#red particles in arin's spinjitzu

[agenericplaceholdername]

"Motion, used correctly, can be more powerful than sheer strength"

"Force and strength work counter to the motion of the world. The universe has its own speeds you need to align with"

"You can never force the motion of the universe to bend to your will"

"We must force the progress we need! Force the world to work the way you want it to!"

One of these teachings is not like the other...

[agenericplaceholdername]

This is actually really interesting to consider -- I'm not sure if you meant this as a prompt for discussion or not, but I suppose based on the length of this response I had some thoughts to say. I'm not sure I believe all the arguments made here, but just an alternate perspective.

To be fair to Lloyd, despite the years since S5, only in S7 does he actually try to be a master (which he succeeds at by the end of the season) and at no point does he take on students (until DR).

As for learning Spinjitzu, the Ninja learn Spinjitzu in the pilots by doing the training course a couple of times and suddenly "the key is ready to be found" when they fight the skeletons. Lloyd learns Spinjitzu after 0 training (he complains to Kai, "When will I learn Spinjitzu?" in the same episode* that he does Spinjitzu for the first time, with zero Spinjitzu training in between** -- must be a Green Ninja thing). Nya learns Spinjitzu off screen - and it's unclear how long this took (although she had been training on the same course as the Pilots Ninja and had been able to do Spinjitzu when possessed by the Overlord). We know it took weeks for Wu to teach Aspheera Spinjitzu.

Much like Sora, Lloyd and Nya also take a whole season to reach their true potentials through Wu's training. Meanwhile, the other four unlock the true potentials only after Wu leaves them. And despite Wu's demands to train, it's only the competition to become the Green Ninja and the later threat of the Serpentine that forces Kai, Jay, Cole, and Zane back into shape to begin with. Meanwhile, Lloyd learns from his mistake of directly copying Wu in "Crossroads Carnival" (S1, E3) and lightens up, causing Sora to be slightly more open to training in the first place.

I'm not entirely sure what's up with Arin's Spinjitzu, given that after learning it from Ras's teachings, there are red shatterspin-esque particles in it. We also never see Frak do Spinjitzu, so it seems like what prevented Arin from doing Spinjitzu was not an inability to do the technique (if it was, then Frak would know the technique as well) but some sort of mental block which Arin conquered or suppressed by accepting Ras's teachings of "taking from life what you need" and "forcing the world to work the way you want it to."

Lloyd's students also do learn quite a bit from him, with the Ras fight in "The Battle of the Second Monastery" (the S1P1 finale) designed to show how far they've come by beating the adversary who took them out easily in the season premiere. Season 2 walks back on this with Arin upset about how little he's progressed. That being said, while Lloyd doesn't teach him Spinjitzu, Arin still has learned from Lloyd. Ras tells him he hasn't gotten any better from their first fight, but he's lying. When Ras first fights Arin, he stops Arin's kick with one hand and throws him to the ground, ending the fight in under five seconds. When Ras fights Arin in "The Forest of Spirits" (S2, E9), he still beats Arin with ease, but Arin is far more resilient and Ras uses his hammer against an unarmed opponent. Lloyd also helps motivate Sora in the Tournament of Sources and (sorta) provides her with the wisdom that helps her win the whole thing.

Kai might be a better teacher - I'm not sure. He doesn't teach Lloyd Spinjitzu (he learns that on his own) and I don't know how much credit he gets for training Lloyd generally (since the rest of the Ninja were involved with that). I don't think he trains anyone after that (minus him telling young Wu to be confident in S9) up until S15, where he's teaching a class of children to "obliterate your enemy before they see you coming" (excessive force)***. He dislikes this so much that when Cole and Zane show up, he leaves with them despite having a kindergarten class later that day. I hope their parents got their money back. He then trains Wyldfyre (on Lloyd's advice) and does successfully teach her self-control. However, much like Lloyd with Arin and Sora, he doesn't teach her Spinjitzu.

Incidentally, both Kai and Lloyd are able to train villages to defend themselves (Kai and Lloyd in S11, Lloyd -- with Arin -- in DRS1).

The show has been building to a contrast between Lloyd and Ras's teaching styles since S2P1, with some focus in S2P2 (thanks to Frak), but now that Arin is with Ras, I'd hope that the writers are planning to address what specifically Lloyd did wrong and how he can learn from it. Right now it seems like Lloyd is a bad master for unspecified reasons -- did he not push his students hard enough? Did he put too much pressure on Arin to be "the greatest of all the Ninja"?**** Was he too overprotective (see him going with Arin and Sora to Imperium vs Wu who intentionally sent the Ninja on missions alone)? Was he not receptive enough to their concerns (like Arin wanting to find his parents)? Is he unwilling to be critical when needed (unlike Egalt)? All of these are potential options but the narrative doesn't pick one, so I get the frustration.

FWIW, my view on it is that Lloyd's biggest asset (and what caused him to lose Arin) is that he views the Ninja (including his students) as his family. He is protective of his family, he inspires them but also puts them on a pedestal, he avoids being critical, etc. This is what ensures Sora feels accepted and ultimately willing to tell her parents that she "has a new family now ... that loves me for who I truly am," unlocking her true potential. Meanwhile, Arin saw the Ninja as a symbol, a symbol of hope -- if they could come back, so could his parents. As he spends more time with them, his greatest fear isn't just that he'll disappoint his parents when he finds them, but that he'll view the Ninja as his family instead of them (S2, E3). Arin leaves for a bunch of reasons, only some of them related to Lloyd, but fundamentally, he becomes fixated on his "real" family, while Lloyd and the rest of them are an imperfect substitute. Ras would never pretend to be family to Arin; their relationship is purely transactional. The story isn't about Lloyd's way of demonstrating how to punch vs Ras's, it's about the difference between them as people -- caring vs efficiency, patience vs force, etc. I hope (assume?) that S3 develops this.

In addition, the closest we get in S2 as to the difference in philosophy between Lloyd and Ras is that Ras thinks people (ie Lloyd) are too busy passively waiting for the world to harmonize. I doubt Lloyd is supposed to learn that Ras is right about this - but a synthesis of those teachings -- one must accept the motion of the universe with a more proactive approach (helping shape the flow of that motion) -- might be the move.

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*Pirates vs Ninja (S2, E2)

**the closest thing we see is him randomly unlocking super strength while training with Jay

***Farewell the Sea (S15, E1)

****(DRS2, E6)

Maybe Lloyd just shouldn't be a master.

He's clearly not very good at it. He's been trying it since season 5, and his first real students both take FOREVER to make any progress. Sora takes a whole season to unlock her powers, but apparently isn't taught spinjitzu in any of that time- the literal first thing we see taught to any of our characters in the original show. Arin somehow makes backwards progress with Lloyd, and then after doing like three poses with his friend seems to get it instantly.

Like... seems like he's just not very good at teaching. Maybe he should hand the position over to Kai, he's got a natural knack for it, a lot more experience, and a much higher success rate as far as I'm concerned. Master Kai for the win.