On Fear

My contribution

I was sizing up my opponent before the North American Grappling Association white-belt finals. He looked strong, fit, he'd won his matches with good technique – I was intimidated. After I triangle-choked him he came over to congratulate me. He said "Man, sizing you up before the match, I was so intimidated!"

Isao Okano

Okano was a champion, Olympian, and coach during judo’s golden age.

If I may be permitted a personal confession, never in the countless judo tournaments in which I have participated have I had a feeling of perfect security. I am always pursued by an uneasiness that I can only describe as fear directed toward the opponent I must encounter. When I reach the hall where the tournament is to be held, I always experience a vague sense of bleakness…

Though I cannot ascribe exact causes to the feeling, I am perfectly aware of its manifestations. The blood drains from my face, and tears well up in my eyes. I cannot carry on coherent conversations. Even when I eat nothing in the early part of the day, in the afternoon I am not hungry. I begin to have doubts abut myself: perhaps I am a coward…

The only thing for me to do is exert my best mental and technical efforts and fight to the last. After concentrating all of my attention on this idea, I assume the attitude that the imminent contest is my last one. … This has always helped me to reach the point where I can wager everything on winning and losing. Put in extreme terms, my approach to judo can be summed up in the idea of one last meet.

– Vital Judo

Georges St. Pierre

GSP is an all-time-great mixed-martial-arts champion of the welterweight division.

I used to suffer extreme nervousness. It’s a normal thing. I couldn’t sleep at night. Before my fight with Hughes, I haven’t sleep [sic] for two days before the fight. I was so nervous, it was amazing.

The thing is you’re always nervous. This nervousness will never go away. The old people used to tell me: “Oh George, it will go away.” No, it’s not true. It’s never going to go away. The only thing, though, is that you will learn how to deal with it. You will learn how to accept it - as a friend.

– The Striking Truth

Rickson Gracie

Rickson was the paragon of Brazilian jiu-jitsu in early no-holds-barred competition.

Fear is always present. For me that's good. You must be afraid. If you're not afraid, you're not intelligent. It's very important to respect your opponent and be afraid of what he can do.

But this goes back to emotional control. Don't let the fear get strong. It's there, but you keep it in a shell. As soon as things start, you have to believe in what you know and in yourself, and turn on the automatic pilot. Just do it and don't think about it or your fear.

Only the stupid don't feel fear.

– interview with Jose Fraguas

Cus D’Amato

Mike Tyson’s trainer had many thoughts on the topic.

Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.

– ???

Heroes and cowards feel exactly the same fear. Heroes just react to it differently. On the morning of a fight, a boxer wakes up and says, ‘How can I fight? I didn’t sleep at all last night.’ What he has to realize is, the other guy didn’t sleep either. Later, as the fighter walks toward the ring, his feet want to walk in the opposite direction. He’s asking himself how he got into this mess. He climbs the stairs into the ring, and it’s like going to the guillotine. Maybe he looks at the other fighter, and sees by the way he’s loosening up that his opponent is experienced, strong, very confident. Then when the opponent takes off his robe, he’s got big bulging muscles. What the fighter has to realize is that he’s got exactly the same effect on his opponent, only he doesn’t know it. And when the bell rings, instead of facing a monster built up by the imagination, he’s simply up against another fighter.

– Ross Enamait blog post, Dealing with doubt, which contains great insight from that elite trainer as well

You must understand fear so you can manipulate it. Fear is like fire. You can make it work for you: it can warm you in the winter, cook your food when you’re hungry, give you light when you are in the dark, and produce energy. Let it go out of control and it can hurt you, even kill you. Fear is a friend of exceptional people.

– ???

I get them in excellent condition. Knowing how the mind is and the tricks it plays on a person and how an individual will always look to avoid a confrontation with something that is intimidating, I remove all possible excuses they’re going to have before they get in there. By getting them in excellent condition, they can’t say when they get tired that they’re not in shape.

– Ross Enamait blog post Understanding Temperament, which also has video of Tyson being comforted before one of his first boxing matches

Chael Sonnen

Mixed-martial-arts contender.

You’re never ready. You’re just next.

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza

Decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion and mixed-martial-arts contender.

I like to feel fear.

I feel fear of defeat and fighting, but the more I fear the more I want to face it.

If I fear a fighter, then I want to fight him. Where I feel fear, that is where I want to go.

So, fear is part of the athlete, and we have to be stronger and overcome it.

– interview, Rickson Gracie’s Budo Challenge

Ulysses S. Grant

The civil war general found his opponent’s army had fled their position.

It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.

– autobiography

Sam Sheridan

Author and amateur mixed-martial-arts competitor.

We have an innate hatred of fear, and we climb into the cage and prove to ourselves that it is nothing to be afraid of. Even this extreme situation, this death match in a cage in front of screaming fans, is nothing to be afraid of.

–A Fighter’s Heart, page 96