What makes a martial artist fast?  Are they really that fast?  Or is there something else that makes them appear fast?

Any trained martial artist will tell you that knowing your opponent is more important than the speed of your attacks.  If you already know what your opponent is going to do, then you can react before they fully initiate their move.  This will make you appear to possess lighting fast speed.

Speed is not about trying to move fast.  It’s about moving fast only when you need to move fast.

"The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be." - Bruce Lee

Whenever a martial artist tries to force a move on someone, it usually doesn’t work.  Why not?  Most of the time this is done, the opponent is not setup for the move in a way that would allow it to work.  These types of moves are very telegraphed to the opponent because you are trying to force something unnatural.  This makes you appear slow.

In order for you to move fast, you must react to your opponents moves.  You shouldn’t act after their move has started, but before they know what they are even doing.  Then you know your opponent.  I think Bruce Lee said it best:

"A good fight should be like a small play...but played seriously. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity... I do not hit...it hits all by itself (shows his fist).  Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it." - Bruce Lee

To develop really fast hands, there are two aspects you are going to need to learn about; mental and physical.

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Mental Speed

Whatever we believe, we create.

"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee hit it right on.  If we create mental blocks or barriers for our own physical abilities, then that will be our reality.  If we don’t think we are fast, then we are not.  It’s really that simple.

What really makes strikes seem faster is not only physical practice; it is the illusion of speed.  This is the ability to surprise or misdirect your opponent into believing one thing while you do another.  Magicians use this same type of thinking.  While you’re looking at one thing in an area, they produce something from another area.

Make your opponent worry about being hit in the groin and his attention will be away from his face and vice-versa.  If you do this well, it will be less important to have physical speed.

"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend." - Bruce Lee

There is no short-cut for developing mental skills other than sparring.  The more you spar different people, the more you learn how to deceive them.

It is also a good idea to visualize what speed may look like to you.  Imagine lighting or the turning on of a light switch.  If you can see what you want to become, then you will become just that.

What I find to be the most important thing in developing hand speed is to breathe and relax the muscles.  Muscles respond best for speed from a relaxed state.  Remembering to breathe is the key to speed.

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves." - Bruce Lee

Physical Speed

In order to develop physical speed, you will need to train your body.  There are many different ways to train your body.  Using a combination of the following would allow for the best possible training.

• Weight training
• Fast hand drills
• Arm weights
• Stretching
• Etc...

Weight Training

If you are into weight training, use light weights that will allow you do perform many repetitions.  I would say at least 20 repetitions with about five sets.  This will train your body for endurance and speed.

Fast Hand Drill

Here is a very easy fast hand drill.

1. Get into a ready stance with your arms in a chambered position and your hands in fists.
2. Shoot your fists straight out in front of you like you are doing a double punch; except right when you get to the point of contact, open your hands with your fingers spread wide.  When you bring your hands back, make them into fists again.
3. Do this really fast for 15 repetitions.  Make sure you are exhaling with every repetition as you shoot your hands out.
4. Next, in the same way, shoot your hands to your sides for 15 repetitions with your hands starting at your shoulders (fists in and open hands out).
5. Shoot your hands straight up for 15 repetitions with your hands starting at your shoulders (same hand positions).
6. Shoot your hands straight down at your sides for 15 repetitions with your hands starting under your armpits (same hand positions).

This fast hand drill will train your hands to be loose through your full range of motion; which will make your movements faster.

With your motion ending with your fingertips extended and spread out, this allows your energy to keep flowing past the ending of your motion.  This trains your ‘chi’ to flow with your hands into and through a strike to allow even greater speed and power.

Arm Weights

A great way to train your arms is to use wrist weights on your arms when practicing your strikes.

Use weight light enough to do 15 to 20 repetitions of desired hand striking technique.  For example; back-fist, jab, punch, hook, uppercut, cross, roundhouse, or any strike you prefer.

Make sure you use proper technique when training with wrist weights.  Keep these following items in your mind when you are training:

1. Perform slow repetitions.
2. Do NOT lock your joints at the end of your strike.
3. Exhale as you strike.
4. Do 3-4 sets of each desired striking technique at 15 to 20 repetitions.

Gradually increase weight, repetitions and sets.  In time, your striking will not only become faster, it will also become more powerful.

This type of training is like a baseball player using donut weights on their bat.  The player is training the muscle groups that are necessary to swing the bat faster and harder when the weights are taken off.

Stretching

When stretching, make sure to stretch the full range of motions for your joints.  Don't just focus on stretching one part of the body.  You will need to stretch all parts of your body in order to get the full benefits.

Start by loosening up your joints by going through the full range of motions on all of them.  Perform this exercise in this order:

1. Head, neck
2. Arms, elbows, hands fingers
3. Torso, waist
4. Legs, knees, ankles

Once you've gone through the full range of motion of your joints, you'll want to do a warm-up for at least 5 minutes.  This is just to get your heart rate going so you have blood pumping into your muscles.  You could either go jogging, run in place, jump rope, push-ups, etc.

When your warm-up is done, you can start stretching your body.  I won't go into details here about how to stretch, as I will cover that in a different guide.

Summary

"A fight is not won by one punch or kick. Either learn to endure or hire a bodyguard." - Bruce Lee

Overall physical fitness is the key to continuing to develop your martial art skills.  If you are only doing these drills and not training the rest of your body, you are wasting your time.

There is no substitute for practice.  There is beauty in repetition.  Whether you use weights or not; practice makes perfect.

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