Fear

            "The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage after, not before."-Archie Gates (George Clooney in the movie Three Kings)           

            Going into my first fight ever I wondered if I would get nervous or not. What would it be like? I had no way of knowing. Would I freeze and even be able to perform? Would I get so nervous beforehand that I would throw up? We attempt to envision how things will be but when going into the unknown, or even the known for that matter, we truly have no idea. No matter how much training we have done, no matter how many years we have put in, nothing can compare to what it is like to go 'live', to truly be in the midst of what it is that we have been training all this time to do.  

            I have always been naturally an extremely calm person and only a handful of times throughout my life had I ever been in any real fights, although the ones I did manage to get in were of the ridiculous variety, once against 12 people. No matter how many street fights or altercations you have been in, nothing compares to what it is like getting in the ring. This is a reason I find it comical when I ask a beginner if they have had any training and they say, "Naw, but I be fighting in the streets sooooo...." Not only is that a sign that this person has no idea what they are doing but it also lets me know that they will probably be even more difficult to train than a person that has never fought because they have this preconceived notion that they actually know what they are doing. This is another topic all together so I will save that for another time. 

            Walking out to that first fight, I was surprised to see just how calm I actually was. Looking back, I did have a bit of tunnel vision and it was all a blur but I do not recall having many nerves about it. As I developed and had more and more fights I continued to notice that I never had any issues with nerves, and at the time assumed that most other fighters were the exact same way. It was not until many years later that I realized just how odd I was.  

            Coming up on my first time fighting in Thailand I thought, "Is this the one that's going to make me nervous?" I mean if anything was going to cause it this one would but again, walking out to that fight, I had this overwhelming sense of peace. Maybe this comes from knowing that I am living my dream, knowing what it took for me to get me here, understanding where I would be if I had never turned my life around, or maybe I am just a weirdo. The next enormous fight after that was less than a year later fighting for the King’s Birthday in Thailand (12/7/07). Surely fighting in front of 300,000 people on the biggest Muay Thai event would surely do it. Walking out in front of that sea of humanity, so many that it almost looked like fields of grass as opposed to human beings, you cannot even wrap your brain around it, surely the nerves would get to me then, but no, calmer than ever.  

            In my amateur days, I had previously learned the perils of not having any nerves. Being nervous is a horrible feeling, as anyone knows, especially when it comes to needing to be at your best. The flip side of that, however, can be just as bad. It may be a little more comfortable but it is much more dangerous. Nerves keep you sharp; they keep you focused, get your adrenaline going and help get you in the zone. When you are in a life and death situation the worst thing you can do is feel like it is another walk on the beach. One of my very first amateur fights I went into with absolutely zero adrenaline. I remember continually talking to myself, "Ok, we're about to fight, time to get it together." Standing in the ring and still nothing. “What the hell is wrong with me?” Next thing I knew my opponent headed straight at me and yet nothing, fortunately after a round or two, I snapped out of it but those first few were some of the worst I had ever experienced. No nerves meant no adrenaline, which meant that I was flat, not functioning correctly and felt every damn thing that happened in there. Let’s just say that it was not the most enjoyable experience. I vowed from then on to always amp myself up beforehand and make myself get going. Most people have the opposite problem however, but I always tell people I would rather be too nervous than too calm. 

            As the years went by it continually baffled me at the amount of fighters, even high level/extremely experienced ones, who got nervous, I am talking about nervous to the point of not being able to function. I cornered a friend of mine once for a smoker in LA way back in the day, he kept telling me how nervous he was. I did my best to calm him down and let him know that it was a healthy, natural emotion to have going into a fight. As the hours ticked by, and this went on and on, I found myself getting more and more annoyed to the point where I had to leave the event for a bit just to clear my head. I wanted to yell at him, "You know you don't have to do this right? We can leave right now!"  

            For the most part, no matter how nervous a fighter gets, once that first bell rings all that goes away. You don't have time to think about nerves when someone is trying to knock your head off. I have however, once encountered a time when a fighter, who was actually doing extremely well and winning the fight, came back to the corner telling me how nervous they were. From that point on, they let the fight slip away and ended up losing. I have always found it interesting to see how nerves can either elevate or destroy us. 

            I think the reason most fighters don't talk about this is they see fear as weakness and weakness is bad. We all deal with nerves at some level or another, unless we truly could care less about the outcome and if that is the case then why are you doing this? I would never begin to tell someone how they feel going into a fight is wrong. Everyone deals with similar emotions, it is just a matter of how we use or let them affect us. It is not a question of being too nervous or too calm; it is a matter of using those emotions to get us into a ready state, as opposed to hindering us. A matter of not letting them overtake us but using them to bring us to a point of elevating our game that we could not have done without that "fear". Don't kid yourself, you are going into a situation where you can get seriously hurt, crippled or even killed, you should have some nerves about that, not to mention performance anxiety, on top of all the other countless factors that go into fighting.  

            If it does not scare you than it is not worth doing. Set your goals on things that seem out of reach, so far out of reach that you appear crazy. That is the only way to every truly achieve greatness in anything. Fear can be a great friend and ally, but it is one that can turn on you in the blink of an eye if not used correctly and it will make your worst nightmares a reality. 

The End

Part two: 

            Face your fears, live your dreams…Easier said than done yet at the same time, it is quite simple. Figure out what it is that you are afraid of and why exactly you are afraid of it. Many times when you can break things down you realize just how simple they can be. 

            People often ask me how I overcome my fear, how I get in there time after time no matter what has happened to me. Well I will start out by saying that for one, I have never really had any fear when it comes to fighting. It was not until years back that I realized that I was an odd one when it came to this. Over time I started realizing that most fighters, even high level ones, dealt with quite a bit of fear when it came to fighting, even ones with hundreds of fights. One thing that has definitely helped is my fear of not taking advantage of the time I have, and know how much I have already wasted, is far greater than any fear of violence. I know I wasted so much of my life living in fear and doubt that I feel I have no time to waste on it. I first learned about Muay Thai in 1993 and immediately knew that it was what I wanted to do. However, I let all those fears and doubts that we all have keep me from going after this dream for almost a decade until I finally had enough and first stepped foot in the gym in January of 2003. Unfortunately for most, as it did me, it will take something tragic in order for them to realize that they are wasting their lives, or following someone else’s ideas of what their life should be.  

            I think what a lot of people on the outside don’t realize is that everyone has fear, to some degree or another, even me, but they choose to go forward anyway. They realize that their desire to reach their goals is far greater than any feelings of fear could ever be. Are you more afraid of trying and failing or failing to try?

            It is so easy to look at people that have/are accomplishing their goals and say, “Oh, they were just born with talent.” or “They just got lucky and had the right opportunities. They don’t have to deal with the things that I do.” You may be right to some extent, but you also aren’t seeing the things that they have had to deal with that you don’t. You did not see the years of trying and failing, the times they wanted to quit and sometimes did, the countless people they had telling them that they would never make it, the fears and doubts that they had just the same as you do.  

            Go and look into the story of someone you look at as having ‘made it’ and I guarantee you that they had been through more pain, sacrifice and failure than you could ever have imagined. Sure, it looks easy from the outside, it looks like as though they are fearless and only have success, but you did not see what it took for them to get there or what it takes to stay there. 

            There was a great line in the movie I watched recently Chasing Mavericks-“Fear and panic are two separate emotions. Fear’s healthy. Panic’s deadly.” So true! Fear is what will keep you sharp and keep you safe, it is about finding that balance between them that is the key. As anyone that has been in the ring can tell you, no matter what level of fear they deal with, once that bell rings all that goes out the window, you do not have time to be afraid anymore. 

            One good thing about having fear is that you have already accomplished a big part in the process, figuring out what it is that you want, which is the first step. However, I feel most of us know exactly what it is we want out of life but allow fear and doubt to keep us from going after it or even admitting it to ourselves. So now figure out what is it that you are afraid of; failure, what other people may think, hard work, looking like a fool? Well more than likely, whether you go after your goals or not, those things will be there. All those same fears and doubts that I had before, still creep in from time to time, they did not go away. That is when I have to take a step back and remind myself why I keep doing this, why I push myself as hard as I can. We are not promised tomorrow, or even two seconds from now, so for as long as I am here I am going to go after my dreams, whatever they may be, and give it everything that I have. 

            I will leave you with this analogy; picture yourself at an amusement park, and let’s just say that there are only two rides available. One is a boring merry go round that you are standing right next to. Anyone can easily get in line and are guaranteed to get a ride. Then there is this ultimate ride, everyone knows that it is out there and has a good idea of the direction they need to go but no one knows how long of a journey it will be or if they will even reach it in time before the park closes. So now you have two options, you can settle for the merry go round, I mean it’s good enough, it’s still a ride but you see the people on it and know that they aren’t truly happy, or you can go after that ultimate ride, the one few will ever get to enjoy. Maybe you make it there and maybe you don’t, but would you rather spend the time you have at least trying to get to it or would you rather sit on the same boring ride as everyone else? 

If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” ― Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

The end