Importance of Combat Fear

Types of Fear

From my perspective there are 2 types of fears. 1.) A personal “challenge” fear. For example – I have a tattoo on my chest saying: Conquer your inner fears. To me, this means don’t let the fear of doing something hold you back in life. One of those things was fighting in a MMA fight. I was afraid of fighting against another man who was as ready, as prepared, and as skilled as I was. 2.) There is the fear of actually being in a fight or facing something that is fearful; that is when the “flight or fight” instinct takes over. When you’re in a cage though, you don’t have the flight option! But for this topic, I am going to address the actual fear of facing an opponent, where flight is not an option. We will call it “Combat Fear”.

Combat Fear: A tool or a problem

Fear can be used as a tool or as a crutch when it comes to fighting. Fear (in a fight situation) is your body and mind’s natural reaction for preparing itself for combat. You will feel your heart race, your body temperature go up, you will become more sensitive, you tolerance for pain will increase and your reactions will become quicker. The hard part is learning to deal and accept these reactions. This will probably happen right when you realize there is no way out, you are fighting. When you are actually IN the fight – instinct takes over. Instinct is a whole other topic.

Accept Fear into our hearts

The best way to recognize combat fear is to realize and point out what it is going on in your body. Tell yourself what is happening, embrace the feeling of the heightened awareness, don’t try to control it, ride it. This won’t take away the feeling of being afraid, but you will know what it is, and that it can HELP you. You maybe able to let you use fear as a tool instead of a crutch.