FMA effect of speed and empty hands

[Flipper]

A lot of masters and instructors say that FMA practice (weapons) has a direct effect on the practitioners' perception of speed. Your reaction time is faster and you perceive empty handed attacks faster, and they seem slower to you if you're used to tracking sticks moving at speed.

I'm curious to know what the FMA people here think of this.

[Diesel_tke]

I think any alive sparring will do that. I personally think the FMA advantage is in timing, distancing, and footwork.

[itwasntme]

A lot of masters and instructors say that FMA practice (weapons) has a direct effect on the practitioners' perception of speed. Your reaction time is faster and you perceive empty handed attacks faster, and they seem slower to you if you're used to tracking sticks moving at speed.

I'm curious to know what the FMA people here think of this.

What's your take on it?

I don't see how it would be any more beneficial seeing how the weapon is just an extension of your arms with, from what I've gathered from reading on Bullshido, the same basic movements. Seems to me it would be no more beneficial than sparring with somebody with a greater reach than you, unless of course weapons are involved.

[Flipper]

I think any alive sparring will do that. I personally think the FMA advantage is in timing, distancing, and footwork.

I think aliveness is absolutely essential in FMA. But what's your take on FMA's effect on hand speed and speed perception (just those two attributes)?

[Flipper]

What's your take on it?

I don't see how it would be any more beneficial seeing how the weapon is just an extension of your arms with, from what I've gathered from reading on Bullshido, the same basic movements. Seems to me it would be no more beneficial than sparring with somebody with a greater reach than you, unless of course weapons are involved.

Personally I think that FMA does have an effect on how the person perceives speed but how much it is, I can't tell.

How about those of you who do primarily empty handed training and also do FMA, any FMA effect on your EH skills?

[itwasntme]

Oh ****, lol, I quoted the wrong person in my last post.

I don't see how twirling batons would give you greater speed or reaction timing than swatting flies. It is still just an object making its way to your body. Maybe if you perceived the danger level to be higher than fists you would react faster due to adrenaline, but that could work against you too.

[Fuzzy]

Hmm. This is fairly relevant to my interests. I'm too much of a noob to FMA to say if its doing anything for my hand speed, but at least at my gym, we're told to watch the shoulders to track strikes rather than watching the weapon (the same thing I've been told in every striking style I've ever done) so I'm not sure I'm ever really "tracking the stick".

That said, defense is the biggest hole in my game, and once I've sorted that out my views may change.

I think there may be some truth in this, if only because stick fights are definitely faster and involve more strikes in a shorter space of time (again, in my limited experience, I've never fought standup with a well-trained boxer).

[Diesel_tke]

I think it would depend on the stick style you are doing. I think the close range styles would probably be really good for helping your empty hand game. Balintawak, for example. Also most knife styles since they rely on hand movement and quickness.

At long range distancing and footwork has a lot more to do with your game until you crash or close.

[Permalost]

I don't see how it would be any more beneficial seeing how the weapon is just an extension of your arms with, from what I've gathered from reading on Bullshido, the same basic movements.

There's some truth there, but its also true that the tip of a stick will move faster than, say, a punch, even if the body is moving the same speed. As someone said, you learn to track the body, not the stick, but against some people I simply have to track the stick because their attacks are flurries of abanicos, doblados etc and basically they're denying you the information you want their body to tell you. I think that while it can appear to "slow down" the perception of speed, the main thing that happens is that the FMAer learns to read people and anticipate quickly, and make better use of rhythm, timing and distance in a way that makes someone appear faster.

[DerAuslander]

I find my perception & hand speed exceptional fast when I'm dealing with drunks.