Why it's Important to be Relaxed in a Fight

If your mental state becomes too active before combat, or if you have difficulty returning from your psyched-up state of mind after combat, relaxation techniques can be helpful. Like psyching-up, relaxation has to be practiced and can be induced through cues.


A simple way to learn relaxation is through progressive muscle relaxation. Begin by tensing a muscle group and then relaxing it. Work through all of the major muscle groups in each session. Eventually progress to relaxing the muscles without prior tension. Increase the number of muscle groups you are consciously
able to relax at once.

The next step is to transfer your relaxation skills to your practice sessions. Concentrate on relaxing your muscles in the pre-movement stage. Initiate every movement from a relaxed state to increase speed and power. When you can initiate from a relaxed posture, focus on maintaining that relaxation in all of your nontarget muscles (those not directly used in creating the movement). Finally, try to relax your target muscles until just before the point of impact. This will create maximum speed and improve your endurance by conserving energy.


Practicing relaxation in the comforts of your home or training area will not necessarily help you relax under stress. To enhance your ability to relax under stress, create unfavorable conditions under which to practice your relaxation techniques. Try to manage your anxiety through relaxation techniques when you feel most stressed, whether in training or in other areas of your life. Consistent practice will lead you to success.

Getting over Fear of Injury in Fighting

Fear has many sources. The most obvious source of fear in any contact activity is fear of injury. Before you engage the opponent, you will mentally size him up and consider how much damage he might be able to inflict on you.

This mental damage assessment comes from a basic instinct to remain safe. When you find yourself doing this, reverse your thinking. Think instead about how you have trained to avoid being hit and injured. Focus on the strength of your defense. Visualize how you will easily defend every attack your opponent attempts.


Before you experience being hit, you have an unreasonable amount of fear. By integrating contact training into your workouts, you become comfortable with being hit and anticipate the effects of blows on certain areas of the body. Once you get hit a few times, your fear diminishes. You become accustomed to the sensation of contact.

Practice recovering quickly from contact blows in your training. The human body is equipped with a front line defense system that is activated every time you face a potential physical threat. If you are injured, your body has a short-term coping system that suppresses pain and protects the injury until you are able to escape from danger. Minor injuries are almost completely masked until the fight is over. Even moderate to serious injuries like sprains, fractures and lacerations are much less obvious in the heat of combat.

Often the shock of being hit is more painful mentally than physically. When you get hit the first few times, you feel angry and frightened. Make a conscious effort to shake off this feeling and stick to your plan of attack. Don’t become distracted by your fear or anger. Rather, focus on the event.

Accept the fact that in every combat situation, both fighters will be hit and sustain some physical damage. No matter how skilled you are, you cannot avoid being hit when you engage in one-on-one combat. Fighting is an exchange of blows. The person who sustains the least amount of damage prevails.

The Importance of Experience in Fighting

There is only one way to gain experience and that is to engage in your target activity repeatedly. If this is not possible, engage in the most realistic simulations possible. Experience a variety of opponents and styles to test the validity of your skills and discover new approaches. The more experienced you are, the more
insightful you can be in developing a successful strategy.

Development of these eight elements directly and dramatically affects your fighting skills. Before you can win over your opponent, you have to master your own body and mind. Go into combat knowing you are fully prepared and in top condition. When you confidently approach your opponent, your chances of
defeating him are greater.

Once you have fully prepared yourself, you can begin to analyze the other factors that affect combat:
1. Your opponent’s qualities
2. Terrain
3. Environment
4. Weapons

Determination and Stamina

Determination and stamina play a large role in combat when fighters are equally matched. When physical skills are similar, the winner will be decided by sheer guts and determination. Whoever is able to fight harder and resist longer will be the victor. To build mental and physical stamina, train through feelings of fatigue and mild discomfort, and regularly engage in contact sparring/training.

The Role of Anger in Fighting

Fear and nervousness are both natural and positive safety reactions to combat. Anger, however, is not. Anger is not rooted in the primal need for self-protection. It is an emotion of conflict and the inability to deal with a given
conflict. Very few skilled fighters use anger to prepare for a fight.

Although anger is often the impetus for a real life confrontation, it has to be dispelled as the first blows are exchanged if you want to succeed. Anger destroys your emotional balance and prevents clear thought and judgment. It leads to an uncontrollable level of arousal.

If you feel angry with your opponent, channel that feeling into a more positive desire to win or to survive.

If the anger is rooted in something other than the combat situation, try to remove it, or at least control it, before you engage the opponent.

Fighting Mindset

But what is the difference between beating the opponent with an emotional attack or beating him with a well composed mind? The results are the same. Each method will make the fighter victorious if he has the physical skills to apply. But what if he doesn’t? What if he faces a highly skilled or physically superior opponent? Anger alone will not carry him to victory.

When the opponent is superior in any way, the untrained fighter will have great difficulty in defeating him. The skilled fighter will have a dramatic advantage, allowing him to overcome his disadvantages and turn them into
advantages. He will coordinate his skills to attack the most vulnerable parts of the opponent and defeat him with a minimum of effort.

This is where combat becomes harmony within conflict. Harmony inside oneself and harmony with one’s surroundings. The skilled fighter trains not to oppose his opponent, but to flow with him. This does not mean that he is passive. He has a set strategy for fighting, but he is not confined by it. If he finds a better way, he can adapt any time. He does not resist the rhythm and flow of the fight itself.

The skill of harmonizing in combat is one that is acquired through practice and experience. It does not come from practice alone. Practice can prepare you, but only experiencing the reality of engaging another person in physical conflict can lead you to understand the intricacies of combat.

Psyching Up for a Fight

The final key to psyching up effectively is mental conditioning. In combat, there is often little time to prepare for what might happen. You must be able to reach your optimum level of intensity any time. This is beyond just psyching-up. Instant intensity comes from consistent daily training. To improve your mental condition:

1. Practice every skill and movement with full intensity.
2. Make each repetition better than the previous.
3. Follow your plan with consistency and determination.
4. Live life with the same alertness you fight with.

Maintaining your peak intensity throughout a bout is the result of conditioning plus endurance. If you get distracted by pain, fear, your opponent, your environment, or other external factors, mental conditioning will help you to refocus on your original goal. Without a strong mind, your focus can easily be distracted by nonessential external factors. Mental conditioning helps you to psyche-up quickly and improves your mental endurance.

In a match of two equally skilled opponents, the one with greater mental endurance will prevail. Mental endurance allows you to be persistent and reach your goal, despite the blocks your opponent puts in your way.
Mental endurance will give you an aura of toughness and aggressiveness

that is intimidating to opponents. There is no opponent more intimidating than the one who attacks consistently, no matter what you do. He is impervious to your attacks and seems determined to fight until he prevails. This is the result of strong mental endurance.

Mental conditioning is related to the toughness of the fight and mental endurance is related to the length of the bout. With a combination of both conditioning and endurance, you will develop a determined, indomitable warrior spirit. Warrior spirit gives you the guts to attack, the patience to wait for a better opportunity, and the persistence to finish the fight though you are exhausted. Among the most highly skilled combatants, warrior spirit is all that separates the winners from the losers.