Gavin De Becker
I thought I would add some book reviews to the blog as I get it started. The books I review on Mossy Creek Dojo will be somehow related to martial arts, self defense, Japanese culture, or I just liked them. I will probably not post a review on my current favorite Pulitzer Prize novel (I will save those for Pat Parker’s Pulitzer Prize Project on Facebook).
I heard about Gavin De Becker’s book “The Gift Of Fear” in October while in Oklahoma City at Windsong Dojo sharing late night stories with some police officers. Gavin De Becker is a psychologist who owns a company that advices governments, institutions, and individuals on predicting violence and thus avoiding violence. The idea of learning martial arts where you spend countless hours learning to control someone else’s movements, damage their body physically, and leave them psychologically defeated yet you are then told the best course of action is to avoid the violent encounter in the first place makes you feel ” Argh!” Insert favorite line from “Boot to the Head”. So I thought The Gift Of Fear would be a good way to gain some insight into how to avoid violence.
The book is 299 pages long divided into 15 chapters, with titles such as ” Survival Signals”, “Intimate Enemies”, and “Better to be Wanted by The Police Than Not to Be Wanted At All.” The book is fairly easy to read. I never found myself struggling to find time to read it. (I judge books by how much mental effort I have to put out to convince myself I should be reading rather than doing something else.) There is a good mixture of scientific explanation and case studies.
In the Survival Signals chapter he lists several traits that we should heed when dealing with a stranger we are trying to judge as dangerous or not. He discusses a term called “Forced Teaming”. “Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we’re-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude.” If a stranger starts using terms like “Now we’ve done it” or “both of us” to convey a shared purpose when none exists then it is a ploy. Con artists use this skill often.
He reports the most universal signal is a potential threat discounting the word “no”. If someone declines to hear “no” it is a signal that the person is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. He gives examples of a rapists that several times discounted “no” when it was told to him over the course of his “interview” with the potential victim.
The overriding theme of the book is that we have had a lifetime of developing an intuition that tells us something is potentially dangerous. The book implores us to not ignore these signals in the name of politeness.
He describes emotions that are not useful during a potentially violent situation such as panic and anxiety. Fear is a different emotion. Fear is what compels us to take action if there is an immediate need. De becker teaches that if we develop and learn to trust our intuition, we can free ourselves from panic and anxiety, just as we can react positively if we are ever in a position that requires immediate escape.
I think this is a great book that everyone should read particularly women since they have to use the skills in the book more often than men. Women are much more often the victim of avoidable violence than men are.
I was able to buy the book used off of Amazon for just a few dollars. There are plenty of copies available.