The 2nd Dimension focuses on developing your situational awareness to such a level that you are able to identify potentially dangerous people and situations and thus stay away from them.
Here is an article that expands upon situational awareness in terms of the Cooper Color Codes.
States of Awareness, the Cooper Color Codes
Cultivating Awareness
The 2nd Dimensional Paradigm is an expansion of the 1st DP. It acknowledges that there are instances where the best way to defeat your attacker is to avoid a physical confrontation in the first place. For example, if you realize that there are certain people who you cannot defeat with your 1st Dimensional skills, then you must avoid them in order to stay safe.
The underlying assumptions or “truths” that support the 2nd Dimensional Paradigm are as follows:
1. Self-defense involves a well defined “bad” attacker that wants to physically assaults you without justification.
2. The attacker is known to be “an attacker” because due to your execution of situational awareness, he can either be easily identified as “evil” before he initiates the physical assault.
3. Defeating the attacker is simply a matter of avoiding him.
The 2nd DP is an evolving viewpoint, but it is still harmonious with the 1st DP. Because, in the event that avoidance might fail or it is not possible to avoid the attacker, you can rely on your 1st Dimensional skills to defeat him.
Similar to the 1st DP, the popularity of the 2nd Dimensional Paradigm comes from its simplicity. You are good, the attacker is bad, and self-defense will always achieved upon execution of the proper techniques of situational awareness and/or physical skills. Self-defense begins with the identifying the potential attacker and ends with the attacker being avoided or defeated.
In the 1st DP, self-defense is ALL about you and your abilities. In the 2nd DP, self-defense is mostly about you, .i.e. your ability to detect and avoid and/or your ability physical defeat. The variable of the other person's abilities is introduced, but it is managed by your actions.
As with the 1st DP, this Paradigm is appealing because self-defense mastery is an obtainable goal. Not only can you learn to swim and thus not drown if you fall in the water, you can also avoid dangerous water in the first place.
Here is Marc MacYoung on:
Avoidance
The Five Stages of Violent Crime