speed improvement

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speed improvement

Postby Drayden » Fri May 11, 2007 2:19 pm

I'm lookin for a way to increase attack and defense speed (well general reaction time.....) and i was wondering if anyone knew some rock solid methods. I'm a Sword and Board guy myself and was lookin for some tricks to help me speed up my shield and my sword arm. any suggestions would be great. thanks for the help guys.
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Postby Vak » Fri May 11, 2007 5:35 pm

Juggle. Hand Eye is so important with juggling. You will for sure see results.Either that or take Tae Kwon Do for 20 years like that guy from fight science. Wow he was fast.
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Postby Georghiu Leonte » Sat May 12, 2007 8:35 am

The biggest/best way is practice as well. I would 'Shadow' swing your weapons and just try for speed/accuracy.
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Re: Methods

Postby Calarn the Black » Mon May 14, 2007 8:37 pm

Lifting weights helps.
Shadow swinging helps a lot as well.
Also, swinging with your whole body creates more power and torque in a swing. Swing with your body, not with your wrist and arm alone.
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Postby Borric » Tue May 15, 2007 12:18 am

Shield: Practice doing your back blocking using a swift sharp movement (Don't throw your arm back). Pretend that your name is being called because of a backstabber and you need to defend yourself quickly. When you get the speed down, the start doing to same move but with an exaggerated sweeping motion. When doing so, swing on your foot so you are doing an about face (The pull on the shield will ideally cause your body to turn faster.) Then as your speed increases, tighten the sweep so that you can turn on a dime with your shield on your back.

You then can employ this move with a lower leg attack, and use the exaggerated sweeping of the shield to move out of your attackers range, while both protecting your back, and getting in a hopefully debilitating shot.
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Postby Soo Ma Tai » Thu May 17, 2007 10:41 am

Speed comes from muscle memory. If you have to think about what you are going to do, you will be slower than someone who relies on instinct.

To develop the muscle memory heres a couple of things you can do....

1. Set up a target of some kind, something with a few 4" circles on it. Then throw your shots, slowly at first, to get the feel of exactly what motion it will take to hit the target. Add speed slowly until you can hit your target every time. Now you have shot accuracy.

2. Relax, allow your body to be relaxed, not stiff. The more you can relax, the faster your shots will go. Think of your body like a whip, flexible. You will gain a great deal of speed this way.

3. Now start practicing combo shots, start with 3 hit combos, then develop 4 and 5 hit combos. Once you have these combos down, and can throw them without thinking, remain relaxed and smooth, and hit where you want to hit, you will develop great speed.
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Postby To'Gur » Thu May 17, 2007 12:45 pm

use heavier weapons to practice with, then lighter weapons for actual fighting.

or you could just do it the easy way and fight a lion
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Postby GvK » Thu May 17, 2007 12:53 pm

I used to play high-level racquetball in part (seriously) to improve my overall speed and "forehand" and "backhand" shots. I'm not sure it helped per se, but it sure did not hurt.
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Postby Skorr » Thu May 17, 2007 5:59 pm

Intent is more important than speed or accuracy. Those are just outgrowths.
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Postby William MacGregor » Thu May 17, 2007 7:33 pm

Soo Ma Tai, has some great advice as what he is talking about was used historically. Here is a great website that goes into making and using a "pell" to exercise and practice sword play

http://www.thearma.org/essays/pells.htm
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Postby The Great Gigsby » Fri May 18, 2007 1:33 am

To'Gur wrote:use heavier weapons to practice with, then lighter weapons for actual fighting.
I don't think this is a good idea. It's important to cross train, and using weights to build upper body strength is a good idea, but if you're going to compete with specific equipment, you should learn to compete with that equipment in the first place. Fighting with foreign equipment is almost always a disadvantage.
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Postby Kyrian » Fri May 18, 2007 6:19 am

kit wrote:
To'Gur wrote:use heavier weapons to practice with, then lighter weapons for actual fighting.
I don't think this is a good idea. It's important to cross train, and using weights to build upper body strength is a good idea, but if you're going to compete with specific equipment, you should learn to compete with that equipment in the first place. Fighting with foreign equipment is almost always a disadvantage.


Actually, from what I've read (I don't have the sources readily available but I'll try and find them), I believe there is a historical precedence for training with heavier weapons, both in the Roman legions and in training medieval squires.
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Postby Kyrian » Fri May 18, 2007 8:01 am

Here's are some excerpts from an article I found on the ARMA website:

Use of wooden training swords are actually known to date back to ancient times. The Egyptians practiced a form of fencing sport using thin knobbed pointed sticks and the Romans specifically employed them for combat training. From Philip Francis’s 1743 translation of the Roman poet Horace we also find that, “The Gladiators, in learning their Exercises, played with wooden Swords, called rudes.” In B. Holyday’s 1661 translation of the Roman poet Juvenal we read: “The fencer’s staffe or waster…was call’d rudis (as some think) because with such cudgels they practiz’d the rudiments of fencing, before they came in publick to fight at sharp.” In the ancient Roman arena preliminary events occasionally included bloodless, sometimes farcical, duels between paegniarii or lusorii, who fought with wooden weapons called arma lusoria. Among the gladiators, if a man repeatedly survived the arena and lived long enough to retire, a symbolic wooden sword or rudis was awarded as a token of discharge from service (Michael Grant, Gladiators, Barnes and Noble, 1967, p. 74 & 100). One classical historian has concluded that Roman gladiators trained with wooden swords at a straw man or a two-meter high wooden post called a palus (precursor to the Medieval pell). The same source tells us to give the gladiators strength training these wooden weapons were heavier than the real ones. (L. Friedlander-Drexel. Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, as cited in Grant, Gladiators, p. 40). The emperor Caligula himself was known to have engaged in practice fights against gladiators using wooden swords. (Grant, p. 97).



Describing the traditional training of soldiers, the Roman military writer Vegetius told how young legionnaire recruits were given a “double-weight shield frame and foil, so that when the recruit takes up real, lighter weapons, as if freed from the heavier weight, he will fight in greater safety and speed.” (M. P. Milner. Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science, Liverpool, 1993). The original Latin term used by Vegetius was not “foil”, but ligneas caluas, with ligneas meaning wood or wooden and caluas meaning cudgels, stick, or practice sword. In his 1572 version of the 5th century text on training of soldiers by the Roman military writer Vegetius, John Sadler used both the terms “wooden waster” as well as “cudgels” and referred to “great wodden cowgels as heavy agayne as their usual…wasters”.[10] Finally, Philemon Holland’s English translation in 1600 of the 7th century Roman historian Livy described, “Foule worke they made with their wodden wasters and headlesse pikes” (XL. vi. 1063).


This is the entire article: http://www.thearma.org/essays/wasters.htm
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Postby Roanoa Kiran » Fri May 18, 2007 1:18 pm

I agree, traing with a heavy weapon can definetly improve your speed. I have two swords i use a lot, the wieght on each one is distributed pretty evenly however one is quite a bit heavier, so i train with it almost more then i use my regular sword. I think it has imporved my speed greatly.
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Postby jacknife » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:57 pm

Im going half and half on this.
Practice FENCING w/ a slow sword so you HAVE to improve your reactions.
for practice shots, use your normal one.
as for targets, you and an unarmed noob in a pit makes good target practice.
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Postby Bodhi » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:23 pm

One thing that I do is not reacting to what is there but what should be there in regards to using my shield. To do this you need to be constantly aware of where you are on the field and where your opponents are. This is especially helpful when fighting more the one opponent. When you rush one person in a group you need to realize that the others will be behind you so after you make the necessary blocks from the counter of the guy in front of you, whip your shield behind you and if need be follow through with a turn and swing. But be careful to keep control of your swings. You need to be mindful of where you are most vulnerable in relationship to where your opponents are then you need to react to that vulernability. Basically your just going to be playing the odds of what direction your going to get hit from.
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Postby Mekoot Rowan » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:18 am

But be careful to keep control of your swings.


If find it a bit humorous that you're the one giving this bit of advice Bohdi.

Though the rest of your commentary helps explain why you throw you shield behind your back all the time.
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Postby Bodhi » Fri Dec 21, 2007 8:34 pm

well, lets face it, i didnt have much control to begin with. Buts its been a while since I've had that problem. but boy, those were some tough years...for everyone else. :D
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