How come when I z burst dash I don't always get behind people, how are they doing that? They always get around me ahaha

How do you beat side steps? I've been using them but the minute someone uses them against me they win. Like we'll both side step twice and they'll get their combo out if I go for the third but when I try and replicate that I get side stepped and then they get their combo out.

Final one is a bit specific but this guy kept z burst dashing behind me and holding perception. Felt like I should have been able to figure out a counter as it was his entire game plan but nothing I tried worked. If I side stepped he'd actually still be behind me and would get a combo from it, and if I didn't side step he'd be behind me and get a combo from it. If I turned around and tried to throw he'd side step it and get a combo from it. If I turned around and tried ki blasts he'd side step and get a combo from it. The only thing I didn't get to try was dragon dash ascend because I had dead inputs so it didn't come out, and that's when he finished me

Thanks for reading and I'll be very grateful for some explanations, for some context I tend to play mid tiered dp characters like sword trunks etc. So I feel like part of it is just other characters being so much faster than mine but that's not always the case when some of this stuff happens like with the side stepping and shizz.

Also if you wanna play hit me up always on the look out for people to play with