Crouching

"Duck" redirects here. For the sticker in Brawl, see List of stickers (Others).

Crouching can be used to avoid some projectiles.

Crouching decreases the size of hurtboxes. Shown here is Kirby's hurtbox when he crouches in Smash 64.

Crouching (or Squat internally in Brawl), often simply called ducking, is a ground-based position achieved by holding down on the control stick or d-pad when standing. Crouching shortens the character's damageable collision bubble and can be used to crouch cancel enemy attacks. A crouching character can also crawl, if the character has the ability. To get up again, stop holding down on the control stick or d-pad.

How well a crouch can help a character dodge attacks is highly dependent on the crouching animation. Some characters can become very difficult to hit since they crouch so low (such as Kirby, Jigglypuff, Snake, and Sheik). Other characters, however, barely lower themselves at all by crouching (such as Meta Knight and Bowser).