Is it important to study your opponent before a fight?

Of course, for strategic and technical reasons. You need to plan the fight, learn your opponent’s weaknesses. But from the psychological point of view – when you know your opponent is stronger, has great achievements and a famous name – many quit even before the fight begins. They get scared. But let’s not forget that the star fighter is even more scared, because they’ve got much more to lose than the beginner.

Are there any useful techniques for psychological combat, like staring down your opponent? Doe that really work?

Yes it does. Armwrestling is, before all else, a fight between two people. The fight begins even before they approach the table. They walk around the room, observing one another, that’s when you can start working on somebody. There are fighters who scream loudly, behave like wild animals, trying to scare the other person. And there are those who respond in the same manner. This leads to funny scenes of two people screaming their heads off at one another. This is also a kind of war, psychological war. Screaming can release a lot of energy, give one more power.

What are your ways to concentrate?

When you’re really nervous about a fight, and that happened to me a lot, you need something to divert your attention.

During a tournament, when everybody’s pumped full of emotions, I needed peace. There is the phenomenon of “burning out”, just before a fight, it leaves you empty of adrenaline needed to fight. You need to cool down before fighting. For me, what helped was always talking to people not connected to the sport. It could be a security guard, a passer-by, someone from the audience. The subject didn’t matter, once I met a professor with whom I spoke on the subject of mathematics – that was during an inter-school tournament.

As a referee, can you judge if one of the opponents is more ready to fight?

You can spot that straight away, by observing body language, energy level, the approach to the table. Of course the seasoned fighters try not to show their emotions, they are more composed and cool on the approach. You can see who came to the table to win, and who only to try and fail.

When you were a fighter, what were your means of psychological preparation?

I’ve spent many years looking for the hey to metal preparation. I’ve fought many physically weaker opponents and lost. Why? Because I’ve lost the psych war. So I started looking for the key. To my surprise, I’ve found it in approaching the fight with hunger. I thought of the opponent as stronger than me, and that caused me to be hungry instead of scared. That’s when I stared to win.

Iza Małkowska

Grzegorz Karbowski