The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques

As time appears to be running out, I've also turned my attention to completing my first book, The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques.

AI has enabled me to finish it.

AI provided an editing tool.

AI is also providing the illustrations that I need to complete the book.

AI also provides the tools to photoshop the photos that were taken that were flawed in one way or another.

This is the index of The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques:

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 The Core of All Learning

Chapter 3 Analysing Techniques

Chapter 4 Force

Chapter 5 Balance and Unbalancing

Chapter 6 Stances and Locomotion

Chapter 7 Throws and Takedowns

Chapter 8 Joint-Locking Techniques

Chapter 9 Injury Science

Chapter 10 Punching and Kicking Techniques

Chapter 11 Blocking Techniques

Chapter 12 Breakfalling Techniques

Chapter 13 Strangulation Techniques

Chapter 14 Pain

Chapter 15 Operationalising Gracie and Gracie’s Black Belt Expectations

Chapter 16 Conclusion

Reference List

It's not too bad in its original form, over ten years ago, even if I do say so myself.

The life of a starving writer, literally, but this makes two books ready to be published with a third, albeit published under a pseudonym, ready to go. A fourth in the pipelines that can be pumped out, on anxiety, in a relatively short space of time.

Prolific, if not hungry.

How Physiological Control Techniques Work to Reduce Stress, Anxiety, Fear, and Anger

An article based on the work in Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to Threat has been submitted to various police journals in Australia, UK, and US for publication.

This is the conclusion to that article:

Understanding how techniques like controlled breathing and muscle relaxation work—via feedback loops that link physiology, cognition, and emotion—can help officers apply them with greater confidence and flexibility in the field. This knowledge transforms the technique from a rote drill into a tactical skill, one that can be used deliberately to maintain composure and performance in high-stress situations.

This is the About the Author section:

John Coles is the author of Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat and The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques, both currently under submission for publication. He has written 17 nationally published articles based on the content of those books. John also authored Jan de Jong: The Man, His School and His Jiu Jitsu System, and contributed to Going Global: A Primer for Australian Managers and Enterprises Wishing to Do Business Internationally. His writing on leadership has appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and leading professional blogs.

These techniques should be taught in all activities associated with preparing a person to engage in a violent encounter, sporting events, examinations of any sort, etc. An understanding of how they work leverages the performance of the techniques significantly.

Contact me for further information.

Fear and Fight - Publisher Submissions

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to Threats is now being submitted to publishers for publishing.

Six today - three in Australia, three in the UK.

This author's bio has been included with each submission:

I’ve published 25 articles in major Australian newspapers, broadsheets, and national magazines, including on topics explored in this book. I’m the author of Jan de Jong: The Man, His School and His Jiu Jitsu System and contributed to Going Global by Dr Roger Smith. My writing blends personal experience, clinical and evolutionary psychology, military and law enforcement research, and practical application — resulting in a cohesive framework that helps readers understand and navigate fear, conflict, and survival in all spheres of life.

Comparable authors and titles include:

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky
On Combat by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman & Loren W. Christensen
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why by Amanda Ripley
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky
Emotional: The New Thinking About Feelings by Leonard Mlodinow
Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge: The Psychology and Science of Training by Bruce K. Siddle

Fear and Fight - Synopsis

 I'm about to finish Fear and Fight and submit it to agents for publication. This is my first attempt at a synopsis that will accompany the submission:

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat is a ground-breaking, interdisciplinary exploration of how humans and other animals respond to danger. Bridging evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, trauma studies, and lived experience, this book challenges conventional views of fear and trauma—particularly those entrenched in diagnostic frameworks like the DSM.

Drawing on a rich mix of personal insight, empirical research, clinical theory, and cultural analysis, the book traces the development of our instinctive survival responses—such as freezing, fleeing, and fighting—and examines how these are shaped, amplified, or overridden by learning, context, and socialisation. From the role of the amygdala in fast fear reactions to the deliberate cultivation of courage and hope in warfare, Fear and Fight offers a clear, accessible, and emotionally resonant narrative of what happens to mind and body under threat.

The book explains why fear sometimes emerges after the danger has passed, and why some people feel nothing in the moment of trauma—drawing on military training, domestic violence, and civilian experiences to explore how both natural and learned responses influence psychological outcomes. It challenges gendered assumptions about submission, highlights the strategic use of emotion in military contexts, and critiques the evolution of PTSD diagnosis, including the removal of DSM-IV’s Criterion A2.

Structured across multiple parts—including foundational chapters on fear responses, emotion and cognition, diagnostic categories, and applied theories in war, self-defence, and survival—the book culminates in a compelling argument: that understanding threat responses requires both biological insight and cultural literacy. Whether dissecting cinematic depictions of trauma, military stress training protocols, or real-world encounters with violence, Fear and Fight equips readers with a new lens through which to understand themselves and others.

Ultimately, this book is not only about what we fear—but how we survive.

What do you think?

Introduction: Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

As I wrote in my previous post, I have completed I have completed the first complete draft of the book that I've been researching and writing for the past ten years: Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat.

I shared the Preface to Fear and Fight in the previous post. In this post, I share the introduction:

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The same survival mechanisms that kept our forefathers alive can help keep us alive as well! However, those survival mechanisms that can help us can also work against us if we don’t understand and anticipate their presence.

—U.S. Army Field Manual 3-5.70: Survival

 Bruce Siddle is an internationally recognised authority on use-of-force training and the effects of ‘survival stress’ on combat performance. In Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge, Siddle (1995) refers to the well-known ‘fight-or-flight response’ as the ‘survival stress response’ (SSR), describing it as an automatic physiological reaction that prepares the body to either fight or flee when exposed to a threat. This reaction enhances strength, speed, endurance, and pain tolerance—traits that evolved to increase an individual’s chances of survival in life-threatening situations.

 Siddle (2005) explains that the SSR is primarily activated under two conditions: when an individual perceives an imminent deadly force threat and when there is minimal time to respond to that threat. He suggests that a person walking towards us with a knife from a distance of 500 yards (457 metres) is unlikely to activate our SSR, whereas being surprised by the same threat at a distance of 10 feet (3 metres) will almost certainly trigger it.

 I have faced a knife-wielding assailant while unarmed on two separate occasions, both of which involved the element of surprise and occurred at distances of less than 10 feet (3 metres). Yet, on both occasions, I did not experience a SSR reaction. The SSR was selected for in nature because it provided a survival advantage when one’s life was threatened. Where was my SSR when my life was threatened by a knife-wielding assailant in two situations that involved both a distance of less than 10 feet (3 metres) and the element of surprise?

 Siddle (2005) suggests that while the SSR was advantageous in our evolutionary past, it can interfere with modern survival skills such as close-quarter combat, firearms use, or evasive driving. He (Siddle 1995) refers to this as a ‘combat paradox’: the same response that once ensured our survival can now undermine it in specific combat scenarios. This raises an intriguing question: were my survival prospects if fact enhanced because I didn’t experience a SSR in these critical moments? Either way, the question remains—why didn’t I experience a SSR which is evolutionarily designed to promote an individual’s survival when my survival was directly threatened on two separate occasions? This book is the product of my search for answers to those questions.

 ‘Fight Activities’

The original intended audience for this book included individuals involved or interested in martial arts, self-defence, combat sports, security (such as security officers, bodyguards, and crowd controllers), law enforcement, and the military. But how can these diverse pursuits be referred to collectively?

 What they all share is a core focus: they train individuals to fight—for different purposes, certainly, but the ability to fight remains central. For this reason, this book refers to them collectively as ‘Fight Activities.’

 ‘Fight Activities’

The initial intended audience of this book was those engaged or interested in martial arts, self-defence, combat sports, security (security officer, security bodyguard, crowd controller), law enforcement, and the military. How can those activities be referred to collectively? To answer that question, we first need to ask what those activities have in common. Those activities teach trainees to fight, to fight for a variety of reasons but to fight nonetheless. For that reason, those activities will be referred to collectively in this book as ‘Fight Activities.’

 Fear and Fight

Our principal natural response to a threat is the emotion of fear—and the action tendency of fear is flight. Fight is not an action tendency of fear, despite what many suggest when referring to fight-or-flight and stress response concepts to explain our natural reaction to threats. Fight Activities teach people how to fight—for a variety of reasons, but to fight nonetheless. They provide ways and means to overcome fear in order to fight. These methods, combined with the learned fight behaviours they instil, form our learned response to a threat.

 This book explores both our natural response—driven by fear—and our learned response, focusing on the ways Fight Activities help us manage fear in order to fight. That’s why this book is titled: Fear and Fight.

 A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat

The subtitle of this book reflects a desire to deepen our understanding of our natural and learned responses to threats. The process that produced this understanding is explained by the work of Gary Klein in Seeing What Others Don’t (2013), where he discusses how insights can lead to more comprehensive and useful perspectives.

 Klein defines insight as an accurate and profound understanding, suggesting that it brings forth a new understanding that did not previously exist. This new understanding is better because it is more accurate, comprehensive, and useful than prior knowledge. Throughout this book, I aim to share insights that contribute to a new and better understanding of our natural and learned responses to threats.

 One of Klein’s paths to insight is curiosity, captured in the simple yet powerful question: ‘What’s going on here?’ This question serves as a catalyst for exploration, driving individuals to seek answers. For me, this journey began with my own ‘What’s going on here?’ moment—sparked by my lack of a fight-or-flight response during two life-threatening situations. That initial question led to answers, which in turn sparked more questions and deeper insights, ultimately shaping my understanding of how we respond to threats.

 Klein emphasises that insights transform our understanding and, in many ways, change who we are. They can alter our understanding by shifting the central beliefs in the story we use to make sense of events. This ‘new understanding can give us new ideas about the kinds of actions we can take; it can redirect our attention, changing what we see; it can alter the emotions we feel; and it can affect what we desire’ (Klein 2013, p. 148). This book aspires to facilitate such transformations for readers, encouraging a shift in how they understand, think, feel, and act in relation to our responses to threats.

 A Personal Perspective: Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attacks

What makes this exploration particularly unique is my diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) with panic attacks, which offers me a distinctive insight into both our natural and learned responses to perceived threats. Living with GAD means that my brain often interprets harmless situations as threatening, triggering responses as though the danger were real. This allows me to experience firsthand the instinctive responses to perceived threats, with anxiety and fear being the principal reaction. At the same time, the treatment for GAD involves learning to manage these responses, closely mirroring the way military, law enforcement, and self-defence practitioners are trained to regulate fear in high-stress situations. This parallel between therapeutic interventions and combat training demonstrates how learned behaviours can modify our instinctive reactions. Through this personal lens, I have studied our responses from the inside out, gaining an intimate understanding of how we handle both real and imagined threats. My experience informs every chapter of this book, offering a unique perspective on the interplay between natural and learned responses to a threat.

 Structure of the Book

Many people refer to the fight-or-flight concept to explain our natural response to a threat. In Chapter Two, we will explore how this widely accepted concept is based on a limited and flawed understanding of human survival responses. However, an accurate understanding of fight-or-flight still forms the basis for a more comprehensive view of both our natural and learned responses to threats.

 Chapter Three shifts focus to stress, another widely cited concept for explaining our natural response to danger. Since stress theory is rooted in the fight-or-flight concept, it shares the same limitations and flaws. Furthermore, because stress theory emerged from medical and biological research emphasising its negative effects on health, it has skewed researchers’ understanding of how stress plays a role in our survival responses.

 As I sought an answer to why I did not experience a stress response when confronted by a knife-wielding assailant on two separate occasions, I discovered that stress can be understood as a process involving physiological, emotional, and behavioural components. While this did not explain my reaction, it pointed me toward a deeper exploration of the emotional aspect, which proved instrumental in developing a new and better understanding of threat responses.

 Chapter Four examines emotion. Emotion, for theorists, is more than just a feeling. It’s a multi-component response to significant threats and opportunities, evolved to give an individual a survival advantage. In this chapter, an emotion process model is presented that offers a more accurate, comprehensive, and useful way to understand threat responses. This model will be applied throughout the rest of the book to investigate our natural and learned responses to a threat.

 Fear and its close cousin, anxiety, are the focus of Chapter Five, followed by a critical analysis in Chapter Six: if fighting is instinctively tied to fear, why do Fight Activities teach methods for overcoming fear in order to fight?

 The chapters in Part II dissect the individual components of the emotion/survival process, initially focusing on fear, and explore how interventions by Fight Activities help individuals overcome fear to fight. Many of these interventions rely on reason to suppress the emotional response of fear. Chapter 14 delves into the separation of ‘passion and reason’ and its implications for self-defence and combat training.

 Part IV applies the theory developed in earlier chapters to real-world contexts, including military strategy and self-defence. These chapters serve as case studies, showcasing how understanding fear and learned behaviours can inform and improve practical applications in survival and combat settings.

 Finally, Part V transitions to the post-phase of violent encounters, focusing on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is explored in depth, applying the insights from this book to better understand the condition and its treatment, along with related disorders such as GAD. My own experience with GAD has provided a firsthand perspective on these mechanisms. In fact, it demonstrates that PTSD and GAD share many similarities, both as evolved survival mechanisms and in terms of their treatment.

 A Broader Audience

While this book began as an exploration for those involved in Fight Activities—martial artists, self-defence practitioners, law enforcement, and military personnel—it has grown to encompass a wider audience. The principles discussed have far-reaching applications, touching on how we all navigate fear, anxiety, and survival in both extreme and everyday situations. Whether confronting life’s unexpected challenges or simply standing up to talk in a meeting, this book offers valuable insights into mastering fear and emerging stronger. Ultimately, Fear and Fight is for anyone who faces anxiety and/or fear—whether in combat or in daily life—and seeks to gain a deeper understanding of both the natural and learned responses that guide us through these experiences.

Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat - Complete First Draft (Preface)

 

I have finally completed the first complete draft of the book that I've been researching and writing for the past ten years: Fear and Fight: A New and Better Understanding of Our Natural and Learned Responses to a Threat.

As I learned, as I am continuing to learn, the lessons learned in that book extend far beyond the fields of combat. They extend into everyone's daily life. In fact, I have found it to be a curse that it appears that I have to experience everything that I've been researching and writing, so much so that my current circumstances are once again reflected in my work in the book.

But for now, here is a copy of the Preface:

PREFACE

The preface of a book is where the author tells the reader how the book came about. In my case, this book came about through curiosity.

Initially, I set out to write a how-to book on the jujutsu techniques taught by Shihan Jan de Jong OAM, 9th Dan. My original idea was to incorporate a little science into the instruction to provide a deeper understanding of the techniques. However, I quickly discovered that finding relevant science in the martial arts literature was far from easy. On the rare occasions when science has been used to understand martial arts techniques, it has often failed to relate meaningfully to practice.

Further research to address this gap revealed an overwhelming amount of scientific knowledge—not only enough to overshadow the original how-to instruction, but enough to shine a light on techniques used in all activities associated with preparing a person for violent encounters, as well as techniques used in violence generally. As a result, the initial how-to book was shelved in favour of a new project, tentatively titled The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques.

The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques includes chapters on the various types of techniques taught in martial arts and other self-defence disciplines. While working on the chapter about joint-locking techniques, I planned to include just a brief explanation of why pain is experienced when forces are applied to move a joint beyond its range of motion—my biomechanical definition of joint-locking techniques. However, my research into pain uncovered so much information that what was originally intended to be a paragraph or two became a chapter of its own.

One section of that chapter addresses pain tolerance and includes a discussion on ‘stress-induced analgesia’ (SIA). SIA refers to the well-established phenomenon in which exposure to various stressors leads to the suppression of pain perception. This phenomenon explains why soldiers wounded on the battlefield and athletes injured in competition often report feeling no pain until their task is completed. The suppression of pain seemed like an obvious advantage during violent encounters, so I began researching SIA in more detail.

This investigation revealed that SIA is part of the broader ‘stress response,’ also known as the ‘fight-or-flight response.’ This response refers to an automatic physiological reaction that is evolutionarily designed to promote an individual’s survival when faced with a threat. A key part of the stress response is the release of beta-endorphins, which suppress pain perception so that pain does not distract from the survival effort. Other survival advantages provided by the stress response include increased strength, speed, endurance, and enhanced blood clotting.

As I reflected on my own experiences—two separate encounters where I was confronted by a knife-wielding assailant—I realised that on neither occasion did I experience a fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight response is designed by nature to enhance survival, so why was it absent when my survival was directly threatened?

It was in seeking the answer to that question that I began a deep exploration—a journey that led to insights which now form the basis of this book. These insights offer a new and better understanding of our natural and learned responses to threats. What I discovered goes far beyond the context of violent encounters, extending into a much broader understanding of how we respond to danger, real or imagined, and anxiety and fear in all areas of life.

John Coles

Bridging Science and Practice: How Biomechanics Enhances Martial Arts Understanding

The following is taken from the preface of my The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques:

On the rare occasion that an attempt has been made to use science to understand martial arts techniques in the martial arts literature, it has generally failed to be related to practice in any meaningful way.

The following was posted on Facebook and is an example of the use of science to understand martial arts techniques failing to be related to practice in any meaningful way:

The following is taken from the introduction to The Science Behind All Fighting Techniques:

McGinnis (2005) suggests that the use of biomechanics can lead to improved performances by athletes and the accelerated learning of new skills by students. In addition, he suggests that a knowledge of biomechanics enables us to better evaluate new techniques in sports that we are familiar with as well as in those sports that we are unfamiliar with. Carr (2004) refers to the same benefits and explains that they may be realised through a basic understanding of biomechanics. These are tantalising prospects that a basic understanding of biomechanics offers in relation to the teaching and learning of fighting techniques.

My article on the biomechanical concept of force and its application to understand, teach, and learn martial arts techniques which was published in the sixth edition of Martial Arts Magazine Australia is an example of the benefits that a basic knowledge of biomechanics offers to the understanding, teaching, and learning of martial arts techniques.