The Principals of Personal Defense: Coolness

The 5th principal Jeff Cooper wrote about in his book, Principals of Personal Defense, is “Coolness”. If you are confronted with a violent assailant that intends to kill you or inflict serious bodily harm—i.e. cripple— you, you must be able to “keep your head” as you respond. You cannot afford to let fear and panic take control. Instead your response must be logical and well thought out (preferably in advance), and executed with precision. As Col Cooper said, “If you ‘lose your cool’ under deadly attack, you will probably not survive to make excuses.”

Coolness under stress boils down to nothing more than self-control. A good example of this is the actions of a football quarterback trying to throw a pass while the defense is blitzing. The good quarterback will focus on his receivers and depend on his teammates to protect him while he throws the pass. The poor quarterback will panic and scramble to avoid being tackled, usually losing yardage in the process or perhaps fumbling the ball.

Self-control will be difficult to attain and maintain when you are under high stress. As I’ve previously written, when you are experiencing stress, your blood pressure goes up and various psychological and physiological changes occur as your body automatically configures itself for “fight” or “flight”. A classic example—that fewer and fewer people seem to experience—is what happens when you are out hunting and suddenly see the game you are seeking appear before you for the first time. The encounter will typically happen unexpectedly and the adrenaline surging through your body will produce “buck fever” in you. Your hands will be shaking and you may find it difficult, if not impossible, to move the safety on your gun to the “fire” position as your fine motor skills disappear.

You can use these psychological and physiological changes to your advantage in responding to the assailant and they can help you gain control of the situation as long as you do not allow your blood pressure to get so high that your ability to think clearly and respond deteriorate. For instance, tunnel vision will help you focus on the threat, or at least the first threat that presents itself. Auditory exclusion will also help your focus as it will eliminate distracting sounds from your environment. Your sense of time— either speeding up or slowing down—can aid you in evaluating what is happening and in responding to the attack, while at the same time enabling you to see details that would normally go unnoticed.

Training ahead of time in stressful scenarios will help. Stress inoculation training allows you to experience what happens in a controlled environment and will enable you to recognize the indicators when you begin to experience them at some future time. When you again experience the effects of stress, you will know what is happening and be able to exert your self-control much more easily.

Your “coolness” will come as a surprise to your assailant. He will be expecting you to panic and be submissive to his demands. When you do not respond in the way he expects, he will have to re-evaluate his actions and make the changes needed to get you to comply in the way he desires. While he is going through his OODA loop to do this, you can launch your counterattack. Assuming you have developed the basic skills, your self-control should enable you to fire accurate shots to stop the threat. Until next time, stay alert, act decisively when necessary, when you act do so aggressively, use speed of thought and action to get ahead of your assailant, and stay cool while you act!

Gary Evens is a NRA-Certified Instructor and Range Safety Officer.

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