Guard

Guarding is the action of actively blocking moves and attacks. There are two types of guarding - standing guard and crouching guard. Referred to also as Blocking

Standing guard

Standing guard blocks high and mid attacks, but does not block low attacks, and can be thrown and overcome by high guard break moves.

Crouching guard: Crouching guard blocks low attacks and high crushes highs and throws as you are in the crouching state. Crouching under highs and throws can be done instantly even when under normal guardable recovery (for example +G frames), except when subjected to forced standing guard position through blocking the generic running power crush tackle, or through projectiles.

Guardable recovery: Some recovery animations in the game force you into guardable recovery where your freedom of actions is severely limited.

List of guardable recovery animations:

Quick side roll (tech roll)
Quick back roll (back tech roll)
Moves that cause guardable recovery on block / Hit / Counter Hit (for example moves that cause Screw/Tailspin on air hit generally cause the ballerina spin recovery animation on ground hit, which are often +10 or more but are guardable recovery, indicated in frame data with a g, e.g. +10g)

Under guardable recovery one:

Can't activate blocking through neutral guard
Can't low parry as it requires you to be free to act in order to low parry the next colliding active frame of a low parriable move.
Can't make a generic d/f+2 uppercut not launch you on a crouching hit (normally they do not launch when they hit on Normal Hit on a crouching opponent but only give slight plus frames and an aerial state for the victim which enables for instance ground hitting moves to be used) - For example law hits with b+2,1 giving +16kg and does d/f+2 - this now launches the opponent during the guardable recovery frames if they crouch guard and are in range for the move to connect.

Forced standing guard example: As an example of this forced standing guard position, Geese can setup an unavoidable Rashomon Rage Art through the use of gaining +20 frames either through a meaty enough running armor tackle or an EX Shippuuken air fireball while in Max Mode.; Another example is Hwoarang's RFF f+3 preventing crouching for 12 frames on block, guaranteeing attempt at LFS 2+3 throw.

Neutral Guard: Just like in a real fight, keeping your guard up requires presence of mind. After being hit, you stop blocking unless you're holding a back directional input or the string jails.

Standing neutral guard example: Some powerful moves can break neutral guard even on block, such as Heihachi's u/f+3,4. This means if you block the first hit but aren't holding back for the second, the second will hit you.; This can cause you to get hit while backdashing during the neutral part of your back, neutral, back input.

Crouching neutral guard example: For crouching neutral guard the differences come mostly through string interactions. For example if you get hit by King's d+3+4 you have to press d/b to block the second low of d+3+4,4 - it can not be crouch guarded by holding down or low parried through holding downforward.

Neutral Guard Activation: Activation of standing neutral guard varies wildly based on the move in question. For example, with Lee, against bot set to «Stand» for «CPU Opponent Action 1» and «Neutral Guard» for «CPU Opponent Action 2»:

After d/b+2 (+7), ws3 (i10) is blocked, implying it takes fewer than 3 frames.
After 2,1 (+6), 1 (i10) hits but 4 (i11) is blocked, implying it takes 4 frames.
After 1 (+8), d/f+1 (i13) hits but 3 (i14) is blocked, implying it takes 5 frames. Credit: RogerDodger

Neutral Guard application: In practise in 99.9% of cases you should not be using neutral guard, but instead be holding back for standing guard, or down or downback for crouching guard.; In some cases pushback can be reduced by blocking a move in neutral guard, which can make certain long range punishers possible or easier. For example Heihachi's f,F+2 is -16 with pushback and lots of characters can't punish it at all unless certain conditions are met like neutral guarding it or it being blocked when one player's back is next to the wall or move being blocked off-axis or a combination of these factors.