Does More Experience Always Mean Better Self-Defence Teaching?
Here’s a question worth asking—especially if your students aren’t hardcore, train week in, week out students, but regular people who might only ever participate in one self-defence course in their lifetime:
Do an instructor’s years of experience help the students more… or the instructor more?
Years in the field can give you a massive arsenal of drills, insights, and “real-life experiences.” But in short-format training, that depth can sometimes backfire—overloading students with more than they can absorb.
The bigger challenge? Many experienced instructors speak almost exclusively from the position of “the expert.” In doing so, they avoid sharing personal mistakes, errors in judgment, or times they went against their own teachings—often thinking it would undermine their credibility.
Newer instructors can fall into the same trap, believing that admitting mistakes makes them look less capable. The truth? Sharing those moments—your fears, your lapses in awareness, the lessons you learned the hard way—can be just as valuable as so-called “success stories.” It makes you human, relatable, and far more trustworthy.
Over the past 30+ years, I’ve seen it firsthand: many of my clients have learned just as much, if not more, from hearing the honest stories of their fellow students as they have from me. Those conversations only happen when you create a space where people feel safe to share without judgment—and when the “expert” knows when to stop talking and start listening.
Whether you’ve been teaching for 1 year or 30, the objective measure of a great instructor isn’t how much they can say… It’s about how much they can help students walk away safer, more confident, and ready for the situations they’re most likely to face in their day-to-day lives, not what they see in Hollywood movies.
If this approach resonates with you and you’d like to teach self-defence that makes a lasting impact—even in a single class—our SAFE Self Defence Certification was designed with precisely that in mind.
You can learn more here: https://safeinternational.biz/safe-certification-page
Keep SAFE!
Chris Roberts
