Improving Warriorship via Counting Coup by Mark Hatmaker

 

The Old Man’s Preamble: My Warriors, allow me to say that the concept of counting coup has been, and is, one of THE most important, useful and successful drivers of my martial approach in the past decade.

And, it has paid even larger dividends in everyday life.

“How?” you may ask.

Let’s cover a bit of historical and contextual territory.

Counting Coup

To “count coup” in American Frontier indigenous cultures was to execute a deed of bravery.

It’s actually a bit more than that. We all value the brave acts of others and swell our own spirits when we behave bravely ourselves.

In indigenous cultures, acts of bravery deserve recognition, just as they do in all cultures but…a slight difference may be found in the indigenous evaluation of bravery in which the bravery estimation is tiered by deliberate risk-levels.

Example: Behaving bravery in battle is valued by all cultures.

Another tier of battlefield bravery is performing while in the face of greater odds than usual.

This is a common concept to all martial cultures, and it is often these acts/performances in the face of greater than standard odds that medals and commendations are bestowed.

So far, nothing alien has been breached.

Where we begin to see the unfamiliar rear its head in comparison with indigenous culture is the “counting coup” concept.

“Coup” was/is a borrow from the French meaning “blow” or “strike.”

It refers to what the early French mountain men and voyageurs witnessed amongst many warrior tribes they encountered.

Often warriors would enter enemy territory with no intention to kill, but merely to strike or often merely to touch an enemy with either a bare hand or a coup stick.

The intention, often, was not to kill, wound, or incapacitate, but to demonstrate a willful fearlessness.

If one was able to approach undetected, and at times in full view of the enemy, and perform an act of such recklessness—this coup was valued above mere standard battlefield performance.

We get the “counting” aspect of the phrase “counting coup” from the fact that multiple instances of these fearless displays was actively ought.

There was no “One and done” about it.

To count many coup was to have demonstrated bravery again and again.

Handicapping Coup

The bravery of coup also differs from our standard evaluation in that it valued deliberately compounded danger.

That is, the modern concept of being a sniper delivering death from afar—while absolutely battle-useful, would not be considered coup worthy as risk was reduced.

Indian archers who killed many in battle, were regarded the same way, useful, but unless or until they had risked coup, it was simply not on par in the valor hierarchy.

Close, personal contact was required for coup.

Coup handicapping did not stop there.

Risking coup also required giving up “equalizers.”

That is, if one had a sidearm, it meant surrendering it to count coup.

If one possessed a bone-shield breastplate, it meant relieving yourself of it, perhaps even stripping to breechclout or even nothing to present oneself to the enemy.

Counting coup says the closer you get and the less you require the braver the warrior.

This deliberately stripped-down version of bravery is where we begin to see the bifurcation from our current conceptualization of courage.

The long-distance warrior was useful but not elevated—this is quite a bit different from how we envision our Icons of Valor today with state-of-the-art gear and undreamt of long range prowess.

With all this said, we may admire the sheer bravado of counting coup, but we must also recognize that this embedded warrior ethos led, in part, to the subjugation of many indigenous people.

The occasional laying down of more effective long-distance arsenal [lever-action rifles, repeating rifles, artillery] to deliberately choose non-lethal up close and personal.

This is simply a scruple that Anglos never indulged.

Counting coup was admired by all, but it was practiced one-sidedly.

Counting coup is no way to win a war…but it may be a method to build better Warriors.

“Now, Mark, isn’t that a bit of a contradiction?”

Stay with me…

The Value of Counting Coup to Warriors

Counting coup could be non-lethal, but it could also be decidedly lethal.

Consider this…

Entering an enemy encampment at night, stripped down to steal horses or supplies, to sabotage provender and water, to cut-throats, et cetera.

Performing such acts repeatedly.

Sprinting towards an enemy across open ground, twisting and turning to evade incoming, stripped bare to lay hands on and dispose of in a sudden brutal manner and living to pass along the tactical lessons.

Warriors who have repeated exposure to stealth and ambush tactics via deliberate use of a stripped-down arsenal—this may be of low utility in modern warfare scenarios but…to the everyday personal warrior that is you and me without recourse to fire teams and jacked-up high-tech gear, the lessons and skills learned and passed along by these stripped down warriors is of utmost utility.

Nowhere else have I encountered such hands-on useful personal protection strategy and tactics all culled from repeated exposure to the stripped-down laboratory of counting coup.

Where many tactics begin with advantage on one’s side, counting coup begins with little-to-no-advantage and burgeons from there.

What survives and thrives in this vacuum of reality is manna to the individual who will never have the opportunity of choosing the time, place, or manner of their possible [but hopefully never] encounter with violence.

[FYI—Much of the Black Box weapons material comes from the annals of counting coup. We learn more from those who used less and survived than the duel-patterns of the like-armed. Black Box Subscribers and Boot campers exposed to the emotional intensity of Plains-Knife work know of what I speak. T’is a different breed of cat altogether.]

Embracing Counting Coup

Counting coup side-steps and hurtles past the Anglo question of bravery.

Many live the life of Henry Fleming, the protagonist in Stephen Crane’s novel The Red Badge of Courage where one endlessly wonders if one is or is not brave, living in the timid ambivalence of that uncertainty. Many of us will never know unless or until we are presented with an opportunity to demonstrate if our legs carry us toward danger or away.

Counting coup never has that doubt—it is a practice of Go!

Counting Coup Does Not Rest on Laurels

We may have been brave in the past.

Will we be again?

Counting coup does not entertain this question either.

The “Count” portion of the equation not merely asks, but requires us to continually step up to the valor/bravery/honor plate and exercise our spirits again and again and again.

Counting Coup recognizes, like all exercise, all practice, that a skill, a muscle is made stronger by the use.

Declaring oneself brave, or assuming one is brave yet never behaving as such…well, the Roman Proverb comes to mind:

“Virtus occulta aeque atque ignavia est.”

“Hidden valor is as bad as cowardice.”

The Value of Counting Coup to Everyone

Even if personal protection is not on your interest list, counting coup can still hold value for you.

The deliberate choice to attack a problem or experience with less resources renders the soul rewards that optimized, app-driven, potion-fed assists simply do not.

I offer the following as prompts to start the path for scalable coup counting in everyday life.

·        Date night with the preferred one: Why have a plan? Why defer entertaining one another via someone else’s efforts? Skip the movie—tell your own stories, better yet go make your own stories—you can revel in the high-flying of someone else in the cockpit of Tom Cruise’s Maverick, or you can simply climb your highest building in town and enjoy the view. It may not be as thrilling as what the pilots in the film experienced, but it is more thrilling than a comfy earthbound theater seat. Your experience will be higher than a sheltered chair-sitter.

·        In your losing weight, conditioning regimen—do you require potions, shakes, creatine, supplements to succeed, or…can you achieve your results via stripped down grit, determination, and discipline?

·        Let us ask ourselves how many algorithms “make a choice” for us? How many tour packages designed for efficiency and enjoyment of the lowest common denominator equal happiness for the coup counter that is Y-O-U?

·        How many leashes/tethers keep us linked to the fireteam support of technology? Can we find that destination without GPS? Cook a meal without Hello Fresh? Meet new people without an app?

·        How many exploits “must” wait until we have the right gear, the right partner, the right whatever?

How much of our everyday lives can be stripped down excursions into non-lethal but Soul-Building burgeonings of the spirit?

To my judgment, Warriorship is not only made better by counting coup, it requires counting coup.

Everyday Life-Warriors may not require counting coup, but…they are richer for it.

May we all be ready to count coup for ourselves via practice and not mere readers of others doing the valor math for us?

[For more Rough& Tumble history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW Subscription Service.]

The Rough n Tumble Raconteur Podcast.