Smash 4 - Double Sticking Aerials and Tap Jumping with Bidou

(If you want to learn how to SH uair quickly, but really don't want to use Tap Jump, skip to the yellow text. But you're missing out )

If you use Bidou, there are three main reason why you'd want to use Tap Jump:
- You use a Gamecube Controller (GCC) and can't afford to put Jump on a shoulder button or use a claw crip. Or with a pro controller, if you put Grab on a shoulder button instead of Jump, you literally don't have to move your thumb away from the C-stick
- You want to use Double Sticking for fast short hop (SH) aerials with Bidou. One common gripe with Bidou is that fast SH uairs are harder. Double-Sticking fixes that, though the inputs are different than with tilt-stick
- You want the benefits of Tap Jump, like easy out of shield (OoS) aerials/usmash/up-b, easy jump cancelled usmash/up-b, or you just like jumping with the stick

You may think, why use Tap Jump without tilt-stick controls to help with utilts and SH uairs?
It turns out that with some special tricks, Bidou fixes those downsides too!
- With Bidou, holding C-stick in any direction DISABLES TAP JUMP. You can press up on the control stick to your heart's content
- With Bidou, you can fastfall (FF) with C-stick to make falling uairs easier
- With Double Sticking, you can perform SH uairs easily
- B-stick lets you up-B on demand without jumping. It actually beats tilt-stick in this regard

1. There are three main techs you want to learn if you're using Tap Jump with Bidou. Note that Bidou must be active during these techs
- Bidou SH: control stick upwards -> C-stick any direction besides up. What happens is that the C-stick cancels the Tap Jump input during jumpsquat, so you get a SH
- Bidou Double Sticking: control stick upwards -> C-stick any direction but up + control stick towards aerial direction -> attack. This works for any aerial, but it's easier for uair. Unlike Double Sticking uair with tilt-stick, you can accidentally JC usmash if you press Attack too soon.
- Disabling Tap Jump: just hold C-stick in any direction. If you don't want to affect your movement, hold up, but the other directions can be useful too

By the way, if you want to use these SH techs with Tap Jump Off, there is a way. You just have to also press Jump when pushing up on Control stick:
- Bidou SH: control stick upwards + Jump button -> C-stick any direction besides up. It doesn't matter whether you press or hold the Jump button.
- Bidou Double Sticking: control stick upwards + Jump button -> C-stick any direction but up + control stick towards aerial direction -> attack. It doesn't matter whether you press or hold the Jump button. This works for any aerial, but it's easier for uair. Unlike Double Sticking uair with tilt-stick, you can accidentally JC usmash if you press Attack too soon.

2. Applications
- Bidou SH is useful for doing a delayed uair or FF uair out of a SH. It's not much different from doing a SH by flicking the control stick up, but you may feel more comfortable drifting left/right while jumping this way
- Bidou Double Sticking is useful for performing SH aerials ASAP, and you don't have to move your hands after using a Bidou movement tech
- Any of these jump techs can be done OoS
- Disabling Tap Jump makes utilt and falling uair easier

3. Here are the pros and cons of the Tap Jump Bidou techs:
Pros:
- SH aerials, especially uair, can be done very quickly and consistently
- You can perform utilts and falling uairs easily
- With the B-stick, you can input specials with good aerial momentum control while jumping with Tap Jump
- Now there are three ways to SH: flick control stick up, cancel a Tap Jump with the C-stick, and use a Jump button. Some of these may feel better/worse in different situations, but the advantage is having the flexibility to choose

Cons:
- Most of these techs only work if Bidou is active, so it is still important to learn how to play with Tap Jump without the aid of Bidou
- If you try to Tap Jump too quickly before returning the C-stick to neutral, you won't, which can cause misinputs until you practice the timing enough
- SH dair doesn't come out as quickly as the other aerials. For example, I can't autocancel Pikachu's dair using Double Sticking with Bidou, so I use the Jump button for that
- You can accidentally JC usmash instead of SH uair if you press Attack too early, but the window for doing that is small, so it's pretty easy to avoid with practice

4. Once you get the hang of the basic techs, you can combine them with other Bidou techs.
- You can pivot with the C-stick, let go immediately -> Tap Jump for a very fast RAR out of neutral, walking, running, PP, etc. Or if you prefer to pivot with the control stick instead, that works too
- In general, you can jump after doing grounded Bidou techs without having to move your right thumb from the C-stick to a Jump button, which lets you switch from a ground game to an air game more smoothly
- PP utilt is easy even with Tap Jump. Just continue to hold the C-stick while doing the utilt
- It's well known that you can FF with the C-stick, but if you hold the C-stick down, you can use that to perform FF uairs without jumping

5. Notes:
* Double Stick Aerials always count as smashed. This matters for Robin's Levin Sword and certain item throws. If you don't want a smashed aerial, wait a split second before pressing Attack
* Diagonals do not work the same way with special-stick as they do with tilt-stick. You can't perform a nair by inputting a diagonal direction on the C-stick with Bidou, or a neutral special when Bidou is off
* You can perform any aerial by pressing the C-stick and Attack on the same frame, which does fix some problems with Tap Jump, but this guide gives you a way to do things without frame perfect inputs