Nowadays when I do a routine BnB and FADC it into Ultra, I sometimes think back to the days where every FADC Ultra was an occasion for me to celebrate and to weep tears of scrubby, scrubby joy. Then I think to myself; “Wow…I’ve come so far.

…Wait, didn’t I just get bodied?”

I still remember vividly my first time…do you?

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve practiced FADC Ultra already.

But the story begins back at the start of console Vanilla SF4…

Back then I was just starting to learn the game, and had just got a stick. And I was already practicing FADC Ultra 50-100 times a day. But I still screwed it up every time I tried it in a real match, even though I did it semi-consistently against the CPU. Which was my main competition back then!

So my goal was to hit it against a real human opponent.

Which back then for me was hard to find! I had not yet discovered Ozhadou, and had not yet added Australian SF players from Ozhadou onto my PSN friends list. Every time I went online I only saw red one bar connections. Zzz.

So my only form of human competition was over at my friend Eugene’s house. Now he doesn’t play much SF either, but I somehow persuaded him to get a stick. And sometimes another guy called Eric would come over to play with us as well…

Eric doesn’t play much SF too. That day however, he was playing a runaway Akuma that was giving Eugene and me a lot of problems.

I had already botched up my FADC Ultra like five times already that day. I was thinking that I would never get past that mental barrier.

So finally Eric knocked me down this one time.

And oddly enough, he hesitated and then did a really, really late jump in. By the time he had reached the apex of his jump, I had already stood up from the ground.

Time seemed to slow down.

My mouth opened. Drool came out.

Lightning flashed and dramatic music blared in the background.

I eyed his Akuma descending from an incredibly unsafe height, and I DPed him.My fingers scrabbled like spiders at the stick…I prayed inwardly to the Gods of Execution…

And I FADCed into Ultra… for the KO.

As the sunburst KO flashed on the screen, I turned to Eric and asked him; “Why did you jump?”

And he simply shrugged and said, “I dunno.”

Well I thank him for jumping that day. Because maybe if I had never gotten over that first hump, I might not be still playing Ryu today.

….I’d still be playing Balrog!