Trainers Get Trained

A lot of people think teachers, trainers, and instructors know everything.  Yet, that isn’t the case.  Every teacher knows that the way to be the best teacher is to be the best student.  A teacher never stops learning.  One should always be open to every opportunity to learn.  Even if you glean only one tidbit or morsel from an event, you are the wiser for having learned that one new thing.  Then, you must share that knowledge with others.  Knowledge kept, is knowledge lost.

So, on Sunday, March 20, 2006, Ken & I were thrilled to be able to join several members from Chapter D for the Experienced Riders Course (ERC) held at the Law Enforcement Academy in Nashville.  It was the perfect opportunity since we had conducted a Chapter Round Up on Saturday, the 19th, in Franklin, TN.  This gave us an opportunity to stay in the area, pick up a required element of our Rider’s Education Level III designation, and have fun with our middle Tennessee friends!

Of course, I should add that ‘we’ were only thrilled about the opportunity until Saturday evening.  Mike and Mary Trice graciously offered to allow us to stay with them while we were in the area.  On Saturday evening, Mary cooked a wonderful dinner and invited Albert & Judy McKee and Dalon & Patricia Cope to join us.  During dinner they regaled us with stories of their days on the Middle Tennessee Drill Team!  After dinner, they pulled out the ‘home movies’ and we got to see for ourselves how great they really were!  That’s when Ken got worried!  He suddenly realized that he would be participating in the ERC on Sunday with a bunch of guys who could do turns in boxes on big motorcycles in their sleep!  Oh, no!  Of course, as Ken & Shirley Craddock from Chapter Y would say, “I made him do it!”

On Sunday, at noon, we gathered at the Law Enforcement Academy with the other participants: Mike Foster, Mike & Mary Trice, Albert & Judy McKee, Dalon & Patricia Cope, John Shacklett, Russ & Brenda Morgan, Lisa Abel, Dennis Mankin, Bob Chasteen  and a young man named James who bravely participated with all of us ‘old people.’.  It was a cold, dreary, day but we were lucky that it was not raining as the weatherman had predicted.  Our instructors were Bill Roland and Ed Brennan.  For the next several hours we went round and round in circles!  Sometimes stopping here or there, sometimes ‘jumping’ over 2”x4” pieces of wood, sometimes weaving our way around boxes or through “S” curves.  Over and over, we heard “Turn your head!”  In-between practical, on bike, exercises we learned ‘classroom’ knowledge, too.  We reviewed the proper pre-ride procedures (T-Clock), the necessary seconds (12; 4; 2) required to allow yourself time to SEE (search, evaluate, and execute), and were reminded of emergency ‘landing’ procedures (how to turn off the engine cut off switch and come to a stop without, hopefully, ‘killing’ anyone or anything).  The course was similar, but not identical, to one we had taken in 2004 at the Virginia Rally.  They didn’t have ‘wood jumping’ there!  This course was a lot more fun though because we were amongst friends!