Zyaga Writing about whatever the hell I want, cuz it's the Interwebz!

The Limitation of Speed

A vast majority of what people awe to when watching Martial Art movies is just how fast some of these guys can move. We can all agree that speed is definitely an attribute every Martial Artist has to have, but I believe too many people put too much emphasis on speed. Speed can literally be the downfall of some Martial Artists and the reason they never progress much further.

Bruce Lee was not only exceptionally fast, he was able to read his opponents movements on a whim, with very little effort.

“What’s wrong with speed?”, you might be asking. Well, speed has limitations. No matter how many years you practice, or how many hours you’ve spent on it, there is a limitation to exactly how fast you can get your body to move. Obviously, you can produce a speed so fast that it makes others awe in amazement because it’s purely much faster than the average speed, but either way it has a limitation.

People so often focus on speed and being able to throw a punch twice as fast as their opponent. Most people think that if they are way faster than their opponent then when the opponent throws a punch they can counter with their own punch and because they are faster, then their punch will hit first and they’ll win. In fact, they’re right, if you are that much faster than your opponent, you have a good chance of winning against other Martial Artists who think the same way. The problem is, to get to that speed requires too much effort, almost to the point that it becomes pointless. “What did he just say!? It’s pointless to spend so much time to become super fast and acquire The Flying Fists of Death!?”(Yes, that was made up ) That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Rather than train to become faster than your opponent, spend that time learning how to read your opponent. If you can learn to read your opponent, you’ve already won the battle. There is no possibility of gaining a greater speed than to already know how, when, and where your opponent is going to make his next move. It’s quite simple to understand, yet very hard to get even decent at. Once you’ve been working(sparring, practicing, etc) with someone for long enough, you’ll eventually get better at predicting their movements if you practice reading them, but that’s quite easy to accomplish. The hard part is being able to read anyone, very quickly, because in a real life situation the opponent is not going to practice with you till you are able to read his movements. The skill will have to be able to be used on a whim.

No matter how fast my opponent can move, if I have the ability to read his movements, I’m already at a greater advantage. Don’t get me wrong though, if you have no speed whatsoever, then you’re going to be in big trouble even if you can read his movements. Just understand that speed has it’s limits. Speed is something that if you train hard all the time in sparring, shadow boxing, etc it will increase, even if at a slower pace than if you trained specifically for speed. Instead of spending all that time on speed though, use it to learn to read others. By the time you get to the point that you can read others decently, you’ll have already naturally gained speed from doing your other routines(again, sparring, shadow boxing, etc).