Outer Body Training Method is a technique that allows one to train and practice martial arts in a meditative trance.
Overview[]
History[]
This technique was developed so that Ranma could in his weakened state practice martial arts as the user can practice techniques and develop reflexes without doing anything but concentrating.
Characteristics[]
The basis of this technique is meditation and as such it looks like just that from the outside. It is a way to perform martial arts actions in a deep state of meditation. The most important thing in fighting is not training but witnessing and experiencing some situations. One can become stronger this way, which explains his strength as a fighter. If you have past experience with a technique then it’s possible to engrave it into your body through repeated meditation.
Soul Bewildering Sutra[]
The Soul Bewildering Sutra requires sitting upright hands on the ground in the perfect posture. The technique integrates the basic priciples of Uraate into various forms of meditation allowing the user to connect their inner world to the outer world while felling the beat of the planet. Soul Bewildering Sutra looks like you are immobile, but in fact it is indiscernible global movement. Similar to a top spinning at full speed on its axis. Immobile but in constant movement. Soul Bewildering Sutra is incredibly taxing on both the mind and body however the key to remaining conscious and mastering it is by focusing your mind until the end.
When you feel that enough ki has been accumulated you can begin the distribution technique (ki circulation). Send out ki to all parts of your body, so that you could feel it pulsing in your ki-channels. Then the next step is to create a mental image of your body. After you have succeeded try to remember the opponent’s you have fought till now. Do not be afraid what you are seeing are illusions created by your memory a reinterpretation of the opponent’s rhythm and design and you will now start training by fighting against them. This is the Incarnate State.
Applications[]
The imitation is so flawless that it is said that they even adopt character traits and personas. In other words within the Incarnate State it like user is fighting the original whose martial arts skill and power are at there absolute peak. With each new form user experiences he absorbs and uses it to evolve his own style; analyzing its rhythm and encodes his opponents concepts and senses and onto his own, literally changing his rhythm and increase its effectiveness improving upon the physical capabilities of their body, such as physical strength, durability and skill.
In addition skilled individuals can instantly develop new applications of many of the techniques creating their own and giving shape to new techniques.
Advantages & Disadvantages[]
This training method can be done without physically moving which saves for injuries that can occur in actual sparring. The user does not have to know the full extent of the opponents he meets for them to appear in his memories. The Ki itself remembers the opponent's Ki and strength. This also means that by seeing a technique once the user can see it again as many times as he wishes with this training and even learn it (Abysmal Insight).
However, the opponents that appear in this training method have the same level of strength as they had when the user last encountered them. This means that any increase in strength that these opponents have undergone is not apparent until the user can encounter them again.
While in the meditation state one can increase one's reflexes faster because the nature of this training method, the meditating, focuses and starts from the mind, and can also increase one's control over one's Ki and learn how to use it more efficiently.
Sub-Skills[]
Due to the way it works an individual gains abilities that assist in the increase of one's skill:
- Abyssal Insight: A skill of the Outer Body Training Method. It allows the user to memorize any technique that he has seen even once, regardless of the martial arts style, and make it his own.[1]