Sometimes when I fight I seem to "lose myself". How can I stop this?

Question

Last month I was in a fight. At first it started with pushing but when I threw the first punch it was as if I was watching myself fight. It happened so fast. I won the fight but it seems like I lost controll of my body, Why was this?

Answer 1

high levels of adrenaline kicked in and your brain put you into the "survival mode" Best ways to lessen it in the future is to spar more and do alot of chi kung so you are more relaxed and confident in your self in future fights.

Answer 2

Do you find yourself getting mad or upset over insignificant things? Do you ever have lapse of time where you are not sure what happened? Do ever find times you say things or do things you don't mean or even disagree with?

Losing yourself in a fight is great because it allows you to take the emotional aspect out of the fight and fight with pure strategy (like a video game). But if you have no control over yourself when in a fight or heated situation there maybe a deep unresolved issue you need to take care of. None of us here claim to be experts on what your situation is. But if you ever feel out of control you need to seek help.  

Answer 3

"Lose myself" is a vague term. In some disciplines, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. If you know your martial art well enough, your body is supposed to go on "automatic pilot."

This appears to be what happened to you. Since you won, it appears to be working for you.

If you are talking about something outside of the martial arts and something that makes you "lose control" outside of a very narrow, focused and specific situation; you need to work on your self-control.

ESPECIALLY IF YOU THREW THE FIRST PUNCH!!

Answer 4

Fighting, is the ultimate goal of martial arts. Being the ultimate goal means we have to achieve other goals first, such as full self control. This is simply achieved by vigorous training of zen meditation and katas.

Surely you have to develop your reflexes so that your acts become spontaneous. But not out of control.

Answer 5

Best way to avoid this in the future is not fighting.

Your Sympathetic Nervous System kicked in. The hormones and chemicals that got dumped into your system as part of a fight or flight response caused a dissociative episode.

Short answer: it WAS autopilot. The one that has been built into every living thing on the planet for survival.