Becoming a Better Fighter By Overcoming Reaction Time

Most MMA fighters today, like those in the UFC, try desperately to reduce and virtually eliminate their reaction time by training their bodies to move faster. Their main focus is on tuning their muscles to move quicker. Their belief is that through muscle memory, they can react faster in a fight and gain a much needed edge to win. This philosophy has its merits and to some degree it does work, but the human body can only be trained to move so fast. It has its limits and when two people who trains in such a way face off, their muscle memorization would more often than not, nullify each other.

Training in martial arts teaches how to observe reality and predict what is about to happen and position the body in the desired place to counter what is to happen. This not only applies to a fight but also carries over to real life. Most
martial arts that have been developed over the millennia is not just about training the body but the mind as well. It teaches not to try and overcome human limitations but to work with it.

Unfortunately, due to several factors that is beyond human control, most of the those teachings have been lost. There are some that exist today amongst the many forms of modern martial arts that exist today.

Muscle memory can refine the human body so that it can perform at optimum efficiency. It refines a fighter's skill and makes the body better, but the human body is still a human body and it will always have its boundaries. Training the muscles to move quicker does not eliminate reaction time. While muscle memorization makes the body stronger and faster, the body still relies on the brain to function. If a fighter sees a punch too late he will not be able to block or dodge it no matter how developed his muscles are.

When the human eye perceive an action, the information is sent to the brain where it is processed and the brain sends information to the body to react. This is why reaction time is impossible to eliminate if we rely on common training methods used by MMA fighters. It will always take a split second before we can react. However there are martial art forms that teach how to perceive the world through the mind instead of the eyes.

Muscle memory still depends on reacting to an action seen through human eyes and such will always be subject to reaction time. There will always be a gap between the time something happens and the time the human brain can respond to it. Even in Formula One racing, a sport so fast that it demands the sharpest reaction time from the drivers, from the time the driver sees the starting lights turn green to the time it takes the him to start pressing down on the gas pedal, takes a minimum time of one tenths of a second. One tenths of a second is very quick and is achievable in MMA, however, if you see a foot coming towards your face less than one tenths on a second too late, it will still hit you before you can react.

The gap between the time that an action is executed to the time it takes to respond to the action will always be there if you continue to train and perceive a fight as a linear event happening before your eyes. Waiting for an action and reacting to it results to reaction time. Unless you change the way you view things and learn to move with it or before it happens you will always be subject to reaction time. Bashing at each other with a fine tuned body while reacting to each other's movements makes for a good fight but not necessarily a better fighter.

Reaction time can be divided into three distinct types that are easy to define and understand. The first one is reaction time that happens in the past. Simply put, reaction time that happens in the past is when you see something coming but does not have enough time to pass the information through the nervous system, process it in the brain and respond. This kind of reaction time can get you knocked out or get you involved in a car accident. It is very undesirable yet completely unavoidable if we rely too much on our eyes.

The second type is called present reaction time. This happens in real time as the action occurs. This is when people are far enough to see the action coming and react to it in time. This kind of reaction time is what we normally see when we are far enough from where the action originated to give us enough time to process it and react. Unfortunately in fights and in real life situations, we are not always given enough space or time to react.

If we limit ourselves to physical boundaries then there will only be two types of reaction time. However the mind can overcome physical boundaries and produce a third type of reaction time. In Japanese, there is a phrase that says "Mushin no shin", this means mind of no mind. It means free the mind from everything, including physical boundaries. Through this, a fighter can view everything from a distance even if he is physically close to the opponent and move simultaneously as the opponent attacks. To create space and distance through the mind is to see the world from a better view point.

The ability to make mental adjustments to perceive the world at a better angle gives the fighter a great advantage. He can make better decisions not only in fights but in real life too. It allows for more intuitive actions that results to a smoother life and better relationships with others. Martial arts training will help achieve this state but it takes years of dedicated training to be able to maintain such state in order to have complete awareness in other aspects of life. It is a higher state of being that will lead to enlightenment.

Training the body to move faster will make you a better fighter to some degree, but it does not make you complete. Instead of trying to go faster try to slow everything down with your mind. Becoming a complete fighter, demands that a fighter not only train his body but his mind too. Finding harmony between mind and body and training to achieve awareness of everything around you and gain intuition will make you a great fighter and an outstanding human being. Becoming a complete person and attaining enlightenment is the true goal of all real martial arts.

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