In the self defense field, many people talk about or use the ‘Cooper’s Color Code’ method of classifying stages of awareness. I have had conversations with people who advocate it and there were a few that had their own color codes of sorts to teach awareness with their self defense course.
With that, many years ago I once had someone from a completely different area code call me. He drilled me about the self defense I taught, as in what style and if I employed Cooper’s color code in my instruction. I said no I didn’t. He of course reprimanded me for not doing so. The self defense I taught what not complete nor correct without the color code. Now this guy didn’t know anything about me. I am sure he got my number off the website. However, he was not even located anywhere near the region I live or teach. I don’t know why he felt it so important to make sure I was teaching Women's self defense the way he thought I should.
Basically the color codes give an illustration of the level of awareness one would be in at different times. White illustrated being in an oblivious state, like spacing out or daydreaming. Not paying attention to anything at all.
Yellow is where you’d be relaxed but aware, generally paying attention.
Orange is when something specific has been noticed and now you're on alert. If it turns out to be nothing, then you go back down to yellow. If it’s more serious, then you go to condition- -
Red. High alert. Shit’s going down, it's the so called ‘fight or flight’ stage.
Black is all out panic, nothing productive happening because of the panic. You never want to be in this state.
Neither do you want to be in condition red constantly either. Some people are.
One instructor I met had a different method. Simply green, yellow or red as way for him to illustrate the various levels of awareness. Which seemed a bit more logical for his particular program. As for me, that wasn’t the direction my program went.
To live your best life you can’t live at one extreme or the other. Life is not binary, either/or. If we become more knowledgable about what to see and how to recognize things developing, then hopefully we can make some choices before it's too late.
More than Cooper’s color codes, learning where violence comes from, spotting what kind it may be and understanding the factors involved, will help much more than having a colorful way of discerning where your awareness level lies or should be. Now, just because the color codes aren’t my thing, doesn’t mean they don’t have value. If you’re interested, you research it, there is lots of stuff out there about it.
My allure is toward knowledge and comprehension. Disguising such levels with rainbows doesn’t do much. Explaining how come the prism creates the colors provides one with the understanding of why. As an example, if your level is Orange there is quite a bit background as to why something put you on alert. Who, what, why, when, how did it all get your attention and how do you articulate it?
The who, what, why, when, and how is a big part of self defense and a bit part of what women experience. Something sets off our spidey senses for some reason, the ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, but somethings not right’ feeling. The skill set sometimes referred to as alpha skills, which involve awareness, avoidance E/E and communications and the delta skills, which are a transitioning point with behavior clusters and boundary setting help us prepare in case things go physical.
The color code I most prefer is this one:
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