Fear of taking a punch

[davidoff]

I'm wondering what people's thoughts are on the fear of taking a punch?

Can this be truly overcome? And in what ways?

I've thought about this a lot after Audley Harrison's recent announcement that he'll be continuing to try and become a world champion. And with the Haye-Wlad fight collapsing again, there's a real chance of him being back in the mix.

But although I'm his biggest fan, even I'll admit that he needs to overcome that fear in order to let his hands fly and beat a Klitschko. So I'm trying to work out how he can do this.

I've only ever boxed amateurly so I've never had to overcome a real fear of getting hit unprotected. So if anyone has thoughts please do share them.

Is it a case of standing there and allowing yourself to be hit lightly and work your way up from that?

[Squirrel]

Some people have it, some don't. You can learn to get over it a little imo but you'll never get completely comfortable with it.

I competed in amateur boxing and I do mma now, originally I was terrified of getting hit but you do get used to it. I've never taken a full shot in mma but it does worry me. With headgear and all that I quickly found that shots weren't too bad (I did spar a lot with a friend who's 6'6 and over 17 stone), so fighting people my size was fine.

I have a feeling i'll never get used to taking shots in mma, small glvoes and legs/shins is something i'm gonna work to just flat out avoid.


In short; yes you can overcome the trepidation of taking a shot somewhat but everyone has their limit, and you'd struggle to overcome that no matter what you did. Taking shots does help your confidence - me taking a jab from the aforementioned friend said to me that I could take shots from a guy that size, so you kind of lose that subconscious idea that all shots will drop you.

[FeFist]

''beat a Klitschko''? Audley Harrison?

[davidoff]

Some people have it, some don't. You can learn to get over it a little imo but you'll never get completely comfortable with it.

I competed in amateur boxing and I do mma now, originally I was terrified of getting hit but you do get used to it. I've never taken a full shot in mma but it does worry me. With headgear and all that I quickly found that shots weren't too bad (I did spar a lot with a friend who's 6'6 and over 17 stone), so fighting people my size was fine.

I have a feeling i'll never get used to taking shots in mma, small glvoes and legs/shins is something i'm gonna work to just flat out avoid.


In short; yes you can overcome the trepidation of taking a shot somewhat but everyone has their limit, and you'd struggle to overcome that no matter what you did. Taking shots does help your confidence - me taking a jab from the aforementioned friend said to me that I could take shots from a guy that size, so you kind of lose that subconscious idea that all shots will drop you.

I've taken some hard shots with the headgear on and while never hurt or stunned, I do wonder how I'll hold up without it on. MMA would be even more problematic.

I thought taking light shots regularly and working up would be a way of doing it. I guess it might be difficult for Audley now to use that to get over that subconscious barrier seeing as he's suffered some hard KOs that have changed him as a fighter.

[davidoff]

''beat a Klitschko''? Audley Harrison?

Well I doubt he'll rematch Haye as it wil never sell. So if he wants to be a world champion it will have to be a Klitscko fight.

[Gojira]

If Audley actually had a decent chin he wouldn't have such a fear of getting hit.

[DTanc]

Once you've been KO'd like Audley has I seriously doubt you can ever overcome it. I think it creeps into your head that at any moment the right punch could KO you again and that's why he fights so timidly.

[champ_kw]

I don't ever think you really get over it. Alot of getting hit hard and walking thru it is mental. Once you've been knocked out, you start getting dropped by punches you used to eat without a problem (ala Roy Jones) because you start worrying if each hard punch will be the next one to knock you out. When I used to box, I wasn't really that good, but I worked out well. Love to learn in the gym and everything, but once I got cracked hard, mentally I was timid to pull the trigger because I didn't want to feel like that again. Call it what you want, I love the sport but I found out at an early age I wasn't mentally able to compete. That's why it frustrates me when I hear casual fans discredit world champs with monikers like "coward", "chicken", etc. If they only knew what you have to endure to even have a fraction of the career these fighters have, I promise you they wouldn't be so loose with their gums.

[Pullcounter]

it's called the flight or fight response. audley's problem is that he's thinking too much. he needs to stop thinking and start reacting.

[Larry the boss]

once you enter the ring and the adrenaline starts pumping you dont really feel much