When I was younger, I was obsessed with speed. I was a huge fan of the blinding-fast Bruce Lee as well as of those kung fu movies with cool wind-like sound effects for punches and kicks. More than anything, I wanted to be fast. And that was how I thought and trained for probably 20 years.
But around 10 years ago, I started to rethink the importance of speed in unarmed combat. Note that when I say “speed,” I mean the velocity of the movement (not reaction time). And when I say “mass,” I mean the mass behind the movement, not a person’s mass in general (although sometimes a person’s mass in general can also be an overwhelming advantage).
I now prefer being “heavy” as compared with being fast. Don’t get me wrong: I know you must have speed and mass (and other things, too) to be effective. But consider the following two options: (1) having average speed and above-average mass, and (2) having above-average speed and average mass. All other things being equal, which would you take? Unless I knew beforehand that my opponent was especially vulnerable to speed, I’d take the first option—average speed and above-average mass. But why?
First, I think back on my own fights. (For context, most of my fight experience has been in what would be best described as schoolyard fights. Also, I am not including sparring during training as fighting.) In the maybe six or seven fights—I know it’s not much experience, but it is my experience—I’ve had in my lifetime, in only one did I basically give up. And the reason why was because the guy hit me with such heavy blows—on my body—that I felt like I was, well, getting the hell knocked out of me every time he made contact. Basically I felt like I was being hit with a hammer. Interestingly, I don’t think this guy, who was a classmate in high school, had ever had any formal combat training. He just naturally hit with his whole body.
In all my other fights, which in some cases included guys formally trained in a variety of arts, I got hit (including on the head), tripped, and taken down, but I never felt that I was in serious trouble. In fact, in some cases getting hit and even bloodied just pissed me off even more. But when I got hit with that heavy blow from my classmate, I was done—physically and psychologically.
Also, based on my experience on both the giving and the receiving end of martial contact (e.g., a punch, a block, or a grappling maneuver), I find that what gets the recipient’s “respect” the most is when they get hit harder or controlled easier than they expected. Put another way: speed may get the attention of spectators, but a heavy blow will get the attention of your opponent.
Now let’s look at combat sports including boxing, modern MMA, wrestling, judo, etc. Except for the old-school MMA fights back in the 90s and “underground” competitions, notice that all combat sports have weight divisions—but that that there’s no such thing as speed divisions. Why divide competitors into weight classes instead of speed classes? Because whether it’s a striking art or a grappling art or something in between, a big difference in weight between participants is generally considered unfair (and more dangerous) to the lighter competitor. Who would you take the majority of the time in these some-of-the-greatest-of-all-time bouts in boxing, MMA, and freestyle wrestling, respectively: Heavyweight Muhammad Ali versus welterweight Sugar Ray Robinson? Heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko versus middleweight Georges St. Pierre? Super heavyweight Aleksandr Medved versus bantamweight Yojiro Uetake?
I know some people will say that in real-life self-defense situations, speed plays a much bigger role because all it takes is a relatively light hit to the eyes or groin or windpipe to maim or kill. I won’t completely disagree with this—just press on your own windpipe with your finger to see how fragile the area is. But there is a reason why women and children, who are generally smaller and weaker (but can often flail their arms with a good amount of speed), have self-defense classes geared specifically for them, while men, who are generally heavier (and stronger), do not.
I would also add that although it is true that for vulnerable areas and pressure points you only need a modest amount of force, I find it also true that hitting those targets on a moving, reacting opponent can be challenging. Being in a stressful situation can reduce your fine motor skills, making you less accurate. And when we’re talking about vulnerable areas and pressure points, you must be not only fast but also accurate. Don’t believe me? Try angling your finger while pressing on your windpipe and note how just a few degrees of deviation from pressing directly against the windpipe make a substantial difference in the pressure, pain, and ultimately the efficacy.
Thus, I train and teach with an emphasis on being heavy because I think it’s a heavy blow that hurts an opponent more physically and psychologically. And it turns out I can even go back to the blinding-fast Bruce Lee to support my argument. About a year ago, I came across a YouTube video in which James DeMile, one of Lee’s more well-known students, said that when he first met Lee, he was thoroughly impressed at how fast Lee was. Lee, he said, seemed to punch like 50 times a second—but they felt like bee stings and didn’t necessarily keep him from coming forward and continuing to fight. He noted that Lee himself quickly realized that blinding speed might not be enough to stop an opponent in a fight, so Lee began working with his students to figure out ways to add mass to the equation. I only wish I had been as fast as Lee in realizing that.