I was recently reading a book about a sledge team in the Artic who had lost a few dogs to wolf attacks.It made it crystal clear that In nature, predators seek out the easier targets — and the wolves were selecting the weaker dogs in the sledge team. Similar to the animal kingdom, human predators may also seek the easy targets.
The way that predators select victims is not a new problem, but a modern approach to how you can stay alert and react in an intelligent way to a threat has been developed which may help with the above situation. The US Military designed a system of simple colour coding, which works by helping you avoid potential problems by providing a scale of threats to adopt an appropriate response to at each level.
There’s 4 colours used in the approach, White, Yellow, Orange and Red.
White is when you’re effectively switched off to potential danger. The only way you’re likely to escape a potential attack during this state may be a little luck or the potential ineptitude of your attacker. Have you ever driven to work and not remembered the journey? Oh yeah, you’ve been in this state then.
Yellow is a state of relaxed alertness. Remaining both chilled but with a pinch of alertness to spot possible triggers of a danger ahead. “You’re aware that the world is a cruel place and man is the cruellest of all animals”. OK, a little cynical but you get the message, so when there’s new surroundings and new people then this is a good state to be in.
Orange is when you’ve identified a threat, you step into the orange zone. A situation draws your focus by either verbal or body language. “You’ve already started working on your escape plan, you’re not yet ready to show your cards to a possible threat but you’ve decided which hand to deal”. OK, so I’m writing like a holistic detective but you get the idea, your gun is still in the holster.
Red is the mental trigger you may have already set in code orange, but now it’s activated. You’re prepared to carry out the action which could be flight or to fight. In the story of the musher above, he was alert to the wolf stalking his dog team which triggered his plan to protect the dogs at night when the wolf was most likely to attack.
We don’t need to be like Inspector Clouseau, tested daily with a Kato hiding ready to attack us each day as a reminder to stay ever alert to the call of danger. However, recognise when you’re drifting into a white state and change your mindset accordingly.
“As I have long taught, you are not in any colour state because of the specific amount of danger you may be in, but rather in a mental state which enables you to take a difficult psychological step.“ (Jeff Cooper US Marine and inventor of the above colour codes)
If you would like to learn more about the different states of awareness and how to trigger a good decision under pressure. Try one of our self defence lessons at www.kravclasses.com in Preston or Blackpool.