Hello all.
I wrote this about half year ago and posted in our ru-forum.
Very thanks to DeadKenny for translating.

I hope this article can to be useful for all newbies (and not only)

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Every single one of us has his own favorite mod. A mod we know we are best at; a mod which we feel confident enough to challenge anyone in. A mod that we have literally played thousands of times, and in turn have become quite proficient in. But how universal is your skill? Who would be better in a randomly chosen mod between a judo or a wushu master? Is it even possible to beat Nuthug in Kickbox?

We will be discussing a few different mods and the unique skills that you may obtain through practice in those mods. Of course, we will be discussing the mods from the aspect of a professional player. One that has been able to essentially perfect their playstyle in the respective mods.

1. Judo
In judo even a blue/green belt can look good. Knowing 2-3 strong openers gives you an opportunity to streak a bit and beat some good players. But if the match doesn’t finish in the first turn, then real skill does come into play.
Judo players know what a “dismember” is more than others. They understand which joint combination would be appropriate to deliver another punch with minimum risk to themselves. They understand the risky moves that may result in them being hurt more than their opponents. A truly skilled judo player can sense when the joint is about to break, and in turn tries to avoid that.
Long turn-frames make you think globally, which helps you to consider all possible outcomes and choose the least dangerous move for you and most dangerous move for your opponent.
But the down-side is that judo players simply do not “understand” short turn-frames (10-20 tf), which are used in the number of popular mods. Of course, they may be able to put up a fight in a short tf mode, but if their opponent understands the rythm and timing of low tf modes, then the judo player might not stand a chance. The judo player would most likely choose the most straightforward attacks and not try to adapt his moves to the situation of the match.
As we can see, the judo skill includes first the understanding of dismember “philosophy” which can be a very useful knowledge in a number of other mods.

2. Twinsword /Sumo
The favorite mods of blue/green belt players. And that is understandable as we have a lot of bloody explosions in the first mod, and a bunch of fat players pushing each other around in the second.
Both these mods are openers oriented, which means that the outcome of the fight in 90% of the cases is determined by openers both players used.
Match between 2 skilled players in these mods is basically a competition of their openers.
Creating an opener is actually a very hard work which requires knowing everything about the mod the opener is supposed to be used in (gravity, timing, tf) as well as different complicated combinations of joints use. It is unlikely that a player is going to create good usable opener from the 1st try. It is important to understand how to improve your openers. Adding new elements, trying different joint combinations and styles. Learning this will help you not only in twinswords and sumo, but in any mode you play. One of the great things about Toribash is the ability to create your own moves and learn how different joint combinations work. If one was to just copy another person's opener and use it without understanding the actual mechanics behind the opener, then they wont get very far in this game.

3. Taekkyon.
Imho, TK is the most "pro" mod in Toribash as it contains pretty much no place for luck and randomness. Those who can master tk are using practically everything Toribash has to offer. People will pull off complicated tricks, deceptions and quick adapting to the surroundings which generally makes every frame count. Unfortunately, unlike mods such as judo or twinswords, a green/blue belt would not stand a chance against a pro TKer.
So what do TK players know that others don’t? Well first of all short tf allows you to come up with not just kicks, but super-kicks. Theoretically, a good TK player can predict what will happen in the next 2-3 turns, which is exactly what they want to do. TK is a pure skill mod where the knowledge of “how its done in real life” is really helpful.
The downside of TK is that the whole match is only 120 frames long, which is miniscule compared to a 1000 frame judo match or 500 frame wushu match. This means that at most one would only have time for one or two really powerful moves. No comebacks, no moving around a lot. This is why tk players feel would feel uncomfortable in the “big world”. Because they are so used to playing matches where they rarely ever move far from their starting position, they may find it difficult to adapt to a mode such as wushu which relies on being able to move their character in any direction at anytime. On top of that, 10 frames per turn is a very rare tf and is hardly used in other mods. TK players have to subconsciously “prolong” each of their moves in other mods, which doesn’t always work for them.
Conclusion: TK players can plan many moves ahead creating complicated combos, but its difficult for them to move around in mods with bigger match-frames.

4. Aikido
I’m an aikido player myself and I can say that I know all pros and cons of being one. Truly pro-aikido-player is the master of manipulating the “moment of force”. Those who mastered aikido know exactly how to lift, flip, fall down without dqing and causing damage to themselves, they know everything there is to know about not so popular joints like – neck, lumbar and abs. They can walk across the dojo with struggling opponent in his arms.
Simply put an aikido player is master of manipulating opponents body and his own (which requires coordinated use of 6-8 joints per turn). This skill is very unique and cant be acquired via other mods which means that to become good aikido player, you need to be an aikido player =)
Unfortunately there are a lot of cons in being aikido player as well. The main one is the absence of the sense of time. In aikido all the turns go very smoothly. Look at aikido players in other mods, for example when he’s falling down he’s saving himself by concentrating all his limbs and efforts to save himself from dq without realizing that there are 2-3 more turns left before the actual dq. Also aikido players are not the best fighters in a sense that they are simply are not used to punching/kicking/blocking/evading and therefore are not good at it (well, they just don’t need all that in aikido, do they).
Conclusion: aikido player is good at aikido (lol), in every other mod they are trying to find similarities of that mod and aikido and the more similarities there are – the easier it is for them to adapt and other way around.

5. Wushu
The biggest difference from other mods is the fact that you can’t grab and that the engage distance is much bigger.
After you grab someone all your moves are going to be different from what u expected because you have to take into consideration that you are holding an object that weights same as you and also tries to move you. Because of that players from other mods do not completely understand their own body, because in 90% of the matches people grab each other. Wushu doesn’t have that. Wushu players clearly understand what each joint is responsibly for and their movements are 100% what they planned on doing.
That’s exactly the power of a Wushu player. He learns to move around not randomly, but in the exact direction, maintaining the exact height he wants. Long turns teach you not just how to move your own body but also to predict the position of your opponents body by the end of the turn. But what appears to be a bonus can turn out to be something that works against you. Absence of grabs is very uncommon and the skill to kick/punch your opponent while he is grubbing you is vital. And that’s something that Wushu players are not very good at as well as the kick themselves, because Wushu players can see and copy them, but they don’t really understand the physics of the kick in shorter tf mods.
Conclusion: Wushu players have an excellent theory basis of how to control their body but they always have to adapt it for other mods.

The End.