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@philipbrewer I’m trying to do a similar thing with weights training: first movement fast — lift the weight with my legs, for example — then slow on the return — slowly lower the weight. I’d never thought about the need for explosive power in sword fighting, but you explain it well.
@Miraz Thanks! Slow lowering is important for avoiding injury, and doesn’t reduce the usefulness of the fast movement for training power/explosiveness.
I think my real problem was just that I had little natural explosiveness, and didn’t understand (as a child or young adult) that it was trainable.