry. When you parry, don’t do anything. Punish your opponent with a combo! Cammy can punish nearly every parry with her standing roundhouse xx super. Or crouching forward xx super.
Aforementioned was parrying jump ins. While this is good, the opponent may wise up and do an empty jump and throw you. Oh no! But, don’t fret. The whole point of parrying a jump in is just that, to parry something your opponent does. I normally wouldn’t suggest to parry a jump in unless you know that you have a big combo waiting for your opponent off of a parry, OR if the character you are using has a crappy anti air. Almost forgot, some anti airs just get plain stuffed. Like Chun Li’s crouching roundhouse gets stuffed by Terry’s jumping roundhouse and Hao’s jumping fierce. For those situations, it would be safer to parry then anti air, or parry into the combo of your choice.
When you play P groove, you force the opponent to mix up his/her gameplay. However, you must do the same! Mix up what you do. P groove has small jumps, a very offensive manuever. With small jumps you can mix up a high attack, or do an empty small jump into crouching lk’s xx super with a lot of characters.
Low parry set ups. If you look at Makoto’s Kyo, he does crouching short a lot. Why? Its because he’s using Option Select. He hits down right before he attacks so he can low parry, if the opponent doesn’t attack low, no worries. The crouching short covers it into a pressure string. Find set ups!
Most importantly … break down the opponent’s gameplay. You have to analyze every little bit of it if you want to have a successful parry session. Watch if they throw out a crouching forward from max range, and look for it the second time around. This is what makes P groove so deadly, the ability to read an opponent’s attack and punish. Practice this.
I leave you with a list of characters that are good in P groove, in no particular order … these characters are good in beginner levels, but deadly in the hands of a good P groover.
Cammy
Kyo
Sakura
Hibiki