Wednesday, February 22, 2012

VIPER Explains the Hajiki Screw

A hajiki Screw ("flick SPD") motion lets you do a Spinning Pile Driver or Mexican Typhoon extremely quickly, and it's ideal for grabbing whiffed low kicks. More explanation below but first a quick 2ch note.

I've been reading about the hajiki Screw technique on 2ch for a long time, but based on context I thought it simply referred to a quick walk-in SPD. Also the term comes up most commonly when people are saying silly stuff about Rikiya so I never paid much attention.

One night at Versus, VIPER kindly explained the motion to us Yanks. To do a hajiki Screw you give the joystick a small but firm flick in a circular direction and tear your hand away allowing the spring to carry it around. For 1P side you start with the joystick right and flick it clockwise. For 2P start at left and flick counter-clockwise.

It might sound a little alien but this motion isn't very difficult. VIPER said it took him twenty minutes practice to get the hang of it on one side and about an hour on the other. Your humble blog editor was able to do a hajiki Hyper Bomb almost immediately. You can try it on the character select screen: with a proper hajiki motion the highlight rectangle should go around and land where it started.


Do not practice Flick SPDs on your laundry!

VIPER said the motion is easier on a looser (broken-in) stick. He didn't mention this, but I'd speculate that it's easier on Seimitsu than on Sanwa — dead zone is a little different — but it's definitely possible on both.

Here's a quick video of VIPER demonstrating the hajiki Screw. First for 1P side then for 2P side.



I asked if Pony used hajiki Screw and Shu (Ken player) laughed and said no but he said Gunze and most Hawks use it. Shu said that when a Zangief player uses it well vs. whiffed Shoto low medium kick and low roundhouse the match starts to get unwinnable. Daigo supposedly said as much after losing to Rikiya thirty times in a row.

Here's one more video of an actual match. Attempted Hajiki early in the second round. The YouTube interface covers it up; you have to mouse away to see it.

7 comments:

  1. Were they pretty strict about video recordings at certain arcades?

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  2. I had introduced myself to Nikaiten at Versus he was cool and Mattsun has a soft spot for Damdai (I'll talk about this later) so Mikado was fine. Not sure about other places.

    Also let me quote XSPR
    Sometimes, it is just a lot easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

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  3. The reason why they are strict about recording is the privacy of people at the arcade. It's not really about arcades not wanting people recording the interiors. It's about people off the streets going into a business, or subway car, or whatever, and not having their privacy invaded. The Japanese don't want to go into an arcade and worry about someone putting a camera on them.

    It's considered exceptionally rude to record in public in Japan. If you see a foreigner making a video travel log on a subway or train car you'll see people cover their faces or try to move out of sight.

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  4. Man, Spirals... never gonna look at an SPD/Typhoon the same way. Need to ask one of the US Hawk players to enter as "Snail" lol.

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  5. Hi I just learnt to do my walking double typhoon the following way.

    1st player
    hold joystick @ 3oclock (walking towards opponent)
    Nearing opponent, make a clockwise movement of the joystick, press light kick/punch at 7 oclock and
    immediately with another one more round (clockwise) and piano punches.
    It works too!!! :) Yipeee...

    From Singapore

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  6. While I can sometimes get some sets off my local friend B2SPD, I often lose to his Gief. I wonder how horrible it would be against a top notch Gief.

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  7. Another hajiki screw video

    gief
    http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9357508
    hawk
    http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13164096

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