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?
The Rough n Tumble Raconteur Podcast.
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