Raw speed

One of the most effective weapons a fighter can have is raw, hard earned speed. There's different types of speed including muscle speed in movement, eye speed in seeing something happen and reaction speed in reacting to seeing something happen.When it comes to eye speed and reaction speed, although there are lots of ways of improving these with certain exercises (and there are many good books today to help with this) the best way to improve this is by lots of sparring but fully concentrating every time when you spar. Gradually over time you WILL improve and as you open the fridge door, you'll instinctively be putting your hand out to catch the butter that was foolishly left balancing on the side! To work muscle speed, again sparring helps but solo drills are better as you can work fully without getting popped everytime you let your hands down for a second. A drill i like is called the red line drill which i picked up in Chuck Norris's competition karate book. You basically perform a technique or combination faster than you thought was your fastest. Its a real eyeopener when you realise you're moving with speed you didn't know was there.