"On Killing"

Flight, Fight, Submit Or Posture?

How Does This Apply To Self Defense?

When I reviewed the "On Killing" book by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman I thought about how I could apply this knowledge to self defense.

Most people have heard of fight or flight but posturing and submitting are the lesser knowns.

I will admit that my knowledge of submitting and posturing was pretty much nil.

Basically everybody knows the flight or fight part of the equation. Grossman and "On Killing" are the first time that I have ever heard or seen a logical discussion about posturing and submitting.

But when a human or most other animals are put into an altercation with another member of it’s own species the submit or posture part of the equation becomes another alternative instead of flight or fight.

In his book “On Killing”, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman goes into much more detail about this by studying the “non-firers” of various wars.

In the animal kingdom when two of the same species are putting on a show to claim dominance one of the animals will eventually submit by exposing a potentially vulnerable area of their body instinctually knowing that the other will not kill them. This is submitting.

The human equivalent of submitting is pretty obvious, we can call it giving up or completely backing down.

The action of posturing is an interesting study.

Posturing for human is basically everything leading up to a fight. The puffing up of the chest, the verbal attacks back and forth and in baseball terms the kicking of sand at the umpire!

In war posturing could be seen by the moral objectors who did not fire at the enemy even when their own life was in danger.

More posturing could be firing at but intentionally missing the enemy, stepping back from the firing line and tending to the injured or running ammunition back and forth to those who are firing.

In the book "On Killing" a lot of examples of posturing during combat is given.

My personal opinion is that posturing can and will get you killed or injured, whether it is in war or in everyday life.

Posture and puff up your chest with the wrong guy at a bar and you end up getting stabbed.

Posturing during rush hour by giving somebody who cut you off the middle finger and they end up drawing their gun and shooting you in a fit of road rage.

So in terms of self defense understanding the various stages of an altercation can help you avoid, defuse or get the upper hand against an attacker.

If somebody is posturing and putting on a display to intimidate you and you know for damn sure that they are going to put your life at risk, you skip the posturing stage yourself and strike first. (Only if you know that you are genuinely at risk and there is no other escape)

Again knowing this human sequence of going from the first initiation of danger to posturing and then to physical violence can save your backside but NOT with everybody!

On Killing is also quick to point out that sociopaths have the ability to go from normal interaction and directly to violence completely skipping the posturing stage.

This is what makes them so dangerous, it is because they attack first with intent to harm and will take every advantage they can to get the upper hand. Be it a surprise ambush attack, closing the distance and getting closer by asking you for something like what time it is, etc.

We all need to take a lesson from what the sociopaths do and use it to protect ourselves and our families if the need ever arises.

Another point from the book “On Killing” that you can use in terms of self defense is how Grossman talks about how our human nature avoids doing anything that effectively injures another human being when our own life is at risk.

People will go to great lengths to try and land a punch on the other guys chin to knock them out or try to learn the latest mixed martial arts joint lock.

They go to all these lengths but when the most effective and structurally easiest way to kill an opponent is by using a crushing blow to their trachea.

Or the other example is that the easiest way to inflict damage on another human being is to punch your thumb through, (not into), their eye stir your thumb qround and scooping the eye and other matter out with your thumb.

These are obviously superior forms of defending yourself from a rapist or murderer yet human nature is very averse to doing this.

Grossman discusses how the military has conquered most of this psychological aversion through desensitization and conditioning to greatly increase “quick shoot” abilities and increase the amount of combatants that actually fire their weapons in battle.

By changing white paper target to human-like,clothed targets that “pop up” and fall down like an injured enemy. Even the use of fake blood to simulate what will be seen on the enemy if their shot is successful!

This sound pretty familiar and these same techniques are being used in reality based self defense training.

Couple this with herd mentality, authorities barking orders and other Pavlovian psychological techniques and they have trained perfect,willing to fire soldiers.

On Killing is an excellent book. It is perfect for the lay person as it is not written to bore you to death like a psychological text book would.

Someone who has a background in psychology may find it to be lacking in some areas since it is written more for the average joe.

I highly recommend this book in either the physical format or the audio version which is read by the author.

The audio version of On Killing is my favourite!

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