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For those of you who’ve bought my Fence Concepts Book or DVD, you will have already heard me explain the Cooper Colour Codes principals.

Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Jeff Cooper, devised this colour coding system in order to help those involved in Pistol Shooting to ascertain the level of awareness they needed to switch on to, based on their situation and the environmental factors, ie, their perceived level of threat.

It has now become more widely used for all areas of self protection, including un-armed, personal security and basic safety awareness.

The diagram below outlines the 3 main colour codes, starting at the bottom with Code Yellow.
What I’ve deliberately missed off from this diagram is Code White, which sits firmly at the bottom of this chart and is something that we should all do our utmost to avoid if we wish to have a successful self protection strategy.

Code White means to be switched off, or more commonly known as daydreaming perhaps.

Code Yellow, on the other hand, is be a constant, passive, state of awareness. It should be ever-present but should not get in the way of our daily activities, merely; it is a passive sensor which can keep a constant eye out for likely or potential threats.

Once something of interest has been spotted, we can then step up our level of threat assessment by moving our state of awareness and alertness up to Code Orange.
This is where we become far more alert and switched on. This is not a place that is healthy to remain in for long periods of time, but is a state of readiness, should you decide it’s appropriate to act.

Code Red is when we are truly in Fight or Flight mode. When the situation has demanded our immediate action or total alertness in order to deal with it accordingly. Again, this is not a colour code to sit in for very long as it’s incredibly stressful and tiring and should only be used during these certain events which demand our full and immediate action.

Obviously, my first reason for giving you this ever so brief explanation of the Cooper Colour Codes is because I am a self protection instructor and this is a fundamental tool to your basic personal security strategy.
Being in Code Yellow and the state of awareness that it pertains to is paramount if you wish to be able to apply all of your other self protection tools. Without solid, effective, awareness, you will not see threats in order to then be able to assess or act on them.

However, my real point for writing this week’s article was to show how we can Colour Code our entire lives and not just our Personal Security.

One thing I am doing more and more with my training is to look at the processes and skill sets I am learning during my training. For example, it could be that, the process of practicing a technique over and over again, not only develops a better technique but also develops a stronger will, more tenacity, strength of character, dedication and commitment. All of which are useful attributes that I can apply elsewhere in my life.
More importantly, what I also learn is a process for improving and becoming better at something.
If, after countless thousands of repetitions and hours of analytical study of a single technique, I find that I have made an improvement in that technique, then I have also learned a process for improving anything I wish to become better at.
In effect, I am learning processes that I can translate and apply outside of my training.

So, if I then wish to achieve better grades in my studies, or become a better driver, or even a better businessman, I apply the same process. I take myself away, become very self analytical and I practice and practice with a commitment and focus that is the same that I applied to my martial arts technique.
I apply the process that I’ve developed and proven to myself to work.

So here we are with one of those processes.

The colour codes teach us how to set and balance our level of awareness with the level of threat. So let’s imagine we’ve removed the word Threat from each of these blocks in the diagram.

Now we are left with Awareness, Assessment, Avoidance/Action

And then, let us take the process of being aware and apply that to another aspect of our lives – perhaps our business, for example.

Self Protection is all about balance, and this is ever present when we talk about awareness.
In self protection, I must be aware of things going on around me, people, places, context, and also things happening internally, such as my own mood, my intuition, my feelings and emotions.
All the time I am also keeping a balance. I balance the level of awareness with the known levels of threat, and I look out for good and bad, such as places to run to and places to avoid.

Now, let’s consider we apply the same, awareness, internally and externally to our business.
If my business is to succeed I need to keep an eye on external factors that can influence it such as the market and the competition. I also need to be aware of the internal factors such as staff performance, team morale, business decisions and direction, and so the list goes on.
I need to be totally aware of everything that is going on in and around my business, before I can proceed to the next stage of making assessments.

For self protection, the assessment stage is where we start to evaluate everything we have seen at the awareness stage. Again, we evaluate with a balanced approach so looking for good and bad, positive and negative. These evaluations will lead us to the decision making process on how we will act – ie Avoidance or Action, Fight or Flight.

Again, the same applies in the business example. Once I have a good awareness of everything that is happening in and around my business, I can then begin to assess key factors. I can assess proposals, or new business strategies with a better understanding of whether they are good or bad, positive or negative to the business.

Once I’ve assessed then I can act.

And this colour coding approach doesn’t just work for the one analogy that I’ve just mentioned; it can apply to everything.
Apply it to your relationship to get a better understanding of exactly what is happening within that relationship, assess what is good and bad and set about fixing and acting accordingly.

Without good awareness we are simply shooting in the dark.

So the message in this week’s article is twofold.
Use the process of colour coding to colour code your life and get switched on to everything that is in it or affecting it.
Then go on to find processes and attributes from your training and see how they can improve other aspects of your life too.

Until next time

Stay Safe and Have Fun

Al x

More articles to be uploaded soon