Fear

Fear

Throughout my martial arts journey, I have learned several meanings of fear. Fear is a natural reaction to certain stimulus, however, how you react to that stimulus can be very different.

FEAR: False Expectations Appearing Real

We have all heard the phrase the “their bark is bigger than their bite.” At times when we fear something there may be a misrepresentation of the actual problem.  At times people will need to back up and look at the whole picture in order to interpret this with a more even playing field.  It can help when we take ourselves out of the problem itself and look at the situation, it can often give us a different perspective and realize that there was nothing to fear in the first place. This is not to take our body’s natural reaction lightly as fear is something that is a very primal instinct.  And fear can be used as a tool.

There are often more than one different kind of reactions that one can have to the fear. But, for our purposes we will look at the first two.

FEAR: Forget everything and RUN

FEAR: Face everything and RISE

This is something that our body will naturally help us accomplish. Most everyone has experienced the adrenaline dump. Your eyes start to have tunnel vision. Your blood starts moving to your extremities, in order to address the sudden need to become explosive. Your body helps you by decreasing the ability to feel pain. And you can sometimes think and react faster than if you were in a normal scenario.

As this relates to martial arts, we have two options. We can either face our fears, or we can run away from them.

Adrenaline rush: Symptoms, causes, and meaning. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322490

Armstrong, K. (2015, January 06). F.E.A.R. – false Evidence Appearing Real. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://in-side-out.com/2014/10/28/f-e-a-r-false-evidence-appearing-real/