Three Secrets of Speed

Imagine yourself in an elevator, several stories up. You stand, feet slightly apart, looking straight ahead as the door slowly closes. Your hands are loosely at your sides. The elevator starts to descend and, with each floor, you relax a little more. You do not keep track of the blinking numbers as each floor is achieved; instead, you concentrate on relaxing, letting go of the kinks and tensions in your shoulders, your neck, your thighs. Your hands are almost heavy at the ends of your arms. You clear your brain, as much as possible, and focus on your one task: when you reach the basement, the elevator will stop and, just at the moment of 'touchdown', you will punch.

What could this exercise, a variation of one taught by Bruce Lee, possibly have to do with increasing your speed?

First Floor: It associates speed with relaxation; how many times have you seen someone tense up in preparation for a punch: balling up the fists, tensing the upper arms and neck muscles, even hardening the expression on the face? But speed not only DOES not come from a tightly wound body it CANnot come from one. A quick reaction originates in a relaxed muscle. Also, though the elevator may be dropping, inside of it you are still. The Chinese Kung Fu masters say that movement is born from stillness. It is a different form of relaxation; when you are still you reduce your variables. The fewer the variables, the fewer things to get in the way of your speed.

Second Floor: It gives you time to focus your Intent. Believe it or not, one of the secrets is that you must WANT to go fast. At first, this seems obvious, but in fact many people don't. As you reduce your variables, plant this one instead: the desire to move fast will condition your body to carry this out.

Third Floor: It allows you to become a reptile. The reptilian part of the human brain is the one that just reacts, that pulls away from a hot stove, that runs in the street to save a child from an oncoming car. Real speed is spontaneous: if you don't know you are going to hit the guy, he doesn't know it either. As the elevator descends, you not only concentrate on eliminating your tension, you also shed your thinking.

Basement: Stillness and Relaxation, Focused Intent, and Spontaneous Reaction: three secrets that are guaranteed to speed up your moves. Now go!

Ted Mancuso has been teaching traditional martial arts and self defense for over forty years. His interest in practical, realistic but not dumbed down self protection has brought him in contact with some top notch practitoners. If you are interested in down to earth, effective training methods then try... http://www.plumpub.com/sales/dvd/dvdcoll_grappling.htm#18069

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