AAR: OC spray and less lethal tools for non LE, Instructor course: Agile Training

This class was July 11, 2021, in Murfreesboro, TN, hosted by Citizen's Safety Academy. I am going to cheat here and depend on an excellent earlier AAR on the class by @TCinVA: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....Course-8-11-18 This AAR gives a lot of the details about the class, background on Chuck, rationale for pursuing this kind of thing, etc. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I'm just going to give a few of my own thoughts about the class.

I believe we had 14 students, plus Tiffany and Aqil, but I think Tiffany had to leave early. It was a pretty full house. An interesting, but not really surprising, thing about the student body was that there were--I think--6 women. That's a pretty high percentage compared to, say, my last pistol class, which had 0% women. I think it is outstanding that there are a good number of women looking to (a) get knowledgeable about pepper spray for themselves and (b) get some instruction to help them pass that knowledge along to others. I do, however, have the feeling that there is still a pretty strong feeling among the general population that pepper spray is for ladies. That's completely stupid. I mean, of course, it is for women, but that's because it's for everyone. One thing I plan to try to do in teaching concealed carry classes and other stuff like NRA basic pistol is to preach a bit about pepper spray for women, sure, but also for men. The gun is only very rarely the answer, and as Chuck put it, enough force early = less need for more force later. In other words, in at least some cases where the gun eventually turns out to be the answer, it is very possibly that an early judicious use of pepper spray could have prevented the gun from becoming the only answer, and that's just as true for men as for women.

At one point during class, Chuck made a quick comment about it being an 'instructor' class. Very roughly, I think he said something like he's not doing adult learning theory or teachbacks or what have you, so if you're a lousy instructor, he's not going to help you with that. He's giving out knowledge that we can draw on in our own teaching, not teaching us how to teach. In that respect it was a lot like the LOSD instructor course I recently took. It doesn't come with a canned curriculum, it just gives you information that you then use in your own way with your students.

Part of what that means is that potential students shouldn't be turned off by the title. It doesn't matter whether you intend to ever formally teach anyone anything about pepper spray. This class is really just a great course on pepper spray. I took John Murphy's 3 hour pepper spray class a couple of years ago, and it was relatively similar to Chuck's in content and structure: that is, intro on pepper spray and self defense fundamentals, followed by some MUC and some practice with inert trainers. It was a great class and I strongly recommend it, but it was 3 hours long, while Chuck's was 10. Or 9, I guess, if you cut out the lunch hour. Just a great one-day treatment of a central defensive tool. If you get the chance to sign up for the class, do it. Don't say, "I'm not an instructor."

A few quick observations about class flow. We did not do the kind of 'introduce yourself and say why you're here' thing that many or most such classes include. We just jumped in. It's possible that some of the reason for that is that it appeared to be largely a pretty tight group: my impression was that quite a few of the students were Citizens Safety Academy regulars. But I didn't know anyone and I do think that at least a quick round of introductions can be a good idea. Possibly the reason wasn't that Chuck just figured people more or less already knew one another--maybe he just thinks that it's a lot of material and he doesn't have time for the socializing stuff. I wasn't put off by it, and I'm certainly not saying this is something wrong with the class. I'm just noting it.

I mentioned to Chuck during the debrief that one thing he didn't talk about is carry methods and such. He explained why he doesn't do that, and I think I understand his rationale, which I think is more or less that it's just too variable. What works for one won't work for another, and so he can't make recommendations about how we should carry. Check...I agree. And yet. In a concealed carry class, for exactly the same reason, one can't make recommendations about how students should carry. But it seems like a good idea to introduce options and a few pluses and minuses. So, just for example, in Murphy's class we spoke briefly about which side to carry pepper spray on. First question: do you carry a gun? If no, then maybe strong side is the obvious choice. But if yes, is support side better? Pepper spray comes out with support hand, leaving dominant hand free in case the gun needs to come out. I would not say that Murphy recommended any carry methods, but he did give us some quick and helpful thoughts. As a result of that discussion, I've been carrying pepper spray on my support side.

Chuck at least implicitly seems to recommend carrying pepper spray on the dominant side. He said that's how he did it with his duty belt. When he lined us up in two big lines to take turns spraying each other he set it up by having us grip the pepper spray in our right hands. I put mine in my left. (My partner noticed and asked if I was left handed. I thought: that's pretty observant of her.) But the impression I got is that if he made recommendations they'd be to carry strong side.

Interesting note about the side I carry on. At one point during MUC we added flashlights to the mix, and I wound up holding my light in my support hand and my spray in my dominant hand. When I went to spray the POM trainer, I did not put my thumb under the safety, and was just pressing down on the safety flap. The tremendously minimal amount of stress involved in running a MUC scenario together with holding my spray in a hand I never practice with meant a total failure to spray. Good lesson there!

It's a pleasure to listen to a genuine expert speak. Yes, Chuck could get super nerdy on the subject matter, I'm sure, but he really didn't. The information was all relevant and worthwhile. But he was speaking from a well of knowledge, not from a page of notes, reporting other people's findings. He speaks well, and he's funny. It was a lively crowd and there were instances where people got themselves laughing to tears. Including Chuck. Something about his feet. I won't say what here. I wouldn't want to ruin it. Anyway, it was a long morning in the classroom, but it did not drag. Very well taught class.

I drove 7 hours for this class. Spent the night before in a hotel, got to class at 8 am local time (9am my time), finished class at 6pm local time and drove straight home, arriving at 2am our time. Then I had meetings for work at 8:30 this morning. So I'm not exactly at 100% right now but I wanted to write this while it was fresh. I did take notes--and Chuck gave out copies of the powerpoints--so the technical information and such will remain available to me for the long term. But the points about how the class went will fade mentally for me pretty quick. I hope I haven't been incoherent due to being overtired.

This is my last planned in-person class 'til at least December. I've got an online class with Tiffany Johnson lined up in September, and then I'm hoping to get to the Rangemaster pistol instructor class when it comes to my neighborhood next May. So as I write this, my AAR's are the top three posts in the AAR section, but I won't be able to add more for quite awhile once they slide down the screen. It's been a great training year so far--thanks to all the great instructors and fellow students I've met, to my wife for supporting this pursuit, and to God for safety and health! :)