Mini-Guide: Okizeme & Ukemizeme

In the VF Discord I improvised another Mini-Guide, this time on Okizeme in this game!

‘MINI-GUIDE: OKIZEME & UKEMIZEME (Applying Pressure on a Downed or Waking Opponent)
I’m going to try to cover the bases of oki in a new order I’ve been thinking about.

#1 CAN I GROUND COMBO?
- To ground combo is simple, some of your Enders and knockdowns will give you an opportunity to hit an opponent while they are on the ground. There’s usually one main way to avoid this: UKEMI (Techroll or Quick Rise).
- If in this situation you are pretty sure they will not Ukemi, you do the ground combo.
- Other options that may be less secure (avoidable) are ground throws, down attacks, and pounces too but usually you have something better.
- But some knockdowns guarantee down attacks or ground throws. In some situations, avoiding a pounce is difficult.

#2 THEY UKEMI
- When they do Ukemi, if you predict it, then you should either go for a meaty that you know or you should apply pressure (force a mix up) the moment they recover.
- If you do a meaty, the risk is doing it too early and whiffing and getting punished or doing it late and they are able to evade punish or crush it.
- The first 3-frames of vulnerability from ukemi is what some of us call “the meaty window” and during the meaty window, the person waking up can only crouch/stand guard/not guard—they cannot evade or attack or hop or dash. A well-executed meaty is connecting your meaty attack when the opponent is in this Meaty Window.
- You have all the advantage when they Ukemi but they can play with the timing and your expectation of the timing by varying their Ukemi timing when possible
- If you do a mix up it’s very much like Nitaku and follows the same logic. This is an extension of your Nitaku game.
- There is also a technique in LOW THROW UKEMIZEME What you need to know is low throw ukemizeme only really works when they techroll and are trying to guard (standing or crouching) or do nothing. It will lose to quick rise or mashing from tech roll.

#3 THEY STAYED DOWN BUT I DID NOT GROUND COMBO
- In this case, you ask yourself if you think they will rising attack or not.

#3A THEY RISING ATTACK
- VF1 style oki is still strong. Be in rising attack range, backdash or hop away when you think they will press K, whiff punish the rising attack.
- You can crush rising attacks by hop attacking the low rising attack or super crouch under mid riding attack.
- If you are super knowledgeable you can evade rising attacks.
- You can beat a rising attack with a 21 or greater damage attack, preferably mid or low. This can be setup and timed or you can use a fast high damage attack to try to do this with reaction skills (very hard).
- Aoi can use reversal to deflect rising attacks for guaranteed damage or wall combo.
- You can guard and use your advantage. Most characters, if they roll away and do a rising attack will be -15 on Guard. Otherwise they will usually be -6 when you guard their rising attacks
- If you get NH by rising attack then you are usually -3. While fuzzy guard is good here, I think evade cancel or evade throw escape is very strong here.
- Some characters have strong tools against rising attack including Brad’s P+K+G against mid rising kicks.
- With greater knowledge and experience, evading is powerful against rising attacks that can be evaded.

#3B THEY DO NOT DO A RISING ATTACK
- Sometimes you can pounce, ground throw, do certain attacks, or down attack here. But all of these carry risk.
- You can apply nitaku to an opponent waking up manually. Guard breaks also strong.
That’s generally the summary of okizeme in this game. At least off the top of my head
Btw there are fun things to do against people waking up with Ukemi or manually.

- OM to have them be stuck in side turn when they get up.
- You can reposition when opponent is on the ground.
- Hopping Mix Up got nerfed in REVO (guard punishable) but it’s still strong.
- There are techniques to make opponent get up backwards—uramawari. It’s still very much in this game and there are techniques that work with or without rising attacks.
- Many creative setups exist because of how much time you may have after a knockdown.
- Charge attacks can be powerfully setup against Ukemi but also some other forms of wake-up too.
- Wall hits have effect on Okizeme. Sometimes an opponent can ukemi sooner because of a wall interaction. Some wall interactions like a slump hit can guarantee more damage against the opponent.


SOCIAL LINKS
THIS GUIDE ON TWITTER
THIS GUIDE ON BLUESKY
THIS GUIDE ON REDDIT

This Guide can also be found on:
THE OFFICIAL VF DISCORD
THE VF (COMMUNITY) DISCORD

ABOUT MINI-GUIDES
MINI-GUIDES are guides I post on fleeting social media like Twitter, Discord, Reddit, BlueSky, even on Facebook. The purpose is that they are written in the topical moment and even though I am a long-form writer, I have found that writing these on the fly has helped many players in the moment of their direct interest & curiosity and that even short-form fleeting media readers will engage with them.

I will try to share more of these contents here on VFDC as well in case it has appeal for readers here, though VFDC’s best strength as a traditional forum is the fullness of comprehensive and complete exploration of topics.

I try to use these moments to bridge the different locations of resources so it is my intention to link people to VFDC as well, when I make these posts.

MORE CHANCHAI’S DOJO CONTENT
CHANCHAI’S THROW ESCAPE THEORY
MINI-GUIDE: SIDESTEP DIRECTION
MINI-GUIDE: OKIZEME & UKEMIZEME