foxyteah: thephilosophersapprentice: ...

thephilosophersapprentice:
forencetarantellaharry:
Anyone ever think about how casually BADASS this is?
First of all: yes.
Secondly:
You can see how much smoother Al’s movements are, how he recovers much better from Izumi’s feints and counters–he’s staying relatively low to the ground, playing to his strengths, which makes him quicker to recover. The leg sweep he utilizes? Smooth as Sean Connery’s voice. Al even uses a kick and turn maneuver with both legs where the first kick is a feint and the second one is what lands. Or is supposed to land. Izumi just bats it aside with her hand because she’s much more experienced than they are, but it’s already clear that Al has a more solid foundation that he can then build off of to develop a fighting style.
Whereas Ed is just… all over the place. You can tell he’s using a lot of high attacks and jumping to attack, and he hasn’t quite figured out how to recover from those jump kicks–he’s wasting time in recovering and he keeps landing awkwardly. At least he’s quick to get back to his feet, which suggests he’s gotten used to falling–which is not necessarily a good thing.
Back to Al. Al is clearly less used to falling than Ed is. When he trips, he gets this expression of alarm, while Ed’s look of concentration never breaks, and at one point, Al lands face-first in the grass and has to get his butt out of the air before he can make a comeback.
Both of them clearly have a long way to go, but in different areas–Ed hasn’t really figured out that either a) he should learn how to make his jump kicks more effective and recover from them more quickly, or b) that he should stop using the jump kicks quite so much, because they clearly aren’t working for him like they should. On the other hand, Al needs to learn to take a fall confidently and without breaking stride. Al is clearly the better fighter and has good instincts, but because he’s used to winning, he isn’t nearly as good at taking a fall as Ed is.
At the same time, Ed and Al are synchronized enough that they’re occupying Izumi every second. She isn’t attacking back, just defending–she doesn’t attack until a second after this gif finishes, when she catches Al during another feint kick and spins him on his face–Ed is terrified when he sees Izumi deal with Al, who has probably been protecting him from schoolyard bullies and whatnot for years, so easily. They are clearly not ready to defend from Izumi’s attacks just yet, but what’s happening in this gif is meant to build their confidence.
Finally, Izumi’s movements (all defensive) in this gif follow a circle–she traces a circle in the steps she takes and she redirects their attacks rather than just blocking them. This is strikingly similar to the real-world martial art ba gua, which you’ll sometimes see colloquially referred to as “circle-walking”–an apt discipline for an alchemist.
The lesson about how power circulates in this scene ties in with Izumi’s movements, redirecting the energy of the Elrics’ attacks to the circle. In The Forbidden Kingdom, Jackie Chan’s character states that kung fu is not the attacks but the focus on excellence applied to everything one does. That is just how good of an alchemist Izumi is–she applies the principles in everything she does. By this standard, Izumi is the consummate alchemist in the series–though Ed has more raw genius, Izumi has applied her whole life to excellence in alchemy; which foreshadows Edward’s decision to give up the practical application of alchemy in favor of its cerebral application at the end of the series.
Wow, and here I was with my only two braincells going: there exists a spectrum with kakashi and izumi as the two extremes