Too Fast To Hit?
I believe it was Al Davis who said “speed kills!”
And oh boy does it. Sure power is important. Timing is critical. Stamina matters. Toughness is a thing.
But if someone is so fast that you can’t even touch them… what an advantage.
The Problem With Many Fighters
Many martial artists are flat-footed. They walk around sluggishly and when and ONLY when they are close enough to land their strikes do they get a chance to hit.
Springy quick fighters with amazing footwork on the other hand are just a problem to deal with.
They can get in-and-out delivering their strike(s) before they can be counter punched.
They are too fast to hit. And it is because of their dedication to training proper stance and footwork.
According to some statistics I’ve seen the person who lands the 1st punch wins a street fight 90% of the time. Now I think there is more going on than simply who hits first but let’s just run with that stat for now.
The slow flat-footed fighter will always be at the mercy of the faster fighter.
The faster fighter gets to stay out of range. They get to determine when the 2 fighters get close enough to each other in order to hit.
This gives them TONS of control over the fight. Unless of course they are in a cramped space.

The Solution to Flat-Footed Fighters…
You must dedicate yourself relentlessly to practicing your stance and your footwork.
If you aren’t ok with being a little bored and getting tons of repetitions of the fundamentals then go ahead and resign yourself to mediocrity.
But if you want to be too fast to hit then continue on…
Too Fast To Hit Starts With STANCE
Your stance is key to being fast.
A poor stance will force you to walk / fall in the direction you want to move while a correct stance will allow you to push-off or spring in the direction you want to go.
It is all about Positive Shin Angles…
Why do sprinters start off on blocks? As you can see it allows their shins to roughly point in the direction that they want to go. In their case it is purely forward.
The way that we move is by driving force into the ground and the direction that our shins are pointing (ankle to knee) is the direction that the force will push away from the ground.

Now imagine someone who wants to jump straight up. They would not start from this sprinter stance. The would lower their body by bending their knees, folding at the hips, and lowering their chest. They would want their shins to point a bit more upward since they are trying to go up.
If you want to be too fast to be hit you need positive shin angles to point in the direction you want to move. And your stance must maintain those shin angles constantly or else you will not be ready to move until you first get ready… and if you have to “get ready” before you move then by definition that means you are slow.
Lightning Fast Stance
There are 4 primary keys to a lightning fast stance:
Stance Width
The width of your stance will make the biggest impact on your positive shin angles… which make the biggest impact on your speed.
The general rule is that your feet should be about 1.5 times the width of your shoulders.
If you are shorter and lighter you might be able to go 1.25 times and if you are taller and heavier like me you might go 1.75 times. Some people even go 2 times shoulder width.
Now understand that stance is not a fixed thing. It needs to adapt. Primarily it will adapt like this:
When you are fighting on the outside in what I call lunging range – you want to have this wider stance because speed is critical to creating the entry strike.
When you get close enough to clench up then your stance will narrow to somewhere between shoulder width and 1.25 times shoulder width.
Going super wide will make you feel un-athletic so no horse stance please.

Stance Angle
You want to angle your body about 45 degrees to your opponent.
This does 2 things:
1) It allows you to hit with all 4 limbs
If you are too sideways you can’t really hit with your rear punch or kick.
2) It gives you positive shin angles to move 3 dimensionally
If you are too sideways you don’t have any positive shin angles to move laterally… only forward and backward.
If you are too squared up then you can move side to side but not forward and back.
Foot Direction
If you externally rotate your feet you will notice that your shin angles turn slightly upwards… not what we want.
If you rotate your feet internally, especially pigeon-toed then you will notice that your knees drop in and your shins get a more aggressive angle to push off with. That IS what we want.
So you can either use slightly pigeon-toed feet or have them point in parallel with each other at a 45 degree angle to your opponent as seen in the image above.
The other 2 advantages of having internally rotated feet is that you get traction on the ground. It feels like you have cleats on. Unless you are on a slippery surface and then stance and footwork are all out the door anyway.
And when you internally rotate your hips you tend to wind up the body’s facia which creates a springy athleticism. Many great athletes take advantage of this.
Think external rotation in the legs for stability (like deadlifting) and internal rotation for springy agility (like sports).
Trunk Stability, Height, and Angle
If you nail your lower body stance but leave your upper body loose and tall you will still be slow… especially if you are taller and heavier like me.
When you move you want to move as one unit. If your upper body is too loose you will get this whiplash effect where your feet move but your upper body lags behind.
The solution is simple. Lower your center of mass a little. That means bend your knees, push your butt back slightly, and chest forward slightly.
You don’t want to get super tight but you do want a little stability running through your torso.
So try this…
Get the stance described above. Now push both feet outward into the ground. You won’t go anywhere because they are both pushing equally. You should feel some tension building up in your hips and glutes.
Now alternate rapidly between pushing with your left and right feet into the ground. Back and forth really fast… but don’t move. Just stay stable. Don’t let your hips sway back and forth… keep them in place.
Now you are ready for footwork.
Too Fast To Hit Footwork
If you skipped working on your stance what I’m about to teach you will make you faster but you will be leaving SOOO much speed on the table.
What NOT To Do
Don’t shuffle your feet. Shuffling is when you bring your feet closer together in order to move.
For example… if you want to move forward shuffling would be bringing the back foot closer to the front foot and then the front foot moves forward.
That is the exact opposite of what we want.
Shuffling conserves energy so it is ok to do when you are out of striking range and are just moving around. But for speed do what I’m about to teach you.
What TO Do
Paul Vunak calls this “step-and-slide.” I usually call it “step-and-replace.”
Here is the simple rule. We don’t walk, we PUSH OFF or spring off.
If you want to move forward you push off with the back foot (just like you did earlier when you rapidly alternated pushing your feet into the ground) and then you step forward with the front foot.
Remember this mnemonic: “the foot that you step with has the same name as the direction you want to move.”
So you want to move forward… you step with the… forward foot. Which of course means that you push off with the back foot.
Ditto if you want to move backward… you step with the… back foot. Which means you push off with the front foot.
How about left? That’s right! You step with the left foot and push off with the right foot. And of course vice versa if you want to move right.
Simple right?
But knowing it is not enough… you must practice until you do it automatically without thinking about it.
Hot Lava Drill
Ready to get too fast to hit?
Duh of course you are. But remember you must maintain all of the things that you have learned up to this point while you do the footwork drill I’m about to show you.
Get in your stance.
Pretend there is hot lava right in front of your front foot.
Now push off of the back foot and step forward onto the hot lava.
But that crap is HOT so bounce back as quickly as you can to where you were before.
Pop-Pop! Super quick.
Repeat that for 15 reps.
Now do the same thing moving backwards with the hot lava behind you. Move back and forward really quick.
Now do the same thing to the right for 15 reps. And now to the left for 15 reps.
Make sure to maintain your 4 key stance items:
Hot Lava with a Jab
Ok application time.
Our goal is to be too fast to hit. That means we are outside of our opponent’s reach but we can’t reach them either.
We are going to use our footwork to quickly hop in, land our jab, and hop back out hot lava-style before they can counter us.
So do the same hot lava drill you did before just add in a jab.
And yes I would still train all 4 directions so you can be a master of moving and hitting.
What you will notice happen as you progress is that you can seamlessly move in any direction with a jab and get out of range.
Maybe you move forward with a jab and hop to the right to get to your opponent’s back away from their power (rear) hand.
Conclusion
If you truly want to be too fast to hit then you will dedicate yourself to training this on a regular basis. Schedule it… even if it is just 15 reps each direction every day. You will be amazed how quick you can become in a handful of months.
I’ve been doing this drill for years and it has opened up a whole world of controlling the fight from the outside.
Until next time,
Brian