Gief's Gym - Learning the Shoryuken Motion - A Lesson for Absolute Beginners!

Welcome back friends! I hope you all arrived ready to improve. Today’s workout will cover executing special inputs. Get ready to build that muscle memory!

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Shoryuken: The Dragon Punch Motion - Absolute Beginners

The Workout – In training mode pick Ryu vs Ryu. Turn off stun to not waste time. Turn on Input Display so you can see exactly how your inputs are being read by the game. We are going to breakdown this motion to its most basic components:

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In order to perform this motion let’s begin with Player 1 (player controlled) on the left and the dummy on the right. Now with the control stick start by pressing the direction. Now move the control stick directly to then quickly move the stick to . As your control stick moves to the position, press any punch button. Ryu should perform a Shoryuken (Dragon Punch, DP). Now perform this motion 10 times in a row. If you fail to perform a Shoryuken, look at your inputs to see how you have failed, then start back at zero. Now switch sides and perform the Shoryuken with Player 1 (player controlled) standing on the right and the dummy to the left. Inputs for the Shoryuken motion will be reversed. Now with the control stick start by pressing the direction. Next quickly move from to to . As your control stick moves to the position, press any punch button. Now perform this motion 10 times in a row. If you fail to Shoryuken, look at your inputs to see how you have failed, then start back at zero. Repeat this set from both sides until you no longer fail an input.

The Purpose – The Dragon Punch motion is a classic special move input for the Street Fighter series and can be seen on a number of moves list across the entire cast of characters. Being able to execute the dragon punch motion on demand is a basic skill that one needs to master in order to become a better player. Make a special note of the distance and height covered by Ryu’s Shoryuken based on the button that you pressed. The space covered by the Shoryuken will be incredibly important when you try to anti air or apply this move to you neutral game. Variations Include:

Learning Shortcuts - In modern fighting games and throughout the majority of the Street Fighter franchise, the game engine has variable leniency in terms of what you need to input as a player to make a special move work. There are two very common shortcuts to the Shoryuken motion:

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Or > > +

These two methods are the lowest amount of inputs required for the game engine to recognize a Shoryuken input. Note that these inputs will be incredibly useful if you were to try and input a Shoryuken from a crouched position, if you want to cancel from a normal while walking forward, or when performing a Shoryuken in a combo. Be deliberate with your inputs and play around with the timing of your punch button. It is possible to delay the punch button for quite some time and still have the special move register.

Test your anti air ability by applying the Shoryuken to Lesson 2: Basic Anti Airs - In Part 1 of Lesson 2 replace the crouching hard punch with a Medium Punch Shoryuken. In both SFIV and SFV, the Medium Punch version of Ryu’s Shoryuken provide the most amount of invincibility without spending meter. This will provide the highest success rate for a clean anti air. There are reasons why you might want to use other versions of Ryu’s Shoryuken to anti air your opponent, but for now let’s keep it simple, let’s keep it safe.

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If you have any questions or need a spotter for this particular workout, leave a message in the comments.