Intimidation by physical appearance

[skullsplitter]

I do not go around trying to be hard with people, but people have looked at me as some sort of tough guy all my life. I'm not sure how that happened as I am 38 now and have not been in a fight since my freshman year of college and only 2 fights prior to that. I've never been a really big guy, 6-1 240lbs in hs and college, but people have always been intimidated by me. Even now when I am way overweight and in no shape to fight anyone people are intimidated by me. From what i am told I have a very scary "mad" face. What people don't realize is that behind that face I have no desire to actually get physical with anyone. I have no MA training or anything like that.

It's served me well though a couple of times when I was actually prepared to fight, once to protect a friend and once to protect a total stranger. I was able to successfuly intimidate the other parties so no fighting actually happened.

[GeoGiant]

Some interesting points made.

I've never been told I'm intimidating and I guess I don't have body language that omits intimidation. People stop and ask me for directions all the time!

I'm fascinated (& concerned) that I could let a guy get in my head because of his outward appearance. To me its understandable to feel that twinge of intimidation, doubt, whatever you want to call it when someone is taller or twice you weight but to feel that self doubt just because some dude is covered with tattoos or looks scary is illogical. And again, maybe its the prospect of actually fighting that causes me anxiety and I'm confusing that feeling with self doubt....? I don't know.

Anybody out there ever had an amateur fight that has dealt with this?

[Cable Dog]

I've been told personally that my eyes give away my training. I'm also military, so this may have an effect, but in civilian/casual clothes I still often notice that people seem intimidated. I generally ease this quickly with light-hearted conversations or jokes.

[Throwdown0850]

I was reading the “if you was in a fight today” thread and it got me thinking about dealing with the fear that is created by someone’s appearance. I’m not talking about a person that is 6.5 feet tall (about 2 meters), 250 pounds & covered with tattoos verses a 98 pound weakling. I’m talking about persons of average height and weight with different outward appearances – say a biker look verses polo shits & kaki shorts.

Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of an amateur mma fight. In my part of the US, amateur mma fights have rules that dictate –

(1) no elbows,

(2) when on the ground no head shots, only body shots

(3) No restriction on submissions,

(4) A match is 3, 2 minute rounds with 1 minute between rounds.

(5) Scoring is similar to UFC fights.

There is some good banging that goes on at these fights but I’ve never seen anything that I thought was out of hand. The promoters are really good about pairing height / weight of the fighters. Most people fight from a particular school so the instructors make sure that you face a guy with a similar amount of training / experience. Again, these matches always seem fair.

Anyway, I went to an amateur mma fight the other night, by myself, with the intent of assessing if this was something that I could really do. I sat on the side of the convention center where the fighters where preparing before the fights. I was really sizing these guys up. Most of these guys looked really rough & tough – neck tattoos, shaved heads, some had gang colors. Truth be told I was intimidated by guys that were smaller than me (not that size means everything). As I watched some of these guys fight, I started to wonder why I was intimidated because these guys were not showing me anything skill-wise that scared me. Again, not to take anything away from any fighter because it takes guts to get in the ring and it takes nothing to sit outside the ring and assess but I didn’t feel like my skill level was that far from being competitive for my weight class.

I grew up in larger city and was exposed to all types of people yet I was still intimidated by physical appearance. After the fights I saw some of these guys again and my perception had changed. I no longer saw tattoos, shaved heads, chains and black boots… I saw guys that were shorter and skinnier than me with middle of the road skills. Again I know that you can’t base everything on size but there is a big difference between facing a guy and feeling like, “I can take him” and facing a guy and feeling slightly intimated by his appearance. There was one guy in particular that was scary has hell looking. I watched this guy warm up and I was feeling happy that I wasn’t facing him. This guy fought very similar to me and he ended up losing (his ground game was weak… as is mine). When I saw this guy after the fight I wasn’t thinking I could kick his butt, I was assessing him as a fighter,,,, the outward appearance was gone.

Has anyone else experience this feeling? Am i being intimidated by appearance or was i being intimidated by the prospect of actually fighting?

yay!! that thread was mine. I am glad my ideas can help you, GeoGiant. I feel special now. perhaps loved??

Okay just special...

[Jay]

Taller people used to give me this intimidated feeling. Being short, it has always bugged me being paired with taller guys. But now, if I know someone has some skill on the ground, that bothers me more than anything.

Im totally with you on this one. I think we have discussed this before actually im not the tallest dude ever so I stuggle the same. I don't know what it is about height that bothers me so much. I have confidence in my ability but just maybe not enough.

Grappling is a tentative subject. I have been worried ever since a good mate of mine tapped me out within 5 sec of just us rolling on the floor. That was not good but equally I have done a bit more work in this department so I can kinda get by. Thing is if I were up against someone with a decent amount of bjj or even wrestling im not sure how I would cope.

[JiuJitsuNation]

If there is an area that you worry about then you should dedicate x amount of time to it each week. Every week. There is always time.

[bushido_man96]

If there is an area that you worry about then you should dedicate x amount of time to it each week. Every week. There is always time.

That depends. And it also depends on the resources available.

[JiuJitsuNation]

Ha TIME MANAGEMENT bushido! And yes if it is unavailable it would be difficult. buy some dvds and find another body and DO IT!

[bushido_man96]

I may have to. DT sessions start up in the fall, and they do a lot of grappling, so I plan getting there.

[sensei8]

Would this intimidate you?....

http://odia.terra.com.br/blog/clubedaluta/images/novembro_2008/Brock.jpg

OR

Would this intimidate you?...

http://digilander.libero.it/mrolympia2/rc104.jpg