It's all about skills!

Recently, I've taken a fancy to going out at the edge of the Wajaom Woodlands and just dueling some birds. The soft feathered buzzards...errr...Colibri...have a nice supply of MP as well that lets me abuse my Dagger skills for Energy Drain, and I appreciate them for it. Getting the hang of timing with this Utsusemi: Ni thing on them before I go off to attempt to torment Garuda Prime. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I can almost feel a new skill within my grasp for my daggers and swords, and there are rumors of a master skill that I can seek out once complete with those. Hmmmm, sounds like I'll be playing around with the birds and spiders for a bit more, they're interesting creatures at a bit under me, and they're good game as their feathers sell to the Al Zhabi vendors for decent money, over a grand just for plucking the little birds in the course of my own training, not too shabby for a side benefit!

Well, that got boring pretty quickly, and after a short while, I decided to sharpen and polish my blade, and headed out to level one of my old favorites, the samurai. One thing you have to realize is that I haven't even gone to the Samurai's guild to investigate ever since the class was upgraded to allow new abilities...This led to an interesting discovery upon realizing that occassionally when I missed, my instincts kicked in to redirect the slice again towards its target. Upon asking one of my masters, he said that this was an essential skill for the samurai that I had been enlightened to realize, known as "Zanshin." He gave me the following explanation as from Venerable Anzan Hoshin roshi. (Old teacher if you're wondering, one who has created teachers below him.)

"Zanshin means “the remaining mind” and also “the mind with no remainder.” This is the mind of complete action. It is the moment in kyudo (Zen archery) after releasing the arrow. This is “ Om makurasai sowaka” in oryoki practice and drinking the rinse water. In shodo, it is finishing the brush stroke and the hand and brush moving smoothly off the paper. In taking a step, it is the weight rolling smoothly and the next step arising. In breathing in completely, it is this breath. In breathing out completely, it is this breath. In life, it is this life. Zanshin means complete follow through, leaving no trace. It means each thing, completely, as it is.

In the martial arts, Zanshin means having no break in our activity, because there is no time to take back a stride or block and fix it. It also means going beyond technique, because we cannot force the situation to conform to the technique. The angle of the strike and the force of the strike must be adjusted immediately to the energy of the partner. In practice we must go beyond strategies of defense and hesitation. We must open up to the energy of mind itself as it expresses itself as seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling and thinking. Penetrating into this energy, we must go beyond all barriers." Intriguing, but a wonderful philosophy. With a variety of slower but steady XP coming in from mostly VT chains on the clippers due to having a mage who was 23 when I was 21, and 24 when I hit 22, it was somewhat of a slow grind. Melees higher than mages should be the general rule for most balanced party setups, but then, a WAR/RDM would not be near the top of my list for a healer, either, even with pie!!! >.< Ouch, that's why I love Qufim Island, learning experience. I did see Rosiel again, a member of Nekotess' LS, Hestia, so we had a chat while mad chaining, he was tired of the area already, but ready to be tired of the next area instead, haha! I like being forgotten, it suits the attitude of a samurai just fine. I'm no one special, just let me fulfill my purpose, and the fame and recognition will fade.

I pondered the effectiveness of using a polearm on the crabs, mostly because I knew my tachi skill had reached its limits, and was saddened to find that though crabs are weaker to piercing, the spear (that I had at least) wasn't up to damage, though Double Thrust ate Enpi alive when it came to weaponskill damage to the tune of 110 versus 80-ish.

The next party I had brought me into the position of hate-holder, and as the lowest level in the Eastern Altepa party we had, I got eaten alive as a Paladin by two SAM who were WS king and queen respectively. Hutman joined me and brought out his Galka Summoner, which aided lots as we fought beetles and Dhalmels...and the darn Berserk dhalmels decided to do HUGE healing breezes a couple of times, making it very close to bye-bye Paladin-boy! Can't wait 'til I get Auto-Refresh and Flash, that will help a lot. If they really decided to go off, it took Sentinel, Cure 3, and Provoke to get the darn thing back on me...But all things considered, with Garuda's blink and Third Eye, they could avoid quite a bit of hate just splitting it between themselves, so it ended up working out pretty well, just, just...I was wishing I had a SATA at that point for my hate-holding lack of ego! Yeah, I will be glad when Sunday comes and I get to be a Red Mage again...