The term “footsies” refers to a subset of zoning focusing primarily on close range normals, where the most common goals are to knock the opponent down and set up crossup opportunities. What the hell does that even mean?
Unfortunately it means literally everything at the core of competitive Street Fighter strategy. That makes it a difficult subject to cover in one session. None of the short definitions are useful and it takes time to process conceptual ideas before they can be converted into anything practical. I’ll give it a shot, but i have a feeling i’ll have to come back to this on several occasions because there’s always more to it.
Footsies is figuring out what your opponent wants to do and punishing them for being predictable. Footsies is putting your opponent in a situation where they have to take risks they were trying to avoid. Footsies is knowing both characters’ attack ranges better than your opponent does, and finding ways to exploit that advantage.
The concept is so complex, that you may as well define it as “close-range critical thinking.” When you try to create a comprehensive definition of footsies, that definition refuses to end. Watson, Valle, and Choi could probably write books on the subject.
The simplest concrete example of footsies is walking into your opponent’s attack range to bait them into poking at you, walking back out of range to let their attack whiff, then punishing their recovery animation with a sweep. When someone decides to learn footsies, this is commonly the first tactic attempted. However, anyone who’s actually tried this will tell you that (alert) people stop falling for it very quickly. Then what do you do? Well, mastery of footsies is knowing how to punish everything, including your opponent’s decision not to poke.