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Copyright © 2004 by Kobus Huisamen. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Pictures by John Yoo.
To the trainers who made the most impact in my career: Steve Kalakoda, Henk Pelser and Ivan Hippolyte.
A bit slow on the punch?
Missing, because the target moves too quickly away?
Speed training will help.
However, if you’re to slow moving your body forwards, backwards, etc, then
Plyometrics may be the key. So look at that section also.
Training speed is easy in principle.
Speed is relative to strength and weight.
It is the strength at which you throw your fist (with a 10oz glove) towards the target.
When you have a solid foundation of technique, you should execute your techniques with ease. The more you throw them, the quicker you can throw them, because the body remembers.
However, there are certain ways of training that will develop your speed.
Single strikes
I like to use the mirror. I would stand at about a 45-degree angle towards the mirror and throw a jab.
I would then throw another one, and judge the speed in comparison to the previous one. Then, I’d throw another and compare that too.
In this way, I would perform many jabs at high speed – continuously trying to increase the speed.
Then I would ask a partner to stand in front of me so that I can throw a jab at him (without really touching his face) – which he has to block.
He can hold his hands up, but give me a space big enough for my glove to come through. I would then try to jab in between his hands before he can block the punch.
The more I practice, the better my speed gets.
The most difficult thing to do is to kick fast.
How I practice this, is to let somebody hold an impact-shield, which I’d try to kick as fast as I can.
Combinations
In 2003, I visited Vos Gym in Amsterdam to train there for a while. Hippo, the trainer, is very much into speed training.
Two months later, back at my gym in Korea, the trainer said: “Whoaa! Your punch is so fast now!” Yes, they train a lot of speed there at Vos.
What we did was to line up, facing each other. One fighter would then have to punch a combination into his partner’s gloves. Then they would switch.
For example, I’d be told to hit a left, right, left hook and right uppercut. All four punches in quick succession into my partner’s gloves.
The trainer would shout; “One!” and I’d punch the combination very quickly and the trainer would shout. “two,” and my partner would punch the same combination into my gloves, and on “three!” we’d switch again.
We’d go for count after count.
Most of the counts would follow one another with barely enough time to perform the complete combination before your partner starts punching. And when he starts punching, your hands better be there or his punches would land in your face.
This forced us to punch quicker and quicker.
Hippo made the combinations longer – sometimes up to ten strikes, mixing up punches and kicks.
This was done two to three times per week.
Back in Korea, I asked a trainer to hold pads for me for speed combinations. I told him exactly what was going to happen, but the speed still surprised him and he couldn’t put the pads in the right position quick enough and it started to fly out of his hands, as I would make contact with it before it was in the right place. At the time, I beat the lightweights in terms of speed! So everyone in the gym started to do speed training.
It worked well in my fights too. In the first fight after that, my opponent’s eyes went as big as saucers when I punched in between his hands, just as he wanted to block.
When you train this, choose your two favorite combinations to start off with.
Work them until you’re satisfied with the speed. Then add some more, until you got most of your combo’s covered.
The only problem is that some fighters train speed in a way that they don’t let it flow into their power-punching later on.
You should – or what good is speed if there is no whack behind it?
Work on your speed combinations with a partner, and then do them with power against pads.
This is, after all, what we’re after, isn’t it?
Movement
Forward movement of the body is a difficult thing to do quickly. So, I use deception.
Very few people can move towards the opponent with such speed that would take them by surprise. So, you have to set it up, by taking his attention somewhere else, first.
I start by throwing a punch or two, or a kick and use this to step closer until I’m well in range and then offload onto the opponent.
MMA – Moving in for the clinch
Many grappling based MMA fighters like to shoot in from the go. And many have ended up eating a knee in the process.
The fight game is continuously evolving and fighters learn from mistakes and adapt.
At Team Tackle (a wrestling based MMA gym in Seoul) I’ve coached wrestlers in the art of taking a striker down – without shooting in from a long distance.
I’d let them shoot at me to show them how easy it was to time them and throw a knee into the face, or just step back.
What I’ve told them is this: Start punching. Move forward using punches. And I don’t mean throwing a sloppy one-two and then dive into the takedown!
What I’m talking about is throwing solid strikes at the opponent, stepping forward each time.
Make the last punches hooks and hook around his neck, body, leg, or anywhere where you want to grab and then take him down.
Now, there is no difference in the way they punch, compared to the way they clinch – both are launched the same way, both look the same – they just land differently.
Where a hook lands against the side of your head, the “clinch punch” lands around your neck and then the grappler has a hold of you. Then you can take him down as you like.
