Hi there, I'm interested in learning what strategies are most effective for getting things to move faster. I'm actually more of a musician than a martial artist, though both interest me very much. I've just spent much more time with music for no particular reason. I find many similarities between the two. They both require intense mental focus, years of practice, style is important, and they both involve moving the body specific ways, to name a few. I think this is something a martial artist might know more about, which is why I came here. The way I see it, there are two different aspects to moving faster, there is moving your body faster, and doing a specific thing faster. What I'm talking about when it comes to the latter would be something such as learning a musical phrase, one must first learn the musical phrase mentally, and then decide the most fluid economical movements to use in order to achieve that phrase, then they must practice slowly with intense focus and ensure that they perform it with perfect accuracy. Eventually this perfection becomes ingrained in one's memory and they are able to play the phrase perfectly as fast as their body will let them. This to me is similar to when a martial artist is learning a new move, or a new combination of attacks. They make sure they know what they need to do, and then practice the motions with great focus until they can perform the attack at full speed with ease. This type of moving faster is not what I'm focused on, though I'm not saying it's not interconnected with the other type. What I'm interested in what methods are used to make the human body move faster, as in what can be done to increase the speed of muscles. This interests me because I have much more difficulty increasing the top potential speed of my playing than I do bringing what I play up to that speed. Basically, even after I've learned how to play something absolutely perfectly, I tend to plateau at a certain tempo, and that plateau is being caused by my picking. My fretting is much faster. I can move through a phrase with my fingers almost twice as fast as I'm able to move through it while picking. So this is where I think someone here might be able to help me. I'd like to increase the speed at which I'm able to move my wrist side to side. I understand that there are many, many things one can do to speed up their movements - plyometrics, isometrics, endurance training, speed training, concentric weight lifting, eccentric weight lifting, as well as certain ways of moving. Now, I've been able to increase the speed of my ankles by doing something pretty simple (this relates to drumming btw). I simply lift up my foot so that my heel is on the ground and my toes are in the air, I relax the muscles on the front of my shin, which are being used to keep my toes in the air, and immediately tense my calf muscles and snap my foot down to the ground. And then I'll do the reverse and slap my heel down to the ground. Or I might not even use the ground. I'll lay on my stomach with feet in the air and flex my ankles back and forth. The key is to start completely relaxed in one position, and then with an immediate strong effort move to the next motion and relax again. After doing this sporadically for a few months I've noticed that the speed of my feet have increased noticeably. When I do this, I experience a sort of jerking feeling in my body. I'm snapping quickly from one position to the other. In order to get this feeling though, I think the body must become used to doing this motion in the first place, so before doing this, one must go through the motion slowly for a while in order to get the motion in their memory, because even when the motion involves only one joint, the body must still learn how to do it. Usually I will only focus on one direction, as in, I will snap my foot down, and then slowly bring it back up, and repeat. Now I'm doing the same thing with my wrists, and I'm just wondering if there are any more effective methods for improving speed. This motion is a bit less natural feeling and is used much less, so I think I'm starting from a lower point. But I've already noticed a small improvement in speed and hope it will continue, but I'd like to hear from people who would most likely be more knowledgeable on the topic.. So if anyone can add anything to what I've said please do!
