A valid point. Ive been in alot of fights through the years. Even the times I knew I had the opponent beat, even people I had beaten before, I was still scared.

Fear is not your enemy. Fear is important. Without fear, it would make it hard to determine the many dangers a person may face everyday. Fear of losing your car or house keeps you going to work. Fear of losing your wife keeps you faithful, fear of fighting, can keep you from putting yourself in position to have to fight in the first place. The one true concern you should have is not the fear, but letting the fear control you to a point thats counterproductive.

Even in war, fear exists. Soldiers, even heroes have fear. They simply realize what else is at stake and overcome their fear but the fear still exists. And BP, I hope I am not over analyzing this.

It is a natural response to confrontation. Hence the whole fight or flight syndrome. Everytime I have been in a situation that could have resulted in a physical confrontation, even if I am angry, there is still fear. Sometimes I redirect the fear INTO anger to focus it and use it.

I do agree with you completely BP. If I am in a serious situation where I could be injured or killed, I will fight like there are no consequences to my actions then deal with the outcome later. First priority is to escape and if I can not do that, then I must beat my attacker.

Scottie

The only thing i really fear if i ever think about fighting is being killed or being permently damaged. i used to get into alot of fights and now i have two broken knuckels as a result so i stopped. when your aculey in a fight your not really going to be overwhelmed by fear your going to be angry and wanting to hurt the other person witch may lead to you seriously getting hurt becuse your not thinking straight or seriously hurting them (i guess thats why you get taughty discipline in MA's)so fear is a good thing becuse it keeps you under control and leads you to find safer ways out of such confrontations the best way would be not to completly get rid of fear just keep it there to help bring you to your senses and keep you under control you just need to learn to act calm and confident etc in front of your opposition and be ready to fight if needed so i guess you just need to learn to keep your fear under control which to me seems like a very difficult thing to do...

I believe a man whos says he has no fear is a liar, or very very naive.

Fear is mostly A "pre-fight" thing. Once you're involved, you're too busy to be afraid. You're involved in the altercation.

To borrow an analogy, you're standing on a high diving board, thinking about how far from the water you are and everything else that's going through your mind. Once in the air and on the way, you're no longer afraid. You're simply reacting and doing your best.

That's about the same for fighting as well. In other words, you're going to feel fear. Once engaged, it's just "on". Don't sweat it.


-John

Apollonaire Said

Apollonaire said,
'Come to the edge'
'No, it's too high'
'Come to the edge'
'No, we'll die'
'Come to the edge'
'No.....'
'Come to the edge'
They came to the edge,
And Apollonaire pushed them,
And they flew.


Anonymous.

dude your better off avoiding fights.....but gichen funakoshu (spelling is wrong i think sorry) once said "dont think you have to win. think that you dont have to lose" be confident.

If I am ever forced to defend myself, I always get a huge adrenaline rush and nearly forget all that I have learned. In my experience, there are two ways to overcome this:

1) Relax and put yourself in a sparring match at your own dojo after you get attacked. Push your opponent back and step into a fighting stance and begin to throw out techniques when he comes back at you. Prentend like its just a full contact match without pads

2) Use Kumite if your dojo practices it. I know most Okinawan Karate schools do, (thats my background). Kumite means "pre-arranged sparring", and there are different sets where you know where your opponent is going to attack, reducing the uncertainty of the attack. So if your dojo does practice it, use a pre-arranged technique depending on how he attacks and what style of MA you practice.

But my best advice is to just walk away. Theres no shame in backing down to some jerk trying to start stuff with you. You have nothing to prove. I'm a bb and back down to more fights than I should. But if he makes any physical contact with you, he attacked you first and you need to kick his ass.

well adrenaline does take raise your pain threshold, so maybe..just don't worry?

i suppose you could do a lot of conditioning, to the point that you are confident you can take a few hits...