Hand Seals

Jutsu, or skills/techniques, are the mystical arts a ninja will utilize in battle. To perform a jutsu, the ninja will manipulate their chakra and may use some form of hand seal. Some techniques like Taijutsu do not require hand seals, however the ninja may use them to focus their chakra to certain areas of their body. Also some Ninjutsu like Rasengan and various weapon utilizations do not require any hand seal use.

In addition to these hand seals, certain jutsu have their own unique hand and finger positions, such as the gestures used in Kage Bunshin, Shintenshin, etc.. Every ninja in the series save for one has used both hands to form seals. Haku used one-handed seals in his Hyouton bloodline limit techniques. It is unknown if this was a skill unique to the whole of the bloodline or merely Haku himself. Note this is different than the one handed chakra focusing gesture one sees a lot of ninja use.

Basic Hand Seals
To perform most attacks, hand seals combined with chakra are used. Each of the main hand seals is based on an animal from the Chinese Zodiac, and shown above are the pictures of that hand seals along with the name in both English and Japanese.