Nickolas Serna is a certified Level 3 Instructor and member of the International Instructors Association in the Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection system. Nickolas first became involved in the Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection in July, 2007 when he attended the Level 2 Instructor training course in Burnaby, B.C. Since then, Nickolas has obtained his Level 1 in January, 2008 after training with Jim Wagner in Surrey, B.C. In November, 2008 Nickolas travelled to Solingen, Germany to attend Jim Wagner’s Level 3 courses that were held at the Boker knife factory in Solingen, Germany. Only those instructors who have completed levels 1 and 2 are eligible to attend the Level 3 course.
In addition to the Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection system, Nickolas has completed the Level 1 Instructor's Training in the Israeli Close Quarters Combat, Core Combatives Program in KAPAP offered by the KAPAP Academy. As well, Nickolas has obtained his Basic Security Training (BST) Instructor's Certification from the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) and has been involved in martial arts for over 15 years, training in various systems such as Tae Kwon Do, Close Quarter Combative, Combat Cane fighting and achieving a 3rd degree black belt in a Korean hybrid martial art system that focuses on hard, soft, ground and weapons techniques.
Nickolas has an extensive background working with pre and post sentenced offenders in the Criminal Justice System including sexual offenders, spousal assaulters, violent and high risk offenders. Nickolas has worked in Community Corrections for the past eight years and prior, he had been a Child Protection Social worker working along side other law enforcement professionals. In addition, Nickolas had been employed with the John Howard Society working with federally sentenced offenders released into the community on Parole and living in transition houses. In his current capacity Nickolas’ primary job function is to compile reports for the Court and assessing the offenders’ risk factors that contribute to their current and potential offending behaviour.
Throughout Nickolas’ university studies, which were in Criminology, Psychology and Social Work, he had been employed as in-house security in various bars and night clubs in British Columbia, Alberta and Washington State. Nickolas’ accumulative experience in the bar industry spanned over a twenty year period utilizing physical and non-physical interventions.
