ADVANCED MECHANICS AND TERMINOLOGY

THROW BREAKS

You can break normal throws (2+4, f+2+4, 1+3, f+1+3) by hitting one of the punch buttons (1 or 2) in time. It takes practice to react quickly enough. Command throws have to be broken by pressing 1+2. Those moves require a character specific input. Chain thrrows like King's or Nina's have specific windows to be interrupted by pressing 1 or 2 or 1+2. Some rare parts of that throw chains can not be interrupted at all.
During power crush moves you cannot break any throw (see 'power crush' below)

POWER CRUSH

Power Crush moves are usually slow moves with foglike particle effects. When you activate a Power Crush move (e.g. Paul's b+1+2) it takes about 8 frames for the armor property to become active. During this time your move absorbs high and mid attacks and won't be interrupted in your movement, but you will still take the damage. If you get thrown while the armor has already kicked in you wont be able to break that throw.

WAKE UP

The wake up game is simply the art of getting back on your feet when lying on the ground. while your possible actions are limited you still have a bunch of options to chose from

Options while landing:

• Quick Back Roll (by holding b while landing)
• Quick Recovery (by holding u while landing)
• Tech Roll (see below)

Options while laying on the ground:

• Back Roll (b)
• Front Roll (f)
• Side Roll (d or d+1)
• Wake Up Mid Kick (4)
• Wake Up Low Kick (3)
• Recovery Kick (with feet facing the opponent d+3)
• Spring Attack (varies between the characters, usually d+3+4)
• Character specific Wake Up moves

TECH ROLL

Tech Rolls are a special way to quickly get up when thrown to the ground. To perform a Tech Roll you need to press a punch button (1 or 2) or a kick button (3 or 4) to quickly roll to the side (punch for background, kick for foreground) and quickly get on your feet. During the animation you will be completely invulnerable to the opponent's attacks. You will only be able to perform a tech roll if you have been completely in the air and did not get tailspinned (see below). If the "flight" was part of a throw its also impossible to tech roll.

BACKDASH

Performed by double tapping b, can be canceled into advanced movements like Korean Backdash (see below). If you hold b when tapping the second time you will continue to block high and mid attacks. A single backdash is often enough to get out of the most short ranged attacks.

BACKDASH CANCEL

Korean Backdash (or KBD) is a very advanced way of moving backwards while blocking to bait whiffs or to create space. It takes a whole lot of practice to perform this and the most advanced way of moving you character.

• Input: b, B, d/b, n, B, d/b, n, B, d/b.... and continuing

Essentially you cancel the animation of your first backdach by pressing d/b, return to neutral (n) and press b again till you see the animation start again.

An easier way to cancel backdashes is to tap sidestep (u or d) after a backdach, then doing another backdash input.

• Input: b, B, d , b, B, d, b, B, .... and continuing

The second way of backdash canceling is slower and does not allow you to block permanently.

SWAY

Some characters have sway moves in addition to the standard backdash command. It usually avoids jabs or other fast high/mid attacks and gives access to a set of specific commands. Using sway commands effectively is hard to learn and counts towards the advanced mechanics of Tekken.

• Input: d, d/b, b (or qcb)

CROUCH DASH

A crouch dash is a form of ducking in while stepping towards your enemy. Not every character is able to do it and it usually comes with a set of actions that can be performed out of it. There are two ways of crouch dash inputs (varies between the characters):

• f, n, d, d/f
• d, d/f, f (or qcf)

WAVEDASH

By canceling your crouch dash into another crouch dash (input d/f, f) within the animation of the previous crouch dash you can wavelike move towards your opponent.

Useful for mindgames, but unsafe, as you cannot block during that animations

ATTACK REVERSAL

Some characters are able to perform attack reversals (b+1+3 or b+2+4). Those commands will avoid enemy attacks performed by hands or feet, interrupt it and return some damage. Its requires good timing to successfully reversal those attacks. Attacks with elbows, knees, headbuttc, etc cannot be avoided that way. Characters like Feng, Heihachi, Devil Jin or Yoshimitsu have additional stance like commands to perform attack reversals.

CHICKEN

While your opponent uses an attack reversal on one of your attacks you can re-reversal that by pressing f+1+3 or f+2+4. This is extremely rare and the timing to do it is even harder to learn.

INSTANT 'WHILE RUNNING' 

Running more than 3 steps towards your enemy puts you into a stance called 'while running'. Several commands require this state and it is needed to perform decently on specific characters like King or Dragunov. You can shorten the required space between you and the opponent by using following input: f,f,f+X (X being a placeholder). the last part (f+X) needs to put in exactly at the same time. Practice it by starting at long range and shorten it till you can't consistently perform your command. Keep that space till you are comfortable again and shorten it again.

JUST FRAME COMMANDS

Those commands need an exactly timed button input to work. Sometimes those are just variations of other moves with better properties.

• Example: Paul's f, f+2,1 is a mid-mid string that can be pimped by using f, f+2:1 (1 input exactly when the first hit lands). The new version now has better properties on block, pushback, does minimal more damage and the second hit becomes a high.

SCREW / TAILSPIN

Certain moves have the ability to perform a screw (or tailspin) on the opponent when you hit them with it while they are airborne. When the opponent lands, he will not be able to perform any Wake Up move, but instead land on his back, feet up in the air, begging for some follow up damage. Aside from just oddering more free damage this situation gives you the oppotunity to dash to him and hit him with a relatively slow, high damaging attack to end the Air Combo. Commends with that property are also marked in the character movelist with a red icon.