Q&A with Joel Pedersen
Tara: This Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Brainsport you will be teaching a safety-awareness and self-defence session. What prompted you to reach out to Brainsport to offer this for runners and walkers in the community?
Joel: There was a Facebook feed that was forwarded to me to see if we could provide some potential training options. 2J2 had teamed up last year with Brainsport during our volunteering with the Red Cross evacuation centres, so we figured this would be a good match again. We want to pass on some tools for people to feel empowered so they can enjoy their active lifestyles.
Tara: How has your background, training and experience prepared you to teach such sessions?
Joel: Our team has a significant amount of experience with safety awareness and self-defence in operational, instructing and mentoring settings. Our instructors are peace officers and most importantly runners, active members of the community and enjoy the same running trails as your readers.
Tara: What can people expect from this session? What are you hoping participants will take away?
Joel: Our goal is to provide an overview of running safety awareness, a collaborative style discussion, then finish off with practical exercise outside of some disengagement skills.
Tara: Is there anything else you would like add?
Joel: Being involved in the running and triathlon community for a number of years, I know how important it is to be outside and active on the trails, paths. and streets. We have all encountered situations where we needed to intuitively know what to do and most of the time we know what to do. This is an opportunity for people to add to their tool belt, so they can handle what challenges might be ahead.