seems like you need to use back sobat kick to keep your zone and throw some jabs if you like to be a standing zoner. Follow your booms with knee sometimes, and make use of backfist if they seem to come at you with no fear
Thanks man nice advice, I do use the sobat kick but somehow a boom won’t come out after, I swear I’m doing the whole technique right but for some reason it’s just not working for me that well. Thanks for the advice anyway, I like that backfist, shall have to put it to better use than I am using it at the moment.
If you do f+mk, you can’t do a boom after it. You lose the charge.
b+mk version you can. You just need to wait after the animation has finished before you can throw a boom.
I assume you’re holding b while you’re doing the sobat as well?
Haha of course, I play Gen as a main so I’m pretty used to holding my charge. I hold back… I sobat kick… i push f+ any punch and diddley squat happens! It’s obviously something I’m doing wrong, I thought sobat kick was the perfect amount of time to hold charge for. I’ve got some terrible footsies going on too! I play some offensive/arsey players so I’m often rushed down and I just can’t keep them out, I C.hp and spinning backfist when I can but (Ken -.-) those damn step kicks pin me down. Any advice for really offensive people?
Sobat kick’s finish alot faster than the minimum charge time. You need to wait a bit longer. Just go to training and see for yourself lol. Against ken step kick pokes you can try focusing or backdashing to get out of there. You can also reversal ight kick super if your reactions are up to it. Or just block.
If you anticipate Ken’s step coming in, you can actually poke it with a cr.lp before the kick becomes active which will score you counterhit status. Or you can just block until he gets to an unsafe spacing.
The thing is if i just block, dash, focus, I still can’t get out and i lose the precious precious focussed health when he catches up and spits out a kara throw -.- I’m guessing it’s not a great matchup at the end of the day but damn i’m getting stung >_< thanks for the advice though, I’ll try it and see if i can get out ok.
Thanks nemesis! 
Didn’t know that! I’ll try and get some cr.lp > booms going on. What would you guys suggest is better practice for guile, getting the combo’s and potential FADC pressure down or working on AA and zoning?
IMO, AA and zoning are impossible to “practice” in the traditional sense. It’s only something you can get through playing the game really. It’s easy to say “go to training mode and have sagat j.mp you to learn how to AA it…” until you play a sagat who uses a different timing or angle.
Guile isn’t a character that benefits a whole lot from training mode. I would say if you did though, to get your c.lp > c.mp link down.
Guile does benefit alot from the training mode. Learning to use the right AA’s from multiple jump angles is one (not to mention cutting your reaction time to it as well). Recognizing/Utilizing spacing from Guile’s “mobile” normals and being able to control them on reaction. Guile’s a zoning character. By definition of zoning basically means to learn to control the area around your character. Yeah you got sonic booms and flashkicks but getting the hang of his normals and command normal’s effectiveness/functions does require some time spent in the training room as well. You can also use the training room CPU to get comfortable fighting in midrange or outside of sweep distance (getting the hang of baiting/forcing whiffs and punishing them appropriately).
And yes, there are times when I just sit in the training room and simple do cr.lp > cr.mp links all night long.
That’s a great philosophy you both have on “zoning” I might be able to explain my question a little better by describing the play style and maybe you can help me.
He’s an agressive and bait happy Ken, moves in well witht he step kicks and ambigous jumpins. If I could force him into the air, I could work him down with that, but Ken’s ground game seems so consistent with step kick and c.mk>hadouken. When he does throw out and miss medium or light shoryuken I can’t punish as well as I’d like. I don’t have the charge to do c.mp>flash kick and I don’t think I’m close enough to GHK>backfist. Help me please pro-Guile people 
IMO, (other’s might think differently) if Ken misses with his lp/mp dp and I don’t have a downback charge at the time, I can always go for…
- a backhand to reach out and make reset back before he reaches the ground. Thus giving me that much more spacing.
- Depending on how close Ken is when he whiffs his dp, if I have two ex stock, a sonic boom > FADC > GHK > backhand/HK Flashkick which will still reset Ken back but give me a more solid punish on his dp is another option.
- Wait to see if he’s going to follow up with another instant dp.
Combos are not a necessity to beat an opponent, imo.
I personally hate the Ken match when they know their ambiguous jump ins and step kicks. One thing to pay attention to is what does he do when you get him in a block string? Does he mash DP? In that case just block it. The reason I say that in connection to your step kick problem is that if you know he’s going for the step kick, c.mk stuff, jumping over him and crossing him up with lk might work well to your advantage. But be aware of his actions because if he just mashes the srk, then think about that and bait it by just dropping your combos and blocking.
Example. If I jump over him while he’s doing c.mk and I do lk low to the ground and hit him, then I do c.lk > c.lp > c.mp > SB. (if he catches me off my failed one link combo with srk, he’s mashing and the next time I’ll bait him. Sometimes switching it up with just jab jab, wait, SB)
If I jump over him and catch him early with my lk cross up, I just block because he can quickly counter my anything with srk.
Switch it up if he starts catching on with Guile’s target combo. Remember that you can dash in after a SB and catch him with a c.hp if he jumps over it.
At least that’s my general strategy when it comes to Ken.
I’m liking the advice 
I can get on board with a solid backfist (I too don’t have down charge! I’m always playing footsies which involves moving back and forth) and a decent combo, I totally agree that knowing lengthy combo’s is a great punish, I just don’t know that many with guile yet so I can’t really put into practice what I see great Guile’s do, I can FADC quite happily with the shoto’s after a fireball so I might try something like that.
@fire.tisane
You’re underestimating my friend he’s no scrubby rage chump Ken, he baits well and techs well. So it’s a rough matchup and a good Ken, I think you’re right about the jump lk’s though, thats something I can work on, if i predict a step kick I should try opening into something.
SBs own stepkicks in a sense that they shield you from it. You shouldn’t be losing the ground game to Ken. If you do, it means your SB/footsie game is not strong.
If you do block a stepkick, and he does c.mk > FB, just block the c.mk and you can punish FB on reaction with EX FK.
The dangerous Kens are those that tries ground EX tatsu as one of their ways to get in when they anticipate SB and OS backdash with s.lk ~ stepkick. And they also mixup their jump-ins with air EX tatsu/normals/empty jump c.lk/SRK. They also c.mk instead of c.mk > FB so they can stepkick or do some other stuff again cos the FB pushes Guile away which is actually in Guile’s advantage.
Play more than half screen distance if you can. You should win if you can keep him at that distance for 80% of the match. If you can’t, you have to improve on your zoning.
AA normals will stop all of Ken’s jump in attempts.
Ken has a sweet spot somewhere around his stepkick range that he can make you guess between j.hp/hk, empty jump and EX tatsu crossup. If he takes a step back and jumps, c.hp will whiff. If he walks forward a step and jump hp, c.hp will be stuffed if his timing is correct. At this distance, he can also try to crossup EX tatsu and it’s really hard to react to the speed if he does it correct. And he can stepkick apart from these if you don’t SB.
I try to AA him in the air whenever possible if he jumps slightly late. IMO, how both players handle this distance is the key on the Ken matchup. Another point is that I think once Ken has 3 bars, he can be quite scary. But his meter is hard to gain and also another key point in the matchup. Guile can actually deny his meter gain significantly by trying to play the long range game and avoiding the mid range game where Ken can gain meter faster with blocked pokes.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t this go right back to what was mentioned earlier?
Guile doesn’t have any practical lengthy combos (not unless you want to showboat and use 4 bars…)… you’re better off sticking with the 2-3 hit combos and saving your meter for fk xx fadc, or ex sbs. =P
What I was trying to say is from that distance, if Ken jumps at the correct timing, it is a guess in his favor if he’s good enough to know how to make Guile guess. If they do it right, you’ll be forced to block their jump due to their timing if you just did a boom.
Most Kens are not that smart and will use stepkick most of the time. If he’s stepkick-happy, then SB his stepkick would solve the problem. But if he’s forcing Guile to guess like what I said, then it’s better for Guile to stay further back from that range unless the Guile player is really good with guessing games.
My apologies.