When you try to block a fireball, have you noticed how your character starts blocking before it makes contact? This phenomenon is known as proximity blocking.

Dating all the way back to Street Fighter II, every attack has its own effective range which triggers proximity blocking. If the opponent holds Back while within that invisible range, they’ll stand still in defensive stance instead of walking backward.

Using this knowledge to your advantage is a key element of advanced footsies. The easiest offensive application is whiffing a jab while your opponent walks back and forth at mid-range. This will momentarily cause them to get stuck in place.

Now that might not seem like much of a difference-maker, but when they’re focused on the tiniest details, it’s enough to completely throw off their bearings – however briefly. Especially when their eyes are fixed on your character, they might even lose track of where exactly their own character is located. If they try to walk backward and their character remains in place, they may not realize how close they’re standing.

In fact after whiffing that attack, some games allow you to begin walking well before the opponent’s proximity blocking wears off. Thus you can walk forward and sweep them before they can back away. Of course, they can attack at any time since they’re not in true block stun, but reducing their options counts for a lot.

From the opposite perspective, you have to make sure not to touch Back when you’re expecting your opponent to whiff an attack. For instance, if you knock down your opponent and wait at c.MK range for them to whiff wakeup DP, make sure you stay in neutral to preserve your mobility.

Otherwise you’ll get stuck in proximity blocking for over half the uppercut’s animation – the entire active duration plus quite a bit more. By the time you break loose, you won’t have enough time to walk forward and throw them before they recover. This is how people usually get nailed by Ken’s dreaded double LP Dragon Punch.

Well, that covers the most basic examples of proximity blocking manipulation. Obviously you can get more advanced with projectiles, assists, and other elaborate setups.

For instance, gliding an air fireball over the opponent’s head or throwing a slow fireball through the opponent’s wakeup animation renders them unable to walk backward for quite a long while. It’s almost like creating a temporary corner for footsies purposes.

Admittedly, this doesn’t come up too often in real matches – at least not intentionally – but you can definitely tell when someone doesn’t realize it’s happening. They’ll stand there blocking high as they fall victim to a simple low attack. Always keep an eye on wayward projectiles and make sure it doesn’t happen to you.