Speed - The Mental Factor

[Kung Fu Wang]

The movements are fast, yes — but they don’t adapt through listening.

If you play defense/counter, speed will have a different definition. I just worked on this with my student today.

- I have left side forward. My opponent has right side forward (mirror stance).
- I throw a left jab, my opponent uses right comb hair.
- I throw a right cross, my opponent uses left inside out block and then wrap my right punching arm.
- My opponent moves back by left stealing step, pushes his right hand on my neck, uses his right leg to spring my left leading leg.

In this case, my opponent's speed is to blend in with my speed. If he is slower than my speed, or faster than my speed, both won't work.

 

[Fungus]

Perceptual – how fast it feels to the observer

Perceptual speed. If they can’t see it coming, it’s too late.

This is good key point from tactical perspective. You can use both non-telegraphing and deception (or feints) to reduce perception, and this I think one can train regardless of age age fitness. This is something I try to compensate with as well.

The problem I see, is that non-telegraphing often implies that you need to minimize charging with hips, tors etc, ie power generation and rely on more snappy stuff. OR use deception, to disguise the charging as something else. The latter is likely what would work better for me, as slower than average, but it requires finding the clever setups and train them; which is more mental effort than physical.

 

[Badhabits]

The perceptual speed and how it appears to the observer is very interesting to me. Timing plays a large part. Our instructor is an older guy with tons of points sparring/tournament experience. Where you're the one sparring him, he's able to pretty much hit you at will, he appears to be moving super fast. Then you watch him spar someone else..... He doesn't seem so fast, it leaves you thinking how the heck was he able to hit me at will like that. His timing is just that good. You start to throw something at him, he knows what's coming- he's already moved and hit you before your punch or whatever is halfway out. The guys in his early seventies and won't even be in second gear sparring the likes of us lol.