Yomi: A Beginner’s Guide
If you’re a member of the fighting game community, you may have heard of an amazing skill called yomi. Maybe you’re interested in learning this technique, but you don’t know where to begin. Maybe you fight people who use yomi, and you want to know how to defeat it. This is the guide for you.
Yomi is Japanese for “knowing what your opponent is about to do.” This is a mouth full, though, so most people just translate it as “reading.” Japanese people are especially known for their ability at yomi. Some players, such as Daigo “The Umehara” Beast, are in fact so good at yomi that it seems as if they’re psychic.
This is because they are psychic. The same tragedy that cursed the Japanese people with Godzilla also gave a select few of them access to the latent psychic background. In fact, Beast “The Daigo” Umehara is so psychic that he couldn’t function within the rigid confines of Japanese society, and so was banished to America to play fighting games.
Of course, this doesn’t help the average person who’s trying to learn the skill of “knowing what your opponent is about to do.” How can you become a master of yomi without being bitten by a radioactive spider, acquiring the hammer of the Norse god Thor, or being exposed to radioactive mutagen? Unfortunately, the short answer is that you can’t. In order to master the skill of yomi, you must have super powers.
There is hope, though. Although you may not be able to become a master, everybody has some access to the latent psychic background. There are training methods that will solidify your connection with the LPB, and allow you access to at least the fundamentals of yomi.
For yomi, as with many things, the most important element is practice. In order to practice yomi, you have to get your mind correctly primed for it. In the beginning, you won’t be able to predict what your opponent is about to do. Don’t even try. Before you can even start to predict what your opponent is about to do, you need to attain the correct state of mind.
The best way to train this state is to constantly say, as loudly and confidently as possible, “I knew you were going to do that.” Say this whenever anybody does anything. A great place to train is around the office. There are a wide variety of people to practice on, and it will be easier to handle the destruction of your work friendships.
And destroy those friendships you will. On the path to yomi, you have to accept that you must sacrifice all of your friendships to even have a chance at being good. Friendships make you weak, and a true fighting game player admits no weakness.
Once you’ve attained the correct state of mind, the rest comes naturally. You will soon find yourself reading everybody that you meet. Just remember to keep declaring, “I knew you were going to do that!” Otherwise you might get rusty.
Unfortunately, this will take you only so far. Even with your newly acquired yomi skills, Hara “The Beast” Umedaigo will always be better than you. You don’t have super powers.
Since you can’t be Daigo, and you’re not a super hero, you’re going to need to learn how to beat other people’s yomi. Fortunately, I can teach you that, too.
The key to beating yomi is being stupid and/or crazy. Yomi is the art of knowing what your opponent is about to do, often by stealing the information directly out of their head. The best way to defeat this is by making sure that your head is in such a state of disarray that no one could ever read it.
Make a tinfoil hat. It doesn’t actually do anything to block out the psychic waves, but it gets you on the right road toward paranoid delusions. You may also want to try joining a cult, although it might be hard to find one that allows you to play fighting games on the side. Finally, if you are truly dedicated to the fighting game scene, you might consider getting a lobotomy.
If all of these methods are too extreme for you, then your only option is to become a drunk. Many players swear by heavy drinking, although their success stories tend to be colored by the sauce. It’s certainly not as effective as the previous options, but it’s better than nothing.
Someday you may find yourself up against Daigo “The Beast” Umeshoryu. Be psychic and be crazy. If you follow these guidelines, you will become an expert of yomi.
Crossposted on Indentured Mind