InSights Training Center Blog

I think that everyone in the self defense world has heard a lot about Jeff Coopers Color Codes. However like most ”common knowledge” there is a lot of detail that gets forgotten or just glossed over, and like many good ideas the color codes have evolved over time with different schools of thought developing their own variations. Cooper originally envisioned the color codes as a representation of a “state of mind” rather than a particular defensive posture or threat condition. Cooper took the USMC system of indicating the combat-readiness of a unit and applied it to an individual.

I think that models like the color codes are much more effective when they are tied to specific states and actions rather than just expressing a state of readiness. It is important to remember that the color codes are not about the nature of the threat, but about your actions, readiness, and responses based upon the situation. The color codes give us a way of organizing these states and making decisions.

Condition White
Generally condition white gets dismissed quickly as being “unaware” or “unprepared” and students are admonished to “not be in condition white.” Unfortunately it is neither possible nor even desirable for this to be true. This belief that condition white is undesirable stems from people thinking it comes from not paying attention, when in fact it is just as likely to driven by paying too much attention to something.

When you are watching a movie, reading a book (or writing a blog post), you are focusing your attention on something other than your immediate surroundings. This might include the active exclusion of wider sensory inputs, like listening to music to mask the sound of traffic. If you are reading this page you are not looking out the window. We willfully exclude and ignore our surroundings on many occasions because the task we are doing requires our complete focus and attention. If you are focusing on your sight picture then you are not paying attention to your surroundings (at least for the duration of the shot and it’s follow through.) If you are literally asleep then you are most certainly not paying attention to your environment.

The point I am getting at is that we need to recognize the moments when we are going to be in condition white and control the circumstances when this happens. We can go into condition white when have other security measures in place (locked doors, dogs that will bark, alarm systems, people that will serve as our early warning.)
The idea is that we don’t want to be surprised by the threat before we get a chance to prepare, at least a little bit, to deal with it.

There is some discussion over at Sharp as a Marble regarding the link I posted here regarding aggressors claiming self defense.

I think Rob is correct in pointing this out:

… ‘proportionate response’ doesn’t translate into the real world easily …

Using the least amount of force is generally the most legally defensible option. If an aggressor is trying to flee and you are preventing them from doing so it is pretty hard to argue that you couldn’t escape. Self defense isn’t designed to be ‘punishment’, we have courts for that. We must fight until we are sure that we can escape, and then we should do so.

Tactically speaking, if you are spending time on a neutralized threat you are creating an opportunity for another assailant. You have already confirmed that you are in the location where fights happen and we don’t know if the first assailant brought along a (tougher) friend. His friend might have been staying out of it because he didn’t want to get hurt, didn’t want to get in trouble, or thought the first guy could handle it. If the defender starts winning, that equation can change.