Personally, in your position I think I'd consider rewriting the early chapters with an eye toward improving characterization and setting. Since you are further along I'd assume your spent some time getting to know the characters and settings better. If you tweak the chapters a bit before submitting you might find that you have a lot more to say this time.
I did a good deal more than copyedits, but I put them into comments. I guess you are not using a word compatible word processor so they didn't show up. But I was trying to provide examples rather than tamper with your text.
Since you are a lit major let me make a suggestion. look at your early chapters with an eye toward formal criticism. Take a pass as a structuralist, and another as a reader response critic. Try doing the same with Martin, though his style is atypical for the genre. I really think Raymond Feist's simple accessible style could help you a lot. Christopher Stasheff could help too. It's not that they are literary giants, but they exhibit the kind of simple, transparent prose that avoids distracting the reader from the plot and setting. If Scifi is more your taste, try Ben Bova or Robert Heinlein.
Intentionally applying the skills you've developed in your college career will go a long way toward cracking the mystery of how these writers do what they do.
I'm not sure that creative writing classes are a plus. I think some of the best writer's take the approach of reverse engineering. That is to say they decide what they would like a critique to read like then write a text that fits the critique.
That may seem vague but it really is the best way I can put it.
For the record, my typos and grammatical issues drive Canadians to distraction. Or, so I've heard.
I think the two that bugged me most were the repetitive use of the same word in too close proximity. For instance the over use of the term, "Hand Signs." It seemed far to formal, as if the characters were not comfortable and familiar with their own discipline and had no slang or more general terms available. Another was the complicated runons at the bottom of page five.
For the record I believe that you came up with your system independently, you probably have similar influences to Sanderson and Co. But since he's already out there, and your particular variation looks a lot like material from the Airbender movie, you'll need to further personalize your system. Give it some functional elements that distinguish it immediately for the reader.
As for the windmilling, try substituting dramatic intensity in place of speed and motion. One ofthe most dramatic scene's in film is the duel between the young braggart with the daikatana and the old Ronin with his wooden stick. It is in Kurasawa's
Seven Samurai. When the braggart will not admit to being beaten, the Ronin switches to a live blade and very fast, very smoothly kills the young one. One thing that makes the old man's technique so dramatic is the smooth economy of motion and the simple poise of his attack. No flailing or cut and thrust, he simply draws and resheaths his sword. That sort of simple elegance would go further than physical intensity in making your characters frightening and powerful.
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