I have been asked many times how to increase punching speed. (see this post), but today, we'll focus on one aspect which will make a huge difference: retract quickly to punch quickly. I remember reading this years ago in Bruce Lee's Tao of Jeet Kune Do, that to punch quickly you must:
- Be relaxed before and during a punch because muscular tension decreases actual speed. Only tense at the point of impact.
- Throw your punch like a whip. I always taught my beginning students to visualize snapping out a towel to sting someone. You should pull back faster than you go out. In punching, that means relaxed and loose as you extend a punch, then quickly retract the hand back to the starting position.
- To this I would add that you need to "feel fast." If you think of yourself as fast, you'll remove the inhibition to speed. You've got to have that cocky Ali/Sugar Ray Leonard/Roy Jones/Pernell Whittaker attitude when you fight. You've got to feel like, as Micky would say to Rocky Balboa, "greased lightning!"
Watch this short clip of a pretty counter right.
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