Control Your Fear
A human person is made up of a variety of fear and anxieties. The strongest instincts, as we all know, are survival instincts.
When we feel that our lives are in danger in high-stress situations, our minds can react with a high dose of fear. As a result, dread of combat is a common occurrence. It’s a normal human reaction.
A fight in and of itself is an extremely stressful situation. It frequently leads to legal issues, injuries, and even death. As a result, there are several things to be worried of.
In this article we will try to shad some light on the common saying `fight or flight`, there relationship and ways to overcome this fear.
Humans began looking for explanations for their concerns with the growth of scientific fields such as psychology in the recent society. For the first time, science allowed us to peer deeply into ourselves and discover ways to overcome our concerns.
Fight and fear
It is common knowledge that all fears have a strong link to stress. As a result, fighting at MMA event or in public areas is a distinct source of stress for each individual. Fear is frequently mentioned by boxers and MMA athletes in public forums. So then what to expect as a normal person if even these elite athletes enter the ring or cage with huge pressure and fear.
In the early months of our adventures, we were all nervous and afraid as newcomers. Despite their eagerness to learn and enjoy, most novice martial arts students fear pain, injury, and failure. Also, we’ve all heard of at least one guy who was a monster in the gym but couldn’t defend himself on the street. No matter how talented you are, you won’t be successful without a strong mindset.
How fear affect all of us?
Fear is a key factor in the abilities, hard to remain calm and accept the situations. It is cause and effect.
Heartbeats will bump up that cause a faster and heavier breathing or stop you from breathing at all.
Directly impact your ability to move and it may freezes the person completely. However luckily we have a built in survival mode which kicks n subconsciously. To start with the flinching effect upper body moves away from the threat and arms arm raise up to protect our CPU (head, face, neck). As it bypass the conscious mind it is an incredible fast reaction. No planning or patterned movement there before the conscious mind catch up. Thinking of this everyone of us should focus get to know our fears and reactions.
Let’s face it: fear is a creation that a man builds and must conquers. When it comes to fear of fight it all goes down to few triggers like uncertainty of our fighting abilities, bad outcome from prior fighting, fear from injuries or death, not able to protect your loved once or embarrassment in front of friends and family.
Have you ever watch boxing or MMA fight?
Regardless they did a great 4-6weeks camp to prepare first seconds / minutes in round1 almost always slow and athletes are hesitant to fight. They need to warm up mentally and physically to the fighting pressure. In street scenarios no one has that luxury to prepare especially if the attack is an ambush. We have to build up ability to stop the emotions from turning into fear and panic.
To understand fight fear and control it you must `fight`. Putting yourself into scenarios as close real as possible will help you to deepen your own knowledge of your fears. The more you understand them, the less threatening they will become. It’s critical to understand and embrace your anxieties. To overcome the opponent, you must first understand who you are up against.
Give yourself time regularly to envision fearful situations. Take few deep breaths, and begin to think about the things you are most scared of. Heavy blows, pain, and any current troubles may bombard you, but imagine facing them head-on.
Your mind will settle down and focus on the problem if you take deep breaths and isolate yourself. It will undoubtedly be challenging and uncomfortable at first. The visions will become more calming with time, and the worry of fighting will have less of an impact on you.
Take command of your emotions
Emotional reactions are often harmful, especially in high-stress circumstances such as fighting. It is also ineffective in resolving difficulties in your personal life. Learning to regulate these things, on the other hand, is really difficult.
Emotions trigger a variety of instincts that lead you away from what is logical and sensible. In almost every conflict, we may find evidence of emotional reactions.
A more skilled combatant is always more composed, focused, and disciplined.
Remember, continuously prepare both mind and body. To feel safe yet challenged, study yourself and others in a supportive environment. Participating regularly in a martial art club could further teach you to overcome the above obstacles regardless they are mental or physical.
To get a good ally in your corner you should consider to open yourself up to your coach about the problems you are facing. You might think your issues are unique, but many previous martial arts students have likely faced similar challenges, and the instructors are well-prepared to help you.
In summary
- control your emotions by envisioning your biggest fear
- breath into the mental and physical pain
- go to gym build your body muscle up to grow confidence
- join a martial art club to challenge your physical pain level and boost your confidence further.
Bonus:
3 points to deal with fear in a street fight
No.1 Realize that the adrenaline dump is a good thing. It works on your favour. It`s a team of wild horses and if you learn how to control those horses you get super power
No.2 Control your breath
- before fight practise not hyperventilating or hold your breath
- in fight, breathing big and deep even towards the hyperventilation and not holding the breath
No.3 How you train, nature of the training should be progressive desensitization to stress, to conflict, to violence, and that will come in super handy if you ever have to use your martial art skills to a street encounter.
You have further thoughts? I love to hear about them.