There's not much of a shortcut and you'll just have to play but most of the time you'll want to do this:
- jump in with a kick from the air trying not to get hit by them on the way down, as soon as you land do a normal punch/kick and try to cancel that into a special move if you can
- from a small distance cancel a crouching low/medium kick into a normal, this is good because they can only block it from a crouch
- focus attack charged all the way, if it hits dash forward (-> ->) and punch/kick into special move
- generic uppercut move if you have one if you see them jumping in or they won't get off you
i really suggest learning ryu because he can do all those things with excellence and you can figure out all the other characters from there
holla
its not the type of game I feel dedicated to "get good" at.
actually it doesn't take that long and it gets fun pretty soon, beats grinding anyday imo.