Driving along behind a transport, sticking to the speed I’m at, I have fun watching all the desparate lane changing as the city zippies try to make it to work on time.
Speeding doesn’t work in the city, there are too many stoplights for it to do any good at all. It doesn’t matter what speed you are going from red light to red light. The journey time doesn’t change whether you travel 20 seconds or 15 between lights and then wait a minute at the light. The only thing that can make a difference is hitting the greens, and how do you do that? If the lights are coordinated I suspect the city won’t coordinate them to 10km over the speed limit. The best way to make the greens is to do the speed that is appropriate to the journey, not jackrabbit and brake. Poor gas mileage too.
Even on a speedway you’ve got to be going a long way for speeding to make any difference, 100 KM an hour is a mile a minute. Go 200km an hour over two miles and you will save 1 minute on your journey. That’s assuming zero time to accelerate and brake… one minute.
Budo is the same, students are constantly trying to figure out how to punch or cut faster, as if swinging at where the opponent used to be is better done fast than slow. Better to time your attack to be where the opponent is when he’s there, and unless he’s already dead or at least not paying attention, that means you don’t have to go faster than your opponent, you just need to go fast enough.
Well OK, I’m talking experienced folks here aren’t I? Speed does work if you’re dealng with beginners or if you can set up your opponent so that he’s stuck between two moves, but that only goes so far.
When the lion is behind us I don’t have to be fast, just faster than you.
Seito Bugei Juku 