Welcome to the Fellowship of the Thigh. This isn't everything but here are the Chun basics.
1. Your main pokes are st.mp (which cancels into fireball and hazan shuu), st.fp and cr.rh. Basically, you chuck fireballs all-day long until they're close, keep them away with st.mp and st.fp, and look to nail then with cr.rh whenever possible.
Since this is your first charge character, you should know that you can hide your charging whenever you feel like it by either spamming out normals, neutral jumping and of course, crouching. I typically charge back while maintaining my space by throwing out st.mp.
2. Your main combos are..
cr.lk > cr.lk > EX Legs (or three cr.lk or cr.lk > cr.lp > cr.lk)
cr.lk > cr.lk > st.lp > st.fp (minus one cr.lk if at max range)
Close st.rh > EX Legs
The first one is your bread & butter and is what you should be spending all your meter on whenever possible. Also, the only time you should ever EX Legs > EX Legs is when you're at mid-screen and either wanting them in the corner or want to push them further towards it in order to connect her ultra. Otherwise, its typically a waste of meter and EX Spinning Bird Kick is a better damage substitute when in the corner.
Combo #2 is your best bet when you either don't have meter or you're trying not to waste it. The last input is a 1-frame link so you'll have to learn to plink it. Basically, when you hit st.lp wait for it to connect and then hit st.fp followed by mp almost instantly. You should also be charging for her fireball during this so that in the event you mess it up you can at least throw out a fireball or ultra through a counter.
Combo #3 is your punishment combo and causes massive amounts of stun but you'll have to piano roll to get it right. To do it, get in close and hit them with the meaty thigh (st.hk) with your ring finger and immediately roll your middle and pointer fingers down across mk and lk. As soon as you do this, immediately mash down on lk + mk for the EX Legs. This all has to be done within a few frames so do it as fast as possible.
She has other combos that you'll figure out (my favorite is Focus Attack > Dash Back > jump stomp > j.fp > EX SBK) but I only have one piece of combo advice: NEVER SPINNING BIRD KICK. Sure it does damage. Sure it does stun. Sure you come out with slight frame advantage, but only two things ever seem to come out of it.
1. You get a throw tech.
2. You eat something huge.
Chun-li is great with mix-ups, but this is such an awful situation for her. Most people think you come out even so they'll try and ex-something right through you, or they'll option select the throw tech. There's not enough time here for her to charge up an EX SBK and even if you do, they'll either block with the option select or beat it clean.
3. Above all, Chun is a character that has to play to extremely specific match-ups, more so than quite possibly any other character in the roster. Some characters you have to run away as much as possible, others you need rush down like crazy and others you have to play extremely space minded. She's a very versatile character, but also very fragile. Basically.. she's tough to get a handle on.
I've already put in some general rules for Chun in this post (another is if you don't know what you should be doing, neutral jump into spread legs is never a bad idea) so here are the match-ups you need to know.
Akuma, Rufus, Balrog: These are your worst match-ups. Akuma and Rufus because Chun-li has no reliable, non-situation-specific anti-airs when being jumped on directly and both of these characters have extremely effective dive-kicks which allow them to jump in for free all-day long and there's not a single thing you can do about it. Speaking of not being able to do anything, you have nothing to counter anything that Balrog does. You get to chuck plasma and st.fp all day until he gets 1 bar of meter. Once he has that, you're free.
This is also a good time to point out that EX SBK is not an anti-air. Here is what you have.. keep in mind that these are all super specific to situations.
Far-Away: st.rh (early to predict a jump, late to catch faraway jumps) and st.fp.
Mid-Range: st.mk (though I wouldn't advise it) and cr.rh. Crouching Roundhouse is actually your best anti-air, as stupid as that sounds, but it loses to steep attacks like Bison's j.fp and of course, dive kicks.
On Your Head: close st.fp. So let's say Bison knows Chun is pringles to j.fp. What you do is you walk under him, as if forcing a cross-up, and use st.fp at the right time so the palm comes out as opposed to the fist. You can use this against Akuma's dive kicks but again, not recommended, because you risk simply handing him a cross-up.
Oh yeah, another funny bad match-up for Chun is E.Honda. Not only because his damage output against Chun is like a semi-truck plowing through a kleenex but because for some reason, he can manage to trade on just about any of his attacks against Chun and she'll lose every time.
I probably sound extremely down on Chun, but I want to stress what an uphill battle it is to learn her. She has all the tools to be successful, but she requires a ton of work to get the win. She's going to be a little better in SSF4 thanks to Kikosho (and there is already a huge bandwagon starting for her) but her the nerfs she's receiving should keep her in the upper-mid territory where she is now. Good luck!
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