There are two ways to advance a ninjutsu: shape manipulation and nature manipulation. Examples: Rasengan and Chidori. Rasengan uses extreme shape manipulation to move chakra in a circular manner until it can create extensive damage due to the spiral effect. Chidori uses nature manipulation to convert chakra into lightning.

Each nature has a strength and weakness. In the manga, it showed a cycle, but that was a bit harder to comprehend if you didn't know Japanese characters for Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, and Water. The translators were generous enough to provide an explanation, but I found a colored copy and decided I'd put it up here.

(Posted Image)

In the image above, any given element is strong against the one next to it in a clockwise direction. Fire > Wind, Wind > Lightning, Lightning > Earth, Earth > Water, Water > Fire, etc.

This post has been edited by Uchiha Ryken on Nov 29 2007, 05:20 PM