Toribash: Violence Perfected.


I Am the Brewtal Drunken Immortal Master of the art of Suicide Do.

I have been playing Toribash off and on for almost a decade now, first started when it was released for free; before they had any forums or registration, I was KungFuicidalManiac.
I have since 2007 been SuicideDo, BastardPhoenix, MooseKnuckles, and WibbleWarrior. SuicideDo remains my main account.

My Short Story, a gift to the community.

Over the years, I have witnessed the game evolve and grow in popularity and in complexity.
Although one thing has remained unchanged.

No matter how many mod.tbm files they add, no matter how varied the damage and dismember thresholds are, no matter how they alter the gravity, physics, or disqualification rules, no matter how much has been added and stripped and returned to Toribash, one thing stands out above all else:

(4^20)^4 = Toribash Openers.

That's approximately 1.09 TRILLION to the fourth power different combinations of joint forces and grip states...

All in just turn 1.
Never mind how many frames there are per turn, or what your opponent is going to do, that's just the very first move YOU make...

1 trillion ^ 4 potential moves to choose from.

This is why I declare Toribash an Authentic Martial Art. Its complexity, variety, and philosophy are all authentic qualities of most, if not all martial arts that already exist in the real world.


Let me break it down for you. Fours are the key to this whole thing.
"Fours? What do you mean fours?" You might be wondering, and well that's good! I want you to think about this. And I mean really think, don't just recite what I've written here, I want you to apply that conscious awareness TO your conscious awareness after thinking about these words I'm writing.

Everything, and I am not exaggerating, literally all things operate in fours. Even polarity has transitional states between dualistic poles with a dominant charge and a weak charge. It's not all positive versus negative:
(+), (+/-), (-), (-/+), repeat.

Dao.

Even the PLANET follows a 4 cycle system, but before i get to that, let me go straight to the core of it all:
This is BREATH. Breathing. The cycles of four (4) are the breath. Nothing in all of reality is without breath, and breath is awareness. Inhale, Hold, Exhale, Hold, Relax. Hold an inhale to retain, hold an Exhale to deprive, thus: Inhale, Retain, Exhale, Deprive, Relax.

Relax should be an autonomous cycle of 3, and that is where you get an illusion of 6.
Intentional inhale, hold, exhale, hold
and
Relaxed inhale, hold, exhale, hold.

But the states are still four.
The complexity you can create is limitless, but the states are four.

The Earth has Breath.
She Inhales, Relaxed, during the spring, bringing life in anew. Her breath is Intentionally Held during the transition from spring into summer, and retained until fall, when she Intentionally Exhales, Held, into winter. Winter time is a Deprivation Hold, the breath exhaled, and deprived until spring, when she Relaxes and Inhales again: [1]Relax-Inhale, [2]Intent Retain-Hold, [3]Intent-Exhale, [4]Intent Deprive-Hold.

In Toribash, you have four forces to apply to your twenty joints, and they follow the same Breath Cycles; albeit with the player in complete control and ZERO autonomy other than game-mechanics and the Relax state.
In Toribash, your forces are Hold, Extend, Contract, and Relax. For some joints, like the chest and lumbar, they are left or right bending, or left or right rotating instead of contraction/extension; and the shoulders are raise/lower, but the semantics are irrelevant, they still follow the same Quaternary.

In nature, we can witness intrinsic fours in everything from the two extreme poles and their two transitory states, the four seasons, the breath cycle, the operation of our joints, and even Qi(Chi) flow!

Qi is one thing that Toribash cannot adequately implement, but is a very intrinsic part of the martial arts. Its subtle power even affects your game. no joke! But never mind that, this is where we come to a close.
Qi, pronounced "Chi", is the intrinsic and infinite energy which is the expression of conscious awareness. Wherever your attention goes, wherever your focus goes, that is where your Qi flows. In your natural body the final four is your Qi Flow.

[1] When breathing, with intent and conscious focus, your Qi naturally rises up into your legs from the Earth whenever you inhale. While you inhale, Qi rises from the earth and is stored in your core where it reciprocates and continues along the spine up to the sky, out the top of your head. This is all just one inhale.

[2] When breathing, with intent and conscious focus, your Qi naturally sinks down into your head from the cosmos and the sky whenever you exhale. While you exhale, Qi sinks from the heavens and travels down the spine until it reciprocates in your core for storage, and continues its journey back into the earth through the bottoms of your feet. This is all just one exhale.

[3] When breathing, with intent and conscious focus, your Qi naturally circulates and disperses with each heartbeat even when you are retaining or depriving your breath. Holding your breath allows your Qi to thicken and integrate with your tools, joints, muscles, organs, and movements. This is all just the Held breath, either retention OR deprivation.

[4] When breathing, with intent and conscious focus, your Qi naturally follows these three paradigms even while you have no conscious intent except to remain relaxed and breathe autonomously. Relaxing and allowing the breath do do its own thing causes your Qi to integrate fully into your conscious intent and activities, filling everything you think, say, do, and become with subtle, but incredible power. This is all just what the breath does when you are not intentionally controlling it.



It is my sincerest hope that we can bring Toribash to a wider and more mature audience, for further integration of philosophy and martial arts theory. Thank you for reading my blog.
Your audience is greatly valued.