About

The Instructor Development Journal is for anyone who teaches (or is learning to teach) people how to keep themselves safer, in any area of the personal safety spectrum. Firearms, hand to hand, emergency medical trauma care, conflict dynamics, crime avoidance, contact & less lethal weapons, wilderness survival, self defense law, survival & criminal mindset & psychology, counter-kidnapping, articulation, disaster preparedness, mental & emotional survival & recovery, escape & evasion, etc. Instructors of private citizens, LE, military, and private security are all welcome.

We think instructor development is a continuous process, not an isolated event. Never stop learning.

 

Founder & Publisher: Nick Grossman

Nick teaches violence avoidance, defensive firearms, less-lethal weapons, and aftermath management through his training company, Bolt Defense. In addition to systems engineering and an “interesting” childhood, he spent 4 years working in executive protection/bodyguarding and has been through close to a thousand hours of formal training.

He was co-conspirator with Anna Valdiserri on her books A Woman’s Toolkit for Recovery from Violence and Trauma (almost all of it can work for anyone) and Trauma-Aware Self-Defense Instruction: How Instructors Can Help Maximize the Benefits and Minimize the Risks of Self-Defense Training for Survivors of Violence and Trauma.

He’s crazy about his daughter, puppies, and photography.

 

Founder & Editor: Kathy Jackson

Kathy enjoys teaching people all over the country through her training business, Cornered Cat LLC. Since 2003, she has been a staff instructor at the Firearms Academy of Seattle near Chehalis, Washington. A former magazine editor and contributor to several different firearms magazines, she is the author of two books: Lessons from Armed America (co-written with radio talk show host Mark Walters) and The Cornered Cat: A Woman’s Guide to Concealed Carry.

Since 1999, Kathy has documented over 1500 hours of formal defensive firearms training as a student, and has spent many more hours assisting or observing in other trainers’ classes. She holds handgun instructor certificates from Marty Hayes at FAS, from John and Vicki Farnam of DTI, and from Tom Givens of Rangemaster. She’s also an adjunct instructor for Massad Ayoob of the Massad Ayoob Group, being qualified to teach Ayoob’s MAG-20 range class and holding a certificate as an instructor in Judicious Use of Deadly Force for the classroom portion of that material. Learn more about her here, here, and here.