increasing reaction time

[wingedsoldier]

i'm a kenpo student and i'm currently holding the rank of yellow. i have been training since summer and will be and advanced yellow belt in 2 weeks. we've learned all the basic moves and so on. basically, i wanna increase my reaction. i can move fast but i would like to block and weave faster. i find that when your fighting someone, they can sometimes move faster then your body can adapt and react. can anyone recommend any exericises to help me out?

[Rich67]

The problem you have can be attributed to two basic things:

 

1) Your reaction to stimuli (AKA reaction time) and

 

2) Your muscular output as far as speed is concerned (AKA explosive strength)

 

How to improve them? Well, as far as reaction time goes, you can do that a number of ways. Practice and sparring is one. Learn to look for people who "telegraph" their movements and learn to anticipate what they will do when you observe their body shifts. If they don't telegraph, then you will need to maintain a distance from them so you can buy time to react to their attacks. If you are in too close, you don't have enough reaction distance to effectively defend using your style. Another way is...video games! Seriously, they help build hand/eye coordination, and increase your body's ability to react to visual stimuli.

 

As far as your explosive movement and muscular output, again, practice, practice! You can also begin a training regimen that stresses explosive strength. I can't get into too much detail in this post, but maybe you can Google search for training programs used by boxers and people who do "fast" sports such as sprinting, basketball, high jump, etc. All those sports that require immense bursts of muscular output to achieve a goal. This will aid in your muscles ability to function in concert with your mind when it tells it to sidestep, lunge back or in, etc.

[JerryLove]

I get the best results from practicing slowly. Correct, relaxed, repeated movement does more for my speed than most anything.

 

Though, as pointed out, there are several differnt things you are talking about.

 

Reaction time: the amount of time between perception and the initiation of action, which you wish to lower (BTW< you may also want to lower your time-to-perception).

 

Agility: The rate at which you can change speed and direction.

 

Speed: How fast you can traverse from point A to point B.

[VinnieDaChin]

...do you mean decrease?

[wingedsoldier]

sorry, i misworde it. yes, decrease. i said increase because i was referring to my "ability" to react fast.

[cymry]

Buy Speed Training by Loren Christensen. That has some good drills for reaction speed and movement speed.

 

Alternatively, shortcut the entire perception process. Take up an art that promotes tactile sensitivity, like wing chun or tai chi push hands.

[Sinar89]

for speed, will useing weighted gloves help? cause i wear just normal gloves when i'm punching on my heavey bag and i took them off today once i punched for a while and just went to finish up with a quick combo and it felt like my hands were flying.

[cymry]

Don't do weighted punches on a heavy bag! There is enough shock to your joints anyway, using weights while you punch will just increase the chance of damage to your hand and arm joints.

 

Slow air punching with weights is okay, it will help to strengthen all the muscles supportive of the punch.

[Kaminari]

If you practice a technique enough, you'll get to the point where you won't have to think about the technique before you do it, and your techniques will speed up.