Some basic manuevers were easy enough once he grasped the concepts of the flows of chi of the world around him and of his internal chi. The pool of chi at the bottom of the belly - the vessels and the dams of the pressure points. Easy enough - he was already using some of that stuff. It was amazing once he grasped the principles behind it how much more he could do with it.
A Light In The Darkness merely let your chi form a visible ball.
To Stand Like A Mountain anchored your chi with the earth chi.
The Breath Of The Second Wind was something he already had the basics of and just refined it further with that. Fatigue and injury suppression.
Skin Like Unto Iron was similar. He already used similar techniques to keep from being injured. This was just more so.
To Pass As A Ghost was tricky. To be able to walk across rice paper without breaking it was the first step. When he was able to move across the water without disturbing the surface - he'd master that one.
What was concerning was that as soon as he'd mastered a lesson, the page turned blank. It wasn't that concerning though - not when there were techniques like To Purify Oneself - a technique by which the martial artist came into perfect tune with the universe and used that to "free themselves of all impurities, diseases, possession, and curses."
The problem was that this manuever required mastery of several other techniques, one had to master one's inner chi flows, and then regulate completely how one affected that which was around oneself.
That this was thoroughly neat and unlike any martial arts he'd ever studied, but was still definitely martial arts, was beside the point. It was that purification technique that made this so attractive.
Of course, this was something positive occurring in Ranma's life. Left unchecked he could gain control of his destiny for the first time in his life, he could attain self-enlightenment, develop as an individual, break the cycle that kept his problems continuing, and surpass the levels of martial arts mastery of Happosai or Cologne. Clearly, this could not be allowed to happen.
Everyone noticed that Ranma was gone evenings. Everyone noticed that his skills were growing. Everyone noticed how centered and thoughtful he'd turned. Ranma being thoughtful? Gaining some measure of inner peace and calm?
The reactions to this varied from suspicions from various Tendos to a thoughtful bemusement from Cologne to darn close to Happosai's guess that Ranma had finally discovered the wonder and beauty of women's underwear raids.
Five days into the studies, things got a bit more complicated when:
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Tue, 12 Nov 2002 02:02)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.