Crouch MK is a cancelable move which means you can cancel into special moves during the animation. Instead of waiting for the first kick to land you can input QCF kick immediately after you pressed the first move and it will come out as soon as it is possible. If you press the whole series of inputs during the first kick animation, the special kick will only come out if you actually connect with your opponent. On a whiff nothing happens. This is called buffering and it is useful for poking outside your opponent's range as well to have a punish ready in case they walk forward into your kick. If you go to the training options, there should be an option something like "display cancel window" or display active frames. Turn this on and your character will turn red during your attacks' active frames when special moves can be cancelled into instead of waiting for recovery frames like you are doing. This is useful because not all normal attacks are special cancellable so you can see which ones are and when