I’m looking for suggestions on how to cut down my initial reaction time.
I’m interested in your “tried and true” training routines that help minimize the time between the opponent’s first movement and your interception/redirection/attack.
Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hi Convergence.
I don’t really have any ‘pre set’ training routine for this purpose.
IMHO, relaxtion and focus are the keys to reaction speed.
Focus and relaxation develop through constant practice of the Siu Lim Tao form.
The only ‘tools’ I use to sharpen the all round skills are Chi sau and sparring.
Drills will help to develop basic timing, and co-ordination, but I also feel there is a danger that you may become ‘programmed’ to only react in pre-defined patterns and lack a natural flow if you over stress these drills.
Regards
Dave F
increasing reaction time
The best way, I’ve found is to work with my instructor and with other senior students. If my reaction time is not sufficient, I get wacked.
Mentally, you have to turn it up, also. You can’t just ‘do it’. Working with the dummy helps too. When you feel the right amount of pressure this is when you move.
Training correctly in the single arm drills is important. Again, you can’t just DO the drills (actually you might get a little out of it, but not as much as if you were mentally alert and paying attention as to what you’re doing). The more mentally aware you are the greater your ability to ‘slow time down’ (like when you’re doing things that are interesting and ‘time flies’. It’s all relative.)
Continually working on it over time will help, also. Be patient. There is no special thing that will enable you to become more sensitive and better your reaction time. My instructor uses an analogy with this. He said every time you practice it’s like putting a piece of paper down. One piece of paper (or one time of practice by itself) isn’t very substantial. But, when you continue to work regularly, then after a while you have a whole pile of papers that can be made into a book!
Hope this helps.
Marty
i have wing chun ones but they are ones we made up ourselves & are just way hard to put into writing.
i will however offer one that is awesome-sprint training, yes as in running.
try it & i think you will like what it does for your reaction time.
vts
I woulkd have to agree and add on to Wingchunners statement… It would seem to me training sensitivity would speed up your reaction time. Then you are relying on reaction and not technique. Doing sensitivity drills often would probably help this a lot, Dan Chi sao and Chi Sao. then you become more sensitive to what your opponent is doing and you react faster.
Am I off here?
chi sau
Lots of Chi sau, and never, never neglect SLT.
Hanging a piece of paper from a string or chain from the ceiling and then punching it focusing on returning to your ‘ready’ position, structure, and breath will also help.
Sparring alot and ‘getting into it’ as someone else said are also keys to speed.
There are two parts to the puzzle:
Perception speed (how quickly you recognise “incoming”)
Movement speed (how quickly you can move to deal with the threat once you recognise it)
Perception speed is a function of the nervous system. It’s debatable whether it is possible to speed it up in absolute terms, though some nutritional supplements which allegedly improve CNS functioning such as L-Tyrosine, St Johns Wort and acetyl-L-carnitine may help.
More to the point is improving the efficiency of recognising the TYPE of threat to engineer the best response. You can train yourself to be more aware of your surroundings and other people in the street by doing so consciously - crowded places like train stations and shopping malls are good for this.
WC makes much of chi sao to improve sensitivity, but this only works for improving tactile reflexes. No doubt these are useful, if not ideal, once contact has been made, but one also needs to train the visual senses - best done by responding to semi-random and random attacks from out of range. There are certain eye exercises you can do to allegedly improve the efficiency of the muscles controlling the eyeball which may help, but you really want to be able to recognise early when a particular type of attack is coming at you by noticing the movement of the shoulders, hips or limbs, so you know if it’s a straight punch, hook, side kick, roundhouse, etc. as early as possible. Sparring is one example of a random drill.
Most experienced grapplers develop excellent tactile sensitivity, and chi sao hardly has the franchise on this, but stick with the tools of your style if that’s what you have.
For movement speed, as VTS said, look at how sprinters train. These are the fastest humans on the planet. Remember the simplest movements are usually the fastest. Take sprinters’ concepts (working on running technique, moving against resistance, overspeed) and look at how you can adapt them to your punches, kicks, and other techs. Think fast, think loose and snappy. Work on the flow of your combos as well as the speed of single techniques. Often the speed and efficiency which one can sew combos together will be more effective than the ability to throw one fast technique.
Heresy to some perhaps, but boxing tools like spped balls, double end balls and slip bags WILL help.
SLT (and any other form for that matter) is good for learning to do techs with maximum efficiency, which should lead to faster movement speed in time. It will do NOTHING to alter your perception speed, which by definition requires outside stimuli.
convergence
“I’m looking for suggestions on how to cut down my initial reaction time.”
Action is always faster than reaction.
Ever hear of the principal of coverage?
That is the answer.
Action is always faster than reaction.
Very true, but not something you always have a choice about.
They did tests on Muhammad Ali back in his glory days, he could punch much faster than he could react. So “do unto others but do it first” is good advice, unless perhaps you are going to wind up in court.
I’d still like the ability to react to a threat as quickly as possible.
Ever hear of the principal of coverage?
Is Coverage a school in the UK? I don’t know the headmaster’s name. 
Perhaps I have heard of it, but not under that name.
That is the answer.
Possibly. Any chance you could elaborate? Or is it a “closed door” discipline?
Re: How do YOU train to reduce your reaction time?
Originally posted by Convergence
I’m interested in your “tried and true” training routines that help minimize the time between the opponent’s first movement and your interception/redirection/attack.
It’s not a matter of “how fast”? It’s a matter of “when”.
overspeed
I’ve heard overspeed drills can be adapted to punching. Like, get some stretchy band things and punch WITH them, as opposed to against them, so that your punches travel faster than you can do them yourself, and thus your nervous system becomes used to punching faster than it can.
So I heard.
Iron
Hi.
I would say the problem lies in 2 areas:
1.) Mental speed.
2.) Phsycial Speed.
Physical speed you can train for quiet easily but it is alos easy to hit the limit, the mental one takes longer and is harder.
Compare yourself to a Gun fighter, the Bullet always travels at the same speed after the trigger is pulled.
But the Brain control the Finger that pulls the Trigger, and here is where the diff comes in.
Both physical and mental relaxation are the Key.
Do 2 partner exercises.
Meditation
Awareness exercises
and reaction/awareness drills preferably with multiple partners but only 1 randomly attacks.Sensory drills also help( for more pm me)
A slow mind results in a slow reaction.
Hope this helps.
A relaxed and focused SLT will losen up joints and ligaments. apply forward intent when in SLT, and when in chi sau your hand should spring forward of their own accord (in relation to forward intent - not push, just thought). Freeing up the body is essiential to stop counter productive muscled working againts the desired motion. eg disengage bicep for a punch. Use only necessary parts.
Correct structure allows for better levels of relaxation to be achieved. Focus always plays a big part to maganify all these (in WC all is tied in together to get end product)
SLT - create structure
CK - move structure
BG - Accelerate structure to achieve powerful force
Mass X Acceleration = Force
If not in contact
I think that often peoples reaction to an attack is slowed down because of to many possibilities of countering.
Thats why I have learned to do only to counters to an initial attack.
If he uses the leg, I will front kick him
If he uses an arm, I will strike.
The rest is really up to your sensitivity training, as sometimes he will be faster, so you have to turn your attack into a defence.
The good thing is that it has really cut down on my reaction time :), + your reaction towards the unexpected attack will be much more efficient
The bad thing is that until I was able to apply real sensitivity I got hit alot 
But with hard training you will get hit less and less often, and instead be able to hit him more on your initial attack.
lastly if you start training like this listen to a hard learned advice. Tell your friends and family never again to throw that succer punch at you for fun, when your not expecting it. They will get hurt pretty bad.
wingchunner and wh are right on
Some random thoughts to throw in the pot.
Anticipation or “trying too hard” will eventually be self-defeating.
“Listening” is key to responsiveness. A very good “listener” can read and nullify your intentions before you make a move, even before the thought to move is fully complete. [This is not impractical nonsense. My teacher and wingchunner’s teacher are among those who can do this. When you first experience someone who can control you more immediately and more precisely than you can control or direct yourself, it can be quite unnerving.]
How can we respond with optimized timing if we cannot read or “hear” what is happening. Even if we “listen” and read well, our responses won’t be appropriate unless we learn and practice to be very precise. Even then, the responses won’t be effective unless we practice often and repeatedly enough to naturalize correct timing. I find it helpful to consider “perception” in the allegorical context of Wing Chun as a “woman’s art.”
Emphasis on the obvious (e.g., speed and power), at the expense of the subtle, can mislead or even bring one to a dead-end. I love that Wing Chun is filled with paradox. The greatest gains are often made by giving up something (e.g., greediness, haste, power, fear, ego). It is difficult for us humans to give up enough, especially those things that are strongly linked to our animal instincts such as to be big, powerful, strong, and fast.
Regards,
Wow!
Great post KJ!
And I actually agree with Whippinghand on this one too!
(We can’t start making a habit out of this WH!)
Kevin
interesting
“Sprinters are the fastest human beings on the planet.”
Fastest what? runners,maybe. But does that necessarily mean they can hit fast? NO. If I can run really fast, does that mean I can also pitch a baseball 90 miles per hour? Doubtful. The same with the reverse of the pitcher. Speed is important but placement is even more important. You could have a lot of speed but then throw punches really fast nowwhere and get beat up. I dont really see any benefit that sparring could have other than upping stamina and maybe timing. I believe drills are better to be done than sparring. When ever I see wing chun people spar, I never see any wing chun! THey revert to boxing. THis might and might not be their faults. It’s hard to trap with gloves on. Sparring also lies to u about yor ability. If yor really good at sparring with equipment, but then I come along and punch u in the nose. Now yor on the ground bleeding and crying. What about all the wonderful sparring?
BAck to reaction time! Eversince I started chi saoing, my reaction time has gone up. All the stuff about reaction time that came from, “The Tao of Jeet Kune Do” could be true. I believe the only way to get perceptive speed is to practice drills.
anerlich
quote:
Take sprinters’ concepts (working on running technique, moving against resistance, overspeed) and look at how you can adapt them to your punches, kick and other techs. Think fast, think loose and snappy.
I don’t see how this applies to our discussion of reaction against action, unless your running (reaction) is from someone trying to kick your @ss (action). Sprinting away from an attack, maybe?
It is also in my opinion that training to be faster than your opponent is’nt practical. You may find that no matter how fast you are, you still might have to “react” to an attack by someone who is even faster than you. What then?
approach:
What I was suggesting by the use of “coverage” is an “approach” to fighting. An approach to covering an entire area that is open to an attack defensively while still attacking the opponent. Which cuts down alot of valuable “reaction” time. Know the area being attacked, time it - wait for it, and then just cover the entire area defensively while concentrating on your own attack instead of his. Now you can still be much slower than your opponent while still having plenty of time to intercept a much faster punch or kick. No sweat.
IMHO - approach is more important than speed in Wing Chun.
Wish I could explain more.
fgxpanzerz & mun hung
let me tell you little story about some sprinters.
one was an olymic sprinter(paul henderson), the other his coach (bruce gulliver) & now a proffessional rugby league conditioner & sprint coach, they also had a few of their other sprint team train with us as well.
all of these guys possesed amazing speed & reflexs which they all put down to their trainig, it is amazing what these guys could make up for in lack of technique with pure speed.
my god some of you people are just so ignorant sometimes & really must just open your mouths without even a single thought.
vts
ps another prime example of what i just said,
‘It is also in my opinion that training to be faster than your opponent is’nt practical’
where do you guys get this dribble.
Now you can still be much slower than your opponent while still having plenty of time to intercept a much faster punch or kick. No sweat.
I have to agree with VTS on this one. (although my comments may not be as direct as his 
)
If you that the above quote/ situation; would it not be better to take the quicker route AND be faster as well?