How to learn a combo without video/notation?

[Osuna]

"Make your block-strings your combos," or in other words, do things that would combo but aren't bad ideas on block if they end up blocking.

That s a significant over simplification of what a hit confirm is.

If it were that simple than all that people have spent in training mode with CH/Block/block type on random with a crouching opponent to confirm different follow ups to an IAD cross up into either a block string, a combo, or a CH combo were duly wasted. This is excellent training btw, to avoid some training mode habits. Just set all of that stuff to random no matter what it is you're learning and work with it.

[kotokot]

learn comboparts>try different starters and remember what you can. Though its pretty much depends on character, i.e. rachel/carl have very universal comboparts, which can be done from any hitconfirm and combos mostly are same and not much depends on proration, some others chars depends very much on proration in combo like ragna and you must watch for your starter if you want optimal combos. Remember that crouch and fc adds 2 frames hitstun and ch starters have higher hitstop on opponent and untechable depending on hit level. Some combos have special timing for linking, so you must know comboparts min/max timings for linking into different stuff. Corner and distance to opponent are very important so you must learn your options depending on your position. In best case you ever know prorations
blockstrings=combos is bad practice, you must learn to hitconfirm and read your opponent.
1. most of these can be unsafe to dp, especially on ib.
2. you have poor mixups in this case.
3. combos in this case are suboptimal, since you still can add some mixup in your combo without confirming hit, you cant do CH only combos, which can be very important, since some chars have huge difference, for example makoto from 5C on midscreen does normally ~2k, on CH its going to be 4-5k and gives oki in corner.
learning combos without description comes with experience, its pretty easy to see timings and inputs after some practice.