thanks you guys! my favorite mod has always been spiritwrestling but due to the wacky nature of damage in that mod should i play aikido instead for now?

Play whatever you're more accustomed to.


If you do play aikido though, I reccommend abd.

why abd? isnt aikido the more balanced/deep gamemode? i dont like tripoding

I like aikido7. Gets rid of annoying double grabs which happen in 50% of my games. Aikido5 gets rid of wrist contracters but disables wrists for the whole game so that sucks :C

It depends on your playstyle, really. Aikido is pretty unbalanced imo. Bad mix of damage play and wrestling. And it has double grabs.
Oh also while we're on the subject of elitist wank mods, sw4 is a fun twist on spiritwrestling.

just play more public matches.. try different mods vs other players and really, it's just
about getting the feel for the game/mod
if you play mods where the opener is paramount, like judo and such, then learn and try
different openers, but it's still important to learn the basics of how your tori will move,
or how it could move by just moving a certain joint or a combination of joints in a certain
manner

For me, the best Aikido mods are Greykido>Aikido>ABD. Greykido has the pads which are always extremely useful, especially when dealing with shovels and lifts and also has the smaller dojo which makes gameplay more exciting. Same with Aikido's dojo. ABD has the big dojo, as suggested by the name, which makes matches slower paced, along with annoying scenarios like having a lack of a grab, so both players have to resort to playing ABD like a striking mod.
In order to get better, you have to play against or watch people who are better than you. Pay attention to joint combinations and ways they counter things. Free play/Singleplayer is also a great place to learn what each joint does, if you don't already have that knowledge and is also a great way to test moves. For example, you could have Uke do a shovel against you and you can attempt to figure out good ways to counter it.

They are on the other hand the absolute worst mods if you want to avoid podding.
I also feel like greykido forced striking just as much as abd, but it could've been more about me being bored out of my mind with how stale it was.
But hey, different viewpoints are cool.

You should just play one mod until you are use to it and keep using the same openers over and over until you memorized it

play wushu based ones.

im always amazed of the fast comebacks

like you can comeback 3 times in 500 frames

it requires loads of skills like years of training but if u master it u rox

abd is too mainstream now...

click random joints and you eventually learn what they do

this takes like a couple hours

then your mlg or something gj