TYPES OF SPEED

“An attack must be executed with quickness, not speed. Attack with power, not strength. There
is a great difference between speed and quickness, power and strength. Think this through carefully.
It is the essence of strategy”

Miyamoto Musashi

Semantics are important – speed vs quickness.  Power vs strength.  What was Musashi driving at?  Power doesn’t necessarily rely on strength but rather on an understanding of the physiological weaknesses of the human body.  Strength is the inherent (or achieved) physicality of the body.  If you rely only on speed and strength then you must always be the stronger and faster to prevail.

But by focusing on power (target identification and acquisition) and quickness (timing) you can prevail against stronger and faster threats.  

Nevertheless, physical strength and speed are critical to develop, improve and maintain.  The following is a derived from Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method and the Tao of Jeet Kune Do – both are highly recommended additions to your library.   Bruce Lee was an innovator who constantly researched means and methods to improve both his physical abilities and the means to employ them.  He read widely and synthesized much of the traditional and (then) current sports physiology.  In the Tao he labels the physical attributes “qualities” and the means of employment “tools.”  This post merely summarizes his granulated classifications on the attribute of Speed:

PHYSICAL SPEED: Performance speed, quickness in a chosen motion (jab, thrust, kick, parry)

INITIATION SPEED: Economical Starting to a stimulus / Response Time

PERCEPTUAL SPEED: Visual speed to incoming attacks and openings.

MENTAL SPEED: Quickness of mind / Selection of targets, openings and moves rapidly

ALTERATION SPEED: The Ability to change direction quickly / many factors (balance, surface)

COMBINATION SPEED: Ability to deliver series of motions in combinations related to target.

SENSITIVITY SPEED: Contact Reflex / To change rapidly when touch contact occurs

FOOTWORK SPEED: Smooth, sure control of angles, placement and distance via footwork

HAND TRAPPING SPEED: Ability to immobilize limbs rapidly and in combination

One the hardest areas to train is perceptual speed – but I pass on these ‘tricks’ to developing perceptual speed I learned from Master at Arms James Keating.  Frontal vision, the “normal” habit of “looking” at the action to try to see it is a slow means of capturing information.  It is great for details and accuracy – the squinted concentration of the finite problem in front of you – but it tends to ‘lock’ your focus and that can be disastrous.  Focus solely on the knife and you cannot see the limb that manipulates it.  Instead, use your peripheral vision – turn your head slightly sideways to the action to find that you can “see” quick motion more easily.  This concept ties back to the No-Mind ideal – zanshin – taking in everything so as to respond to anything.  Take lessons from the natural world – peripheral vision is what a lot of animals do naturally to survive.

Tricks to help augment your peripheral vision.  Tilt your head away from the action.  Move your point of focus (1,000 yard stare) far past your opponent’s head.  Focus on the space around your opponent.  There are other tricks to explore.  And once you learn to use your peripheral vision effectively, then experiment with the ‘capturing of spirit’ – fix your opponent’s gaze to force their focus on you.  If you can increase your perceptual speed, the tactic of trying to limit your opponent’s is a logical converse.

It is remarkable to me that Bruce Lee was categorizing these differences – a scientific approach to better study and therefore improve upon human potential.

In reading Bruce Lee I am reminded of articles by Oliver Sacks.

As a neurologist, Oliver Sacks was able to study the physiology of perceptual speed and reveal its fascinating complexities.  This is a great starting point to delve the neurological differences that show the range of human potential.

A >link< to some of Oliver Sacks best essays.  He was also a frequent guest on RadioLab.

Imagine being able to harness the accelerated speed (tachypsychia) often experienced in emergency situations and the rapid and accurate movements (tachykinesia) demonstrated by some with Tourette’s syndrome. Some people with Tourette’s are able to catch flies on the wing. When perceived by a witness, this may appear as a superhumanly quick and accurate movement, but when Oliver Sacks asked one man with Tourette’s how he managed this, he said that he had no sense of moving especially fast but, rather, that to him the flies moved slowly.  Perceptual speed = physical speed?