I was going to post this in the comment section of one of Aris' videos (low block video) but considering its YT and people are complaining about Snake edge and what not I'd figure it's a fruitless platform to conversate anything so here goes:
Best defence against lows/throws and generally being mixed up is to use a lot of mids and try to stay close to your opponent, close enough to always pose a threat. Even when you are not really trying to rush down your opponent you should strive to create that mental stress and impose that state of mind in them that they either have to use quick highs, mids, ch launchers and launchers as well as evasive and crush moves or something else that's unsafe because to them it seems like the only options they have to keep you in check is to do one of those things. it's completely OK to have something safe blocked and simply do nothing but block for a very short while afterwards even if there is no sidestep/backdash whiff setup available because the information you gain by doing these things repeatedly and using that information is what's gonna win you the match eventually. As long as you know when to move forward safely you are practically safe from mix-ups. Pseudo frame traps and looking to go too ham is what's going to get you killed and counterhit as well as moving straight into launchers. By utilising smart offence all of the variables in the game become a lot more manageable and there are less things to consider at any given moment.
Forcing your opponent to play in a defensive mindset takes away a lot of the mix-up guessing game, you get counterpoked with defensive generic d4's, that's a given, but considering they don't really do anything it's completely ok to eat them and you can cash out on a big chunk of damage eventually.
Even the scrubbiest players can come up with basic 50/50's. Letting them do those things by trying to evade everything through movement and just looking to gain damage through punishment is vastly inferior to forcing them to react to your gameplan. You dash in your opp's face and just block and your run-of-the-mill green rank Laws will be mashing out standing 4, b3+4, fF3 and d2,3 instead of slide/db4 and double flipkicks and ws2. The 50/50 coin toss is always in favour of the player initiating the mix-up. You can't win by looking to do nothing but punish unless your opponent is absolute ass. Defence is where bad players fall apart and they'll always do the exact same things when counterpoking so it's just way easier to win if you adopt an offensive mindset because you get to see their bad habits sooner and formulate setups for full combo damage opportunities accordingly.
I have come to this conclusion after being a total scrub in MK9, getting slightly better at that game and adopting an overly defensive mindset which seemed to bare fruit at the time, eventually that carried over to TTT2, SCV and MK X. I have become increasingly more and more aggressive and more concerned with balancing out a risk versus reward ratio that's favourable rather than looking to imitate JDCR and Knee for no reason at all other than thinking that's the way you ought to play the game. You simply can't make everything whiff by movement alone without setting anything up with pokes. Turtling will always be the harder way to win and I don't think it's practical to play with that mindset. People will always ride JDCR's and Knee's dick because they seem so next level in their playstyle. Yet we see players like Saint, Nobi and Anakin press hella buttons and take plenty of risks and do just as well.
I received similar advice when I started TTT2, it seemed counter-intuitive at the time. I thought it was pointless to try to really attack unless the opponent wasn't because I just thought opponents would eventually give me the openings to blow them up anyway.
It's also a lot easier to punish things when the game is in a predictable flow state and rhytm. If you lose a round by being the aggressor you always have the chance to adjust and it's easier to figure out how to do what needs to be done to win the match. If you are turtling you are more prone to being subjected to these adjustments and it's harder to read the opponent through the course of multiple rounds and matches because you are letting them have more options available to them as opposed to what they would have if you were pressuring them instead of the other way around.
. Had a good laugh at this. Oh and they need to change it from death fist to freedom fist cause it the only way
