You’re staring in the face of your worst nightmare. You don’t even know the nightmare’s name but he’s white-knuckling a switchblade, and his eyes are as vacant as the parking lot you found each other in. If you find yourself in this unfortunate situation, your options are reduced to fight or die. The attacker’s bad drug habit may have created the desire to thieve and kill, but your daydreaming made you an easy victim.
But there’s a way to prevent being an easy target; a personal awareness system that will keep you from being had, surprised or caught-off-guard as long as you use it. It’s called the Cooper Color Codes, and it was authored by Colonel Jeff Cooper, the father of modern handgun combat and a guy who probably ate a bag of nails for breakfast every morning. Without ketchup.
The Cooper Color Codes are basically four levels of combat readiness represented by the colors white, yellow, orange and red, and the appropriate responses you should be deploying when in that color state. The Cooper Color Codes should be applied in your every waking moment, to help you evaluate ever-changing situations and keep you out of harm’s way. It encourages mindfulness and the constant mental assessment of your surroundings. It keeps you sharper than a thug’s knife.
Condition White: In condition white, you are unaware of your environment. In a public setting, being condition white makes you susceptible to attack - or if you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle - puts other people in danger. Unless you’re behind the locked doors of your own home, you should never be in this color state.
Condition Yellow: In this color state, you are fully aware with your surroundings but relaxed. Do a regular visual 360 degree sweep of your surrounding regularly and look for anything suspicious. Having ample reaction time is critical to surviving harm and accident, so you’ll want to consciously live in this color code. Be ready to “upgrade” to orange at a second’s notice.
Condition Orange: A potential threat presents itself. A potential threat could be anything that transgresses your perception of “normal”. It might be a strange look someone gives you, a sound from behind, whatever draws your attention and focus. It’s in code orange you plan your response to their escalation. This way, if the potential threat becomes a real threat, your actions will be strategic and instant.
Only when the threat is completely gone do you return to condition yellow.
Condition Red: At condition red, you perceive your safety to be immediately threatened. Whether or not it actually is is irrelevant, you have a plan in place and are mentally and physically prepared to lay the smackdown. If it’s someone just being an unpredictable jerktard and not out to hurt you or the people your with, downgrade to condition orange but not yellow. Never drop two color conditions at a time. Each state must be reassessed before downgrading, and even at condition yellow you never, ever drop your guard.
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